Polish Lithuanian Diplomatic War? At last.

I think Poland are condescending to their neighbour.
I think Lithuanians are pig headed and should wake up to the 21st century.


Yep, it is.


And there you go with your cock waving again!

The size of Ireland, thank you very much :D

It is quality we look for not quantity :p

Well, I have a sabre ready, and I can steal a horse... WE MARCH ON LITHUANIA to rescue our opressed brothers and sisters!

Who is with me??!

Condescending??? Cock waving???

How about...

To: Lithuania
From: Poland

We will no longer tolerate your impudence and constant provocations. If the rights of Polish
minority in Lithuania, guaranteed to them by the European Union laws and regulations, are
not fully restored or implemented within 48 hours, I will issue proper orders to ensure that
the acts of injustice against Poles in Lithuania are no longer commited.

Signed:
Bronisław Komorowski
President of Republic of Poland
and commader-in-chief of Polish Armed Forces

...now THAT, my friend, would be cock waving (condescending cock waving at that.)

If you think that's bad, you are really in trouble if you are a gay Jewish Polish and living in Lithuania.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Lithuania - LGBT rights Lithuania (Wiki)



If you are going to talk about discrimination...
euobserver.com/9/28680 - EU parliament condemns Lithuanian anti-gay law

Indeed, during the last 20 years we supported them as much as we could and instead of sympathy we got sh*t on the stick but why any conficlt with them on the government level ? I would do 2 things:

1. Ignore them. Poland is a much more important partner for Lithuania then vice versa.
2. Offer 50% lower income tax for first 3 years for all young and skilled Lithuanian Poles moving to Poland permanently.

What do you mean "ignore them." Like, stop the trade or any form of help for Lithuania,
or just leave the things as they are now? If you mean the latter, then I don't see how
it could be helpful to our minority there.


But that's exactly what they want - they would be more than happy to ship their entire
Polish population to Poland, ethnically cleansing Wilno and other areas with Polish minority.
I can't see why we should help them with it, and why should people who have lived
in Wileńszczyzna, for example, for centuries, leave their homes?

Oh, how did you do that? and what about during communism when they were engulfed by the CCCP?

I mean don't start any diplomatic war with them, we've got members in the Euro Parliament, If Lithuania is breaking EU laws, they should speak up and force EU institutions to react. Politicians in Warsaw shouldn't start any war, just start treating them like one of many small European countries, no government level visits several times a year anymore.


So let's make them happy. Is Poland overpopulated ? Or is Lithuania ? Both countries are in a very difficuly demographic situation. There's few better things for Poland than bringing to Poland Polish people educated for foreign money. All Poles from ex-Soviet countries should be encouraged to do that.

In fact, isn't that government policy with the Polish ancestor card thing?

I totally agree.

You are overlooking one "tiny" problem here. Since 2004 we have witnessed a mass exodus
of young Polish people to Western Europe, which was caused by low wages and huge
unemployment. In spite of this huge loss, we still have two million unemployed
in Poland. Do you propose to bring all those people in so they can go to Ireland or the UK
right away? That wouldn't benefit Poland and would ethnically cleanse Poles from traditionally
Polish areas on Kresy. Not the best of your ideas, Grzegorz.

Or liberate? :)

Trust me, I lived there, it would be more of a liberation :)

But hasn't that been government policy with the whole Karta Polaka thing?

PS, wouldn't they have already gone to the UK...or the US, where they don't need visas? :)

Poles go to the U.K. because they have a huge gherkin in the capital and like a moth to a flame, they are drawn.

Gherkin_l.jpg

Those Polish freaks who don't like gherkins might like Poland.


Europeans need a visa for the states and the U.S. has been unkind to Poland in this regard but it is probably more a matter of the little communist issue.

Talking about the hordes of repatriated Poles currently being oppressed by the Lithuanians. Regarding the gherkin, without a decent amount of buttered bread, they're just another table ornament.


Lithuania is part of the VWP, Poland, not so much.

Theoretically, they have better opportunities to seek work overseas than their brothers with Polish passports.

It is however, all a bit ridiculous. If laws are being broken, there is a really expensive court in Strasbourg that it should be brought up in.

Not entirely. Karta Polaka was also needed to officialy confirm the nationality of Polish
minority members abroad, so they couldn't be officialy refused their rights on some
bogus basis.


Exactly.

If they are still there, where they have lived for centuries, then maybe (just maybe) that's
where they want to keep living? They never left their homeland, it was borders that shifted
over their heads. They are still in their cities, walking on their land, forests and fields.
Who are we to propose ethnic cleansing of those people?


What a building! Amazing!

*must go to London... must see that building with my own eyes... touch it... must go to London*

I didn't know that.

Lithuanians are very very proud of their people in American basketball.
They are the second tallest nation i have seen (after the Dutch).

I see Poland got the short straw.

Another anti-Polish discrimination thread please! :)

This is a very difficult question.

Before the second world war most of the lithuanians saw themselfs as polish, an example is Vilnius. In 1931 Poles made up 65.9% of the total Vilnius population but in reality most of them were Polonised Lithuanians that had been polonised through 600 years. But with the nationalist movements combined with the soviet propaganda against the poles and the forced emigrations of russians into the baltics and the decline of Poland after WW2 untill 89 the Lithuanians started to despise Poland and did everything to undermine the historical polish dominance in that area.

And to summon it all up i guess its all about Lithuania trying to tell Poland we are not your underdog anymore and we do as we want.

1.Passports will have 2 front pages.The first one will be in Lithuanian, the second one i don't care what language that will be...What's the problem ?Also -

2.If WE name a street "VILNIUS st." It's name is "Vilnius St." AND the sign should say "Vilnius St.".NOT "ul. Wilenska".

3.Č is not Ć,Ž is not - so don't say that poland lets lithuanians have passports in their language


I totally agree. A persons land is sacred.BUT if they want the land that poles got as a reward after 1920 (When they tried to occupy Vilnius) Or the land that they got from the SSRS when they were colonized.


Yea you bought that to "save" us. Just like you "saved" us with Union of Lublin (as most of you think that here in this forum).

please watch the language

siereno

Your nation is a nation of small minded people.

Thank you for taking the time to sign up to PF to show really your 'small-man' complex for all to see.

Its more to do with the mad government they have, a government that has outlawed the questioning of the official view of history. They along with Hungary have enacted laws that try to draw equivalence between the Nazis and Soviets in terms of genocide. The Prague declaration is attempting to impose the same crazy ideas on the rest of the EU.

Narrow minded nationalism always claims that it wants to remove strata from society however in this case the blatant discrimination against ethnic Polish people can be seen for what it is simply an attempt to remove their identity.

Let's be brutally frank about this, all the high up Lithuanians converted to Polish culture a long time ago, and could not be bothered using the Lithuanian language-to them it was a language spoken by peasants. So today's Lithuania is a peasant's republic, full of resentful peasants that need to be cut down a peg.

Their hostility is stupid and shrill, all the result of an inferiority complex.

And what's wrong with that... ?

No, Lithuania is enthralled by a bunch of classic traditionalists who have managed to win the race to the gutter.
There are some enlightened Lithuanian politicians Leonidas Donskis for example who coined the term stratocide.
Here is one quote


I dont think he needs taken down a peg.

europeanvoice.com/article/2009/07/the-inflation-of-genocide/65613.aspx

I dont think Lithuania is a Peasants republic Its a poor place with an idealistic government striving for a Lithuania that never existed, a rosy place, people lap that up time and time again.

Edit


I dont want to get into that here but rest assured it has everything to do with denying the past. Why are they discriminating against their own citizens if they are not denying the past.

I'm glad he signed up, at least we'll (non-Poles and non-Lithuanians) hear both sides of the story.

Actually I would say that you are wrong on some issues, though overall maybe you are right ;)

Ad 1. I agree that their stance toward this in fact small letter issue is silly. In fact not only Poles have a problem with that, some anonimous Dutch story:

"Naming is not just very personal, but one of the most difficult bureaucratic things around. Too bad this does not only concern Poles or Lithuanian Poles.

I am Dutch and married a Lithuanian woman. Of course, we had to register our marriage in Vilnius, and report the documents back because of name-change regulation.

I was lucky, because my name does not contain one of the letters that 'do not exist in the Lithuanian alphabet'. Would that be the case, the civil servant would change it as he/she sees fit. Getting it back to the Netherlands and explaining that it is REALLY me (and more importantly: that my wife REALLY changed her name to MY name) is something that is downright Kafkaesque sadism. So actually, it is a big issue impacting the lives of everyone getting involved in this."

Ad 2. Taking into account unresolved issues regarding reprivatization in Poland:
"First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye."... but on the other hand it is politics not the justice court

Ad 3. Saving Lithuanians from Russian dominations was just a side effect of a main goal which was keeping quasi-monopoly of Orlen in Poland, what is not good thing from mine as a consumer point of view...

As for saving their asses in last centuries it is not so simple... Actually it is some at least half true in their complaing about occupation. Equality in Commonwealth ended in 1569 when they've lost at the same time independence and a lot of land. It was a union on Polish terms, many of Lithuanian nobles opposed it openly. Maybe if they keeped much of independence and ruthenian lands they would managed with pressure from Duchy of Moscow just fine. At least that is how they see it.

As for current matters I would say that this letter issue is just an excuse. Main issue is Orlen and Możejki. Orlen is big and influential state company and they must cut the losses. They didn't manage to deal with Lithuania on their own so they called gov. help...

On the side note, observing this seemingly small issues with Lithuania makes me wonder if it is not the way Russia sees Polish small issues... Maybe we should be more sensitive in our judgments regarding small Lithuania (once a superpower in the region)? Or maybe they just run out our sensitivity? I'm not sure

To some extant, it was a bit like the Union between England and Scotland. The fact remains though, they got very generous terms and the vast majority of the Lithuanian nobility (the only people that counted in those days) were in favor. It is no coincidence that some of the last representatives of the Radziwills reside in Poland, and not Lithuania. It is a peasant's republic.

And the Poland and Russia thing is hardly comparable. I don't remember Poland acquiescing and abandoning its language and culture in favor of Russian culture and language. If they had, i would be to embarrassed to admit to being a Pole, as I find Russia embarrassing and semi-civillised.

NO SHIIT?


Independence? The lithuanians gained independence and Culture from Poland. Without Poland they would have been eaten by the russians.


After the Union, the Lithuanian nobles had the same formal rights as the Polish Szlahta, some polish families were even so kind to adopt the lithuanian nobles into their clans. This meant that they were FREE as birds and not subjected by their king like they had been before. We gave them Laws and order and democracy in its early stage.


Lithuania was a barbaric state with no order. This is how Vilnius looked like some years after the union.

Vilnius



Warsaw



It took Vilnius many years before it could compare itself to the polish cities. Have present Lithuania ever thanked Poland for it? No...

Upon stumbling on this passage from "Identity and freedom: mapping nationalism and social criticism in twentieth century Lithuania" By Leonidas Donskis from 2002 I can't help thinking that it just as easily could be said about today's Poland. Just replace the words Lithuania and Lithuanian with Poland and Polish in the text below (last two paragraphs) and you'll probably will have an eerie sense of recognition.

The Polish minority, although it is well accommodated in Lithuania in terms of Polish education and institutional settings for Polish culture, it is still pursued by the shadow of pointless debates, often initiated by the renowned linguists and historians from the Lithuanian establishment, about whether they are "authentic" Poles or merely Polonised Belorussians and Lithuanians. However the historically unprecedented improvement, in recent times, in the relations between the nation-states of Poland and Lithuania was a result of a realistic and sound foreign policy pursued on both sides. This gives hopes that the destructive ethnic debates will sooner or later be exhausted at least as far as the Poles are concerned.

In spite of the quest for the adjustment to new global political realities and above all, the pressure from the European Union - Lithuania is applying for membership - there can be no miraculous recapture of Lithuania's multicultural past. Political and legal frameworks cannot easily displace the authentic cultural or even the metaphysical need for the Other; nor should they be too rashly taken as a sign of mature political and cultural tolerance. There is still important ground to cover if the defensive nationalist culture is to be replaced by Lithuania being seen as one of the big family of modern democracies: this requires the recognition of otherness as a positive asset.

Hence , the crucial importance of liberal social critique pursued by Kavolis, Shtromas and Venclova. Such political essays by Venclova as for instance, "Jews and Lithuanians", "Poles and Lithuanians", "Russians and Lithuanians" and "A Dialog about a City" (his dialog with Czeslaw Milosz on Vilnius) revealed a huge gap between the need for the Other - still vague category in Lithuanian politics and culture - and a time-honoured tradition for self-centeredness, self-righteousness, and self-victimization.The gap remains a major problem of Lithuanian consciousness and culture.

No they didn't, they were independent before the commonwealth.


This again? Lithuania was eaten up by Russia, it was in the U.S.S.R, remember?



You are wrong.


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuania



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Lithuania