Polish Silesian Autonomy movement

No, gravity is a given regardless if it is the ground or top floor. The two situations have no parallels. While catchy and humorous, your comparison is nothing more.


You tell me, or are you suggesting the system is perfect as it is?


I agree with you completely on much of this and this is why having more regional autonomy works out better.


While I do wonder what the aggregate cost of miners' early retirement is on the whole population vs the benefits of having miners in a country to extract elements from the ground, I would guess it to be less than what is lost on tax breaks to corporate entities but that would require obtaining a lot of data I haven't the time to analyse. I'm not sure what point you're making with that though could you explain it more?


Numerically that is false both proportionally and logarithmically. Observe people in nations with states comprising 2-5 million people and those people hold politicians feet much closer to the fire than they are able to do with national leaders.


And would those systems be so completely different from each other? You're really begging the question as to how stubborn and hell-bent on doing things "their" way I think Poles are. I think Poles are sensible enough to see the merits of doing things in a way that works and if they saw their opinions matter more then they'd become more well versed in how to do things- either this way or that. So while 16 ministries of education might sound implausible, it's very possible they would all be very very similar in curriculum and delivery just more responsive to the population they serve. Yes it could fail miserably but that would depend on how intelligently the system were implemented.


Then I apologize and wonder why you interpret smaller local government as being "more" government to one big central unit. Smaller units are easier to keep track of and stop from expanding, whereas a central government, as experience has shown, seems to compound in employees at breakneck speed.


Why or how?
It would depend on the voting public and how much of a voter turnout there was in the region. If it were to be 30% turnout then it would be a different version of the same thing, if it were >50% then there would be a real chance at keeping politicians accountable. You know and must acknowledge the degree to which distance and how removed people see themselves from a process will affect their willingness to participate in it.


I'm pressed for time here BUT You seem to have those numbers and must be feeling VERY confident they support your "position," so go ahead and post them:)

The movement is still active, they hold annual parades but it seems they don`t have too many supporters.

@pawian


Although I am from Silesia, I have never identified myself with this movement. Silesians are Poles, like Highlanders. And if they are not Poles, they are Germans and that's it.

The EU used to have special funds for supporting minorities... maybe that's why they do it? I think that's also partly the motivation behind Kaszubian... for generations they'd been trying to assimilate into being Poles but there's a handful of activists who try to prevent that....


Many years ago I became temporary friends with a German guy (we spoke Polish with each other which was good practice for us both). He was a social worker in Germany who became interested in Poland when after 1989 a bunch of Silesian "Germans" showed up on his list of clients... who didn't really speak any German.

Ditto! As for their local identity, it is OK to be Kaszubian or some other and Polish. Problems arise only if that duality is used by a malicious foreign meddling...

I think the leader of this anti polish kashubian movement is called Donald Tusk

Could go some way to explaining his hatred of Poland...

That is why the support for them oscillates from 3% to 8%, depending on what elections are taking place. .

Quite amasing. A lot of Silesians voted for Pres Duda in 2020. Today he is repaying them by rejecting the bill which could give them the language rights they have never enjoyed in Poland.

Is there any real evidence that that is something most Silesians want?

Not really, some groups of lefties stir the pot just to make a living out of it. They are nasty m0rons as most lefties/

Any proof that the Silesian movement is left wing?


I think there is a group that is annoyed at the fact Kaszubski is recognised and not Silesian

They didn`t coz they hadn`t cared until Pres Duda vetoed the bill. Now most do. :):):)

If enough do, why not protect the language; nobody is suggesting that anyone should be forced to speak it.

I'd say that Wymysorys could do with a lot more help, though it's probably too late unfortunately.

No problem if that's the case, it's just that mostly the claim is asserted rather than backed by evidence....

@mafketis
I'd guess there's a lot of semi-amateur PR and a mix of seriousness and half seriousness.

Endangered languages need protecting however it's definitely too late for some.

If they get semi-official status it can be expensive though. Scots Gaelic costs the state some crazy amount per speaker.

Poland needs to reform. But why now?

You want Racow to tell you? Because Duda betrayed Poland. That`s why. But not to Silesians. They are Polish and Serbian brothers. No, Duda wants to screw both. And Silesians and Poles. Just follow the money and you would know.

Its Germany and Vatican who are to be blamed. They hold Duda for the dic*. Duda serve to them. Not to Poland.

Really ? 🤔 and I thought the Jews were to blame for everything.

Is the purpose to spread the language or to suppress it.... I assume that policies regarding Scotts Gaelic (and Irish for that matter) are specifically aimed at keeping the language small and unattractive.

Languages grow when they are supported by a middle class. So-called "elites" and working or lower classes or peasants don't really keep languages vital (or create living traditions).

The regional/minority language that's doing best in Europe at present is Catalan (which has a middle class behind it).

Not a minority language technically but Maltese is very healthy because a middle class uses and propagates it.

The middle class doesn't support Scots Gaelic or Irish as far as I can tell... what about Welsh?

Here, enter lazy lefties who want to hoop on that gravy train, that is the only reason we hear about the Silesian language. I can understand it without learning - how is that a language?

You or not only a crack head a German wannabe but you are also anti-Semite, nice.

Please read my entry 5 times and slowly, maybe then you will understand its meaning.

Why?

Scots Gaelic is spoken in a small part of the western isles by only a few people. Nevertheless, to stop it from dying, there's BBC Alba, courses, festivals, and a few other things. The idea is simply to stop it dying and to encourage it to thrive in the few communities where it's used.

Welsh is more of a living language however its cost money to save it. If you want a good public sector job in some parts of Wales, you need some degree of fluency and this does help to keep it alive. Plus, there are quite a few Welsh language high schools and that is a plus. The Welsh TV station (Sianel Pedwar Cymru) gets plenty more viewers than BBC Alba. (not hard) but still costs about £100 million. With theatre groups, financed feature films and a lot of events, it dues cost money however it's working and it's well spent. All this takes potential funding away from anything to help English dialects (like Yorkshire or Northumberland) however that is worth funding too.

There's also Scots (either a dialect or a language in its own right depending on point of view) which has official status in Scotland. In NI they have three languages for government publications, English, Irish and Ulster Scots). The Manx government also supports the Manx language. All of this does cost money, however it's probably money well spent. Some languages are doing better than others however it would be a tragedy if one was lost.


Or people who are happy that a small part of the money generated by the community is spend within it on maintaining its culture and traditions in a fast changing world.

The middle classes in Ireland in urban areas are quite keen on Irish actually. There are also some hardline, working class Dubliners who support SF and who send their children to exclusively Irish speaking schools as a kind of political statement.


I don't think so, not in Ireland anyway. Heaven and earth have been moved to cultivate an interest in reviving the language but it's never been very successful, largely because of the terrible teaching methods used in schools from primary level upwards. It puts people off for life in most cases.

I tend to not believe in "we tried so hard! it just didn't work!" arguments. I think the occam's razor version is that heaven and earth have been moved to make sure that any interest remains small scaled and niche....

I remember seeing articles and seeing all kinds of major tactical mistakes... that I thought anyone serious about increasing and modernizing usage would realize were mistakes and would change... but apparently either increasing usage was not the goal or those trying to increase usage have no idea about how to go about it....

Reality is reality, we are aware of it or we aren`t. State of Poland face a historical choice. Catholic or Slavic metha-ethnicity. Around this choice will be resolved fate of Poland from within Poland and from outside.

the languages are unattractive because the language spoken daily is English, a practical language that also enjoys a world language status - why bother with some backwater (and a bit too complicated) language like some insular Celtic one

not inherently, no. In the 19th century Polish was less attractive because of the far more practical value and high status of German and russian....

outsider utilitarian ideas of attractiveness are only part of the picture


ironically widespread use of English internationally makes it less.... special (language serves a lot of purposes.... one of which has to do with group cohesion and specialness of the group - hard to do with English now unless there's a local variety that's very distinct and has high status locally). Unfortunately for Scottish Gaelic and Irish there are local standards of English that are both distinct and which have high local status (much less the case for Scots which is why it has it's weird liminal status between weirdo dialect and separate language).

Welsh English on the other hand, which distinct in some ways, maybe doesn't have the status of Scottish or Irish English so that means maybe Welsh has more room to be a marker of local identity (though only for part of Wales).

It's certainly possible to make Scottish Gaelic and Irish more attractive and the fact that policies that could do that aren't being followed is revealing.

one thing was that the populace spoke Polish at home - this is where Polish children learned the language - any education in German or Russian started much later in school - this is not the case for the most part with Irish or Scottish Gealic (don't really know about the situation of Welsh in northern Wales but most people in southern Wales simply speak English) -

in general for 19th century Poland it was a question of 1) momentum (Polish just didn't vanish overnight) 2) identity (the German, Austrian and Russian occupants were perceived as hostile)

I'm not an expert on Irish - and my knowledge(?) on the subject stems from a quote from Sinead O'Connor's song "Famine" but... weren't the Irish in the time of The Potato Famine and afterwards, paid not to teach their children Irish?

English suppression of Irish was far more harsh and ruthless than attempted suppression of Polish. But (gross simplification incoming) by the time of the Great Famine about half the population still spoke Irish. But the Irish speaking areas were especially hard hit by the famine (and the English weren't so.... eager to help them) and massive emigration greatly reduced the number of speakers (and the geographic spread of the language).

Still the language wasn't (and isn't) too far gone but there's just not much interest in actually using more (and most policies aimed at 'promoting' it aren't..... good.....

And... the language is now under further pressure due to the Irish government's obsession about moving 'asylum seekers' into Irish speaking areas....

A true policy wanting to increase usage would give priority to creating and maintaining irish speaking areas.... rather than importing in a bunch of people with no relation whatsoever to the country.