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Beavshak t1_j7fpe3j wrote

Is Poland (sorry gross generalization, not sure how else to ask) generally xenophobic? Or is religion the most significant factor?

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FuehrerStoleMyBike t1_j7fsexs wrote

I think its part the stronghold of religion and part the lack of confrontation. Fear (and nothing else is having a negative view onto a whole group of people) is mostly not rational and comes from a lack of knowledge. The more you dont know the more you can potentially fear.

Also I think religion is a particular interesting subject since those 3 religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity) are siblings and much more simular than different when compared to other big religions such as Buddhism or Hinduism. It is well established that familiarity may lead to animosity. In most murder cases a family member is the culprit. Or look at Harry and William - the british princes etc.

So in the end I think its a mixture of closeness and strageness. Close enough to be involved with each other but too distant to be united.

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skywalker_g t1_j7fyl0a wrote

Yes. As Pole I can confirm, that in here people are very often afraid of what they don't know. It's just due to historical experience for last 250 years when politically and socially we have had unwanted superiors. Like after ww2 communists from russia who have done everything to society to be afraid of nearest neighbours, friends and family.

Poland is historically one of few countries that allowed since middle ages Jews Muslims and all various Christians live on it's lands and have equal or almost equal rights. Poland had elections for the king since XVI century so it was some kind of democracy.

We were very liberal I think, and that was something that our imperialistic neighbours used to conflict the nation in XVIII and take our lands.

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drquaithe t1_j7h8049 wrote

Calling a disfunctional nobles' oligarchy a "democracy" is a helluva take. It actually led to more and more inequality and there was literal slavery of the noble class over peasants ("pańszczyzna"). They OWNED them and had the right of life or death over them.

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drquaithe t1_j7h783a wrote

There's a lot of latent xenophobia. I grew up as one of the few kids in Poland with an obviously Jewish name and it was all kinds of awful, especially coming from a few teachers. Although younger generations are way better.

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SunnyDayInPoland t1_j7i8azv wrote

I'd say religion is the most significant factor, but not because we dislike people who follow other religions than us. It's more that the news in our media about the followers of these religions is generally negative (and has been for some time now).

Even Polish atheists would probably dislike Muslims/Jews more on average than atheists in other European countries, so it's not a case of hating all other religions, more that hardly anyone has anything positive to say about these religions (both in the media and in daily life).

And as you can see from the chart, there aren't many Muslims/Jews in Poland, so not enough people to disprove unfair stereotypes / fight or defend against racism.

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FrozMind t1_j7jtb6x wrote

If you ask Poles about attitude toward Polish people you still can get significant negative value. But that's fine, since hating Polish people is not considered racist (or something wrong), regardless if you're one or not.

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Plastic_Sl t1_j7tbn5l wrote

You could ask Polish people in Poland if they hate Poles and you’d still likely get 40% of the population having a negative opinion on them.

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