by Heather Wright
I’ve been thinking a lot about refugees this month. I begin my First-year Poli Sci seminar “Law, Human Rights and Pop Culture” with a unit studying them. We read Gil Loescher’s Refugees: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), and screen PBS Frontline’s episode “Exodus,” among others. The key question I emphasize is “why is opposition to migration a major feature of contemporary politics?” Loescher insightfully argues that there are a number of factors: concerns about economic drain, job competition, higher prices, fear of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism, and the rise of extreme nationalistic parties.
The day before yesterday we were visiting the Tatar Muslim Mosque and cemetery in Bohiniki. Michael and I have been there previously a number of times, and it is always a pleasure to introduce our groups to an unexpected and important segment of the historic Polish image of tolerance. This time, when we visited the mizar (cemetery), we encountered 10 new graves of Muslim Syrian refugees, all of whom died in the Polish forest just over the border from Belarus. Our guide Sylwia told us that they died of natural causes (freezing temperatures without necessary clothing and other resources, etc.), but I have also been told by others that there have been refugees injured during so-called “pushbacks” by border guards. (For more on pushbacks, please see https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/02/07/poland-publishes-data-on-thousands-of-migrant-pushbacks-at-belarus-border-for-first-time/) .
One of these graves holds a 3-year-old child, Halikari Dhakar.
Loescher connects the persistent phenomenon of opposition to migration with the idea that refugees raise questions about national identity, religion and cultural pluralism, and he also observes that support for refugees is often used as a point of criticism of current government by opposition parties; that political leaders often present them as a threat to cultural harmony. Poland’s previous government was an example of this, and unfortunately so is the current coalition, at least for now. (For a discussion about the position taken by the new government’s PM (whose coalition defeated the right-wing party PiS in recent elections: https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/02/12/survival-of-western-civilisation-depends-on-stopping-uncontrolled-migration-says-polish-pm-tusk/ )
We received this message on our cell phones while we were in the area:
I’m not sure if it was sent by the government or Polish military or simply spam, but the message is consistent with a newly reinstated policy: https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/06/10/poland-reintroduces-exclusion-zone-on-belarus-border-amid-migration-crisis/
All of this seems at odds with Poland’s warm and nearly unilateral open-armed reception of Ukrainians seeking refuge from the war with Russia. And I don’t just mean the government, but the Polish people themselves. Many (and I mean many!) Poles rushed to help by providing rooms in their homes and apartments, contributing money, clothing, diapers, etc. to NGOs, and transporting families from the border to various destinations all over Poland where they could find shelter and support. There are currently 1 million Ukrainian refugees in Poland who arrived after February 24, 2022.
Which brings my mind right back to our very first lecture, in Kraków: “Which Refugees are Better? Reception of Different Refugee Groups in Poland,” presented by Dr. Joanna Grzymała-Moszczyńska of Jagiellonian University.
Dr. Grzymała-Moszczyńska shared data on Polish attitudes toward acceptance of refugees from countries subject to armed conflict (CBOS 2021). When asked “should Poland accept Ukrainian refugees from conflict areas?” the result was very positive. Additionally, Dr. Grzymała-Moszczyńska pointed out that 70% of Poles engaged in helping Ukrainian refugees and that private spending on refugees was nearly 1% of the Polish GDP. The Polish government even created what amounts to a more protective legal status for Ukrainian refugees.
At the same time, polling data indicates that Polish acceptance of most other refugees (largely from Syria and other African countries, and Afghanistan) is much lower (it's important to note that support for Ukrainian refugees has somewhat lessened with time). These "other" refugees are kept in closed camps (like prison life) for 3 months to 2 years as they await a different legal process. Unless they are stranded in the forest, where the best-case scenario is to be found and helped by volunteers working for an NGO like The Rescue Foundation with which Dr. Grzymała-Moszczyńska has been involved.
Why the difference? Dr. Grzymała-Moszczyńska argues that essentially the answer can be found in Stephan and Stephan’s Integrated Threat Theory, racism, and the power of differing media representations.
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