Meeting with the Other

 Paulina Banasik, 2016 Ideas Incubator Fellow, Poland




 











“These other worlds, these other cultures, are mirrors in which we can see ourselves, thanks to which we understand ourselves better – for we cannot define our own identity until having confronted that of others, as comparison.” Ryszard Kapuściński

Intercultural contact is as old as the history of humanity. Each society has always had its own “Others” or “Strangers”. They can be present in day-to-day life: for example, in the form of newcomers from distant lands, people from nearby villages characterized by other traditions, sometimes neighbors with distinct religious beliefs and practices. The particular feature that connects all these kind of people is cultural baggage that they carry on, different than our own. It has been constructed piece by piece during the socialization process and is still under construction. Diverse baggage causes a natural tendency to see the world through ethnocentric glasses, categorizing the world in the terms of that what is our/well known and that what is their/unknown. “Unknown” is often equated to threatening life order to which we are used. Such cultural filters, despite the fact that they help us find ourselves in ongoing reality and create identity attachments, unfortunately very often are a source of negative attitude and discriminations towards certain groups which can be very easily observed nowadays in Poland.

There are two main tendencies that shape the globalized world. On one hand,  thanks to new technology, for the first time such grand scale distances between countries and people are shortened. This situation facilitates mixing of the cultural codes and growth of openness. On the other hand, the opposite process can be also noticed, characterized by closed attitudes towards other cultures, fear and walls building (either mental and physical ones). Permanent coexistence of these two tendencies create tensions and new challenges.

The case of Poland in this discourse is especially interesting. After Second World War diverse Polish society disappeared. The communist period limited minimum migration flows, strengthening  in this way the homogenous trait of citizens in Poland. After 1989 when the communist dictatorship collapsed, the borders were reopened and the situation started to change slowly. Although the immigration rates are still low and Poland is definitely an “emigrant country,” every year Poland becomes more and more popular as a destination for immigrants that are looking for a temporary or permanent home.  The crucial issue is if Polish society,  institutions, and administration are ready for the challenges it brings.

It is a particularly important question in the context of the refugee crisis and  Polish attitudes towards it. Unfortunately, very often politicians use it to manipulate and frighten people (nothing unites more than a common enemy) instead of to analyze the situation and work on the best solution that will allow Poland to avoid the mistakes committed by other countries in the context of cultural integration. So far Poland does not have any effective integration program for refugees or immigrants. After obtaining the protection status, refugees are engaged in a one-year Individual Integration Program, the main role of which is to provide small financial help. Even though social workers are supposed to help refugees integrate with the Polish society, there is no clear plan how to do it. A huge problem is also the housing – Polish government does not provide to refugees a place to live, which generates further obstacles.

The growth of discrimination incidents, hate speech, strengthening of  radical right-wing organizations, and actual government’s tacit acceptance of such developments about what we were discussing during the sessions, unfortunately do not bode well. The surge of hate crimes motivated often by national or racial differences is also very alarming and needs the immediate reaction of Polish authorities that is still imperceptible. Hopefully it will change and people will understand that the most important thing in the situation of meeting with the “Other” is to recognize in this person a partner for a mutual dialogue and negotiations of cultural identities and belongings. It is worth to mention the work of growing nongovernmental Polish sector that tries to fill up all these gaps in the system and start intercultural dialogue between the people instead of spreading fears and incomprehension.