I read with great curiosity Richard Bernstein’s article in today’s New York Times, called International > Europe > The New Europe: Poland Is Worried That Border Controls Create a New Divide” href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/25/international/europe/25POLA.html”>”The New Europe: Poland Is Worried That Border Controls Create a New Divide”. Now that Poland will soon be on the good (read: Catholic, capitalist, and calm) side of the European border, the Western Europeans have armed the country to deal with the potential flood of immigrants.
I lived in Poland for a year, and back then (1995), I was fortunate to meet up with the very few minorities living in the country: a few Polish Jews, a few Africans, and a few Koreans. I remember that the official non-Catholic population was about 2%, which included Roma and immigrants from outside of Europa. It was a new time of ethnic anxiety, as described by those I met, and I can see that those worries will continue to be stoked by both Western Europeans and the new security apparatus that is Poland.
Moreover, I can’t get over the incredible irony of Poland, sandwiched between traditionally bellicose Germany and Russia, now the border guard for the wealthy to the West. Called the new “Iron Curtain,” the article above mentions “exacerbating tensions around who is on the inside and who is left out of the new Europe.”