La Tortue Cynique / The Cynical Turtle

Poland is now in the big leagues

A well-balanced point of view from Maciej Ceglowski about an article in the Wall Street Journal stating that "Hard to believe, but Poland is now arguably a more consequential global power than either France or Germany." I won't jump to conclusions: I don't know Poland, I know a bit my country, and I hardly have a global point of view on their "global power". What Maciej cites and says about the French towards the Poles is true. We tend to consider anything after the old East Germany as "Europe de l'Est". Austria is a special case, they are so near the German civilization, but they were undoubtly strong during the Empire Austria-Hungaria era, and Hungary is considered as an East Europa country.

Same goes for Poland, it's more practical for us to considered it as East Europa, because of its border with the old East Germany. When I lived in Denmark as a student, I met some Russians, Poles, Lithuanians among others. This has destroyed the clichés I had on those countries, based on 40 years old photographies, and communist dictatorship scars. What I received is a new set of clichés. Expatriates are most of the times not representative of their generations, because they are a minority, living in unusual conditions, and discovering what they are. I started to discover what to be French means when I left my peers. The danger is to meet too much people from the same community, and then start to close the shell.

Back on the subject: some americans are saying that Poland is more a global power than France or Germany... I guess I should go visit Poland. Two weeks ago I was in Germany, pleasant vacations, sunny, green, nice and helpful peoples, the contrary of Paris But I should not have the desire to visit Poland just because it is said to be a greatest superpower, but nevertheless those articles help us to remind that the world is evolving, and is much different from the images conveyed by the journalists or the popular belief.

I'm waiting for a great Europe with... I don't even know the actual number of countries, 15 maybe? So 24 after? with opened borders, a common currency and a fantastic share of cultures.(Tout venant, 2003/05/22 19:24) lien permanent