Abstract
The Polish response to the crisis that escalated across Europe in 2015, banning refugees from crossing its borders, has been one of the least welcoming in Europe. Poland has been reprimanded by the EU for its lack of solidarity with other countries that accepted refugees. The government’s response was that it does indeed welcome refugees as long as they are not Muslims, since letting Muslim refugees in would be a security risk. The figure of the Muslim terrorist posing as a refugee has become a key trope through which xenophobic nationalist politics have been employed. In this sense, Poland can be seen to be drawing particular inspiration from the Eurosceptic politics of Orbán’s Hungary while also reflecting a broader European trend towards Islamophobia in countries such as France, Germany, Sweden or the UK. This article maps responses to refugees from key public actors. It focuses on how three key players in the Polish public sphere—the Catholic Church, the State and civil society actors—responded to the looming perspective of welcoming refugees to Poland. The paper argues that the Polish response to the so-called refugee crisis should be analysed as subtext to a broader political change in the country towards nationalism that has as its goal to push out all foreign ‘invasion’. Mobilised within this are new and old manifestations of racism, suggesting that Poland’s long history of racial Othering and exclusion has not been sufficiently accounted for.
Highlights
The Polish response to the crisis that escalated across Europe in 2015, banning refugees from crossing its borders, has been one of the least welcoming in Europe
This paper argues that the Polish response to the so-called refugee crisis should be analysed as a subtext to the broader political changes in the country, whereby the figure of the Muslim terrorist disguised as a refugee has allowed the government to advance its nationalistic agenda aiming to exclude all that is considered ‘foreign’
This paper mapped the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis in Poland, focussing on the responses of the Catholic Church, the State as well as Polish civil society
Summary
In 2016, the numbers of applications for refugee status in Poland submitted by Syrians reached almost 300 people, double the numbers in the previous year This is in stark contrast to the over 250,000 Syrian asylum applicants in Germany (Eurostat 2016). This paper argues that the Polish response to the so-called refugee crisis should be analysed as a subtext to the broader political changes in the country, whereby the figure of the Muslim terrorist disguised as a refugee has allowed the government to advance its nationalistic agenda aiming to exclude all that is considered ‘foreign’. The aftermath of the refugee crisis showed a rise in xenophobic attitudes, including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism Whilst this reflects an alarming escalation of hate in the country, an analysis of the events should take into consideration Poland’s history of racial Othering and exclusion (Bilewicz and Krzeminski 2010). It shows how the migration crisis has been used as a subtext to put forward a broader nationalistic agenda, one in which there is little space for any Otherness
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