The prickliness of some powerless Poles

By Edward Lucas

Date: 24/05/06

"So what do you think of our country?" It is almost impossible to answer that question truthfully, interestingly and politely (though any two of the three are manageable).

It used to be easier. In the days of the evil empire, themes such as the dreadfulness of communism, the tragedy of history, and the west's shameful weakness prompted either pleased assent, or an enjoyable ding-dong.

Now it is a lot harder. Real things have happened - economic reform, EU membership, emigration and so forth - and there are real disagreements about them. Any outsider's comment can be taken as a sign of glib insensitivity if it's positive, or ignorant prejudice if it's not. Whatever you say risks angry contradiction.

Some countries are worse than others. Hungarians' stock response is that you can't possibly understand what is going on because of the language barrier. If that doesn't work they may hint that you are anti-semitic (if on one side) or that you've been nobbled by the Jewish lobby (if on the other). Romanians show patronising amusement at the idea that anyone would take their country seriously. "Oh my dear, you can't really be trying to understand our comic opera," tittered one doughty Bucharest lady, barely disguising her scorn for the intruder.

The smaller the country, the more flattered people are if an outsider knows anything at all, particularly if it is a bit obscure. I find that a mention of August Sabe (the last Estonian partisan, who died escaping from the KGB in 1978) unglues any conversation in that famously taciturn country. It may not be relevant, but it shows that whatever other points you make do not stem from complete ignorance.

Another good tactic is to pre-empt any talk of double standards by criticising the west, or your own country, first. That's particularly useful in Russia and Poland, where "what-aboutism" is a very common form of argument. (You mention Chechnya, they say "What about Iraq?" You mention corruption, they say "What about Blair selling peerages?"). Getting your self-criticism in first defuses that.

All this is on my mind because my Economist survey of Poland got quite good coverage in the press there and attracted reaction from people who don't normally read the paper. I've been ploughing through scores of letters, emails and postings on my blog, and trying, with mixed success, to answer everything politely.

Some of the letters were well-mannered and sensible. They picked up minor errors and omissions (as, indeed, did some of the rude and silly ones). That's a useful illustration of the wisdom of crowds. I wish articles were like software. I could have issued a "beta" version first and included all the improvements in an "alpha" release later.

The biggest lesson is that there are still a number of Poles with a strongly held and slightly neurotic belief that no foreigner can ever have anything sensible to say about Poland - and a surprising desire to express it publicly. One such correspondent, a professor at a foreign university, insists, in splendid defiance of fact and logic, that no native English-speaker could ever learn more than basic Polish. Only a "native Pole" could really write properly about Poland.

This is odd. Even the most pompous Frenchman, or redneck American, or bigoted little Englander, is willing to accept that a foreigner's view might be worth something. This intense prickliness stems from powerlessness: the feeling (all too justified in Poland' s case) of having been silenced by history. That was once an excuse, but, thank goodness, is now an increasingly poor one.

Comment feature on the widely-held belief by Poles that no outsider can really understand their country.