Something interesting I guess most people don't know, the pro-ukrainian mobilisations in Poland (I can only speak about Poland) is amazing. My FB wall is full of people providing their apartments for free, giving jobs etc. There is over 100 cars long queue at a border willing to transport Ukrainians escaping war where they want. They can travel by train for free in Poland.
Now not so good tidbit. Just few months ago we had a lot of people lured into Belarus by Lukashenko trying to come to Europe. Poland treated them really really poorly. Catching them after crossing border and pushing them back. The society was split among pro-refugees and anti. The political parties almost all focused on "protecting our border".
I was afraid that this natalist sentiment might repeat, even though Ukrainians are one of the closest people to Poland. I am very happy to note I haven't heard anyone speaking against refugees from Ukraine, not on twitter not on facebook not by far-right parties, altough I am sure some people are silent about their opinions.
I think the key difference, more so than racism, was context. The Middle Eastern refugees got there as an attempt to undermine Poland and the EU. They were transported there by Belarus explicitly as part of a geopolitical game.
You treat an attack very differently.
If Poland let the refugees in, I expect Belarus would pull more stunts like this. It was no good for anyone.
There is some mild tension with Ukrainians coming to Poland as low-cost labor, but at the end of the day, it's the same culture. Or at least it was before Poland started to Westernize its culture. Honestly, I think the right solution here is to reform the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine really ought to be one country. If Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, or Moldova want to join in, the more the merrier. Belarus and Russia, when they're ready.
Estonia, by the way, is the odd man out. It has the least cultural or ethnic connection; much less than you'd expect. But I think it'd be a happy marriage. It's a compatible kind of diversity, where each side brings something complementary rather than conflicting and both sides benefit.
Also one difference is that The Ukrainians only let children and women leave the country. Men 18-60 are not allowed to leave. So the people coming over are truly vulnerable.
No, that's not a difference. Poland has been preparing to welcome Ukrainians long before the invasion started. It had opened up its borders and had logistic ready to receive them as soon as Russia invaded.
All of this happened before Ukraine closed its borders to fighting-age men.
It’s not about “letting them in”, it’s about protecting the border without breaking the law. Poland chose to do illegal pushback instead, effectively killing some two dozen random civilians.
There is a subtle difference between cutting border fence and going through border checkpoint. During Belarus crisis those who went for asylum request were considered. Those who hid in forest did not. Some were not granted asylum as they came from stable country. Simple as that.
Poland has ties to Ukraine (especially western part) stretching for more than a thousand years. Recent decades the relationship was quite positive. It is almost same people.
Poland has bitter painful recent memory of aggression from Soviet Union just recently. Now there is a real risk obliteration of whole Ukraine, who just recently got independence after hundreds of years of invasion.
> Now not so good tidbit. Just few months ago we had a lot of people lured into Belarus by Lukashenko trying to come to Europe. Poland treated them really really poorly.
Those people were from the middle east, pakistan, afghanistan and so on no? A big difference when it's your neighbor in need.
>Those people were from the middle east, pakistan, afghanistan and so on no? A big difference when it's your neighbor.
There are many people from the Middle East living, studying and working in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechia, etc. without any issues. One for them is my dentist and another in engaged to one of my cousins and is studying medicine to become a doctor.
The big difference is they came here legally and with money, studies, jobs or skills to support themselves, so the locals only have an issues with the illegal economic chancers trying to game the asylum and welfare systems, and nothing against people from the Middle East.
Those welfare migrants usually end up in countries like Sweden or Germany anyway, where whatever is left of the middle class taxpayer, is "happy" to give away half their income to support them indefinitely, with the wishful thinking that they will eventually contribute to their economy, pension system, and reverse the declining birthrates. At least they were right about the latter.
Also slightly different because in the Middle East, it's the Poles (and other pearl-clutching Europeans) that are over there arming and training the rebels, sending "peace keeping" forces, overthrowing governments and trying to partition their countries. It's not exactly a breakaway from the normal Western hypocrisy to see that they don't treat refugees from those countries well.
What the Poles see when they look at Ukranians are the same thing that most of the anglosphere sees -- fair skinned Caucasians. That's why "everyone" cares and why this relatively uneventful situation is getting this amount of news coverage.
That's why "everyone" cares and why this relatively uneventful situation is getting this amount of news coverage
You must know very little of history, to think coverage is only due to race.
Show me another country with the same nuclear arsenal, or with the military might, invading countries this large, in a location which has started two world wars.
> You must know very little of history, to think coverage is only due to race.
Exclusively due to race.
> Show me another country with the same nuclear arsenal, or with the military might, invading countries this large, in a location which has started two world wars
Might as well say "show me another country also named Ukraine." How about Syria? Where Poland, specifically, sent its forces to train separatist rebel groups and had an airforce positioned to support the rebel offensives? Help me understand the difference, considering when refugees from Syria get to Poland they're rounded up, beaten up and expelled.
> Playing the race card is... weak.
Calling it weak helps skirt around the cognitive dissonance at seeing two tragedies, exactly the same barring ethnicity, and fabricating scenarios that justify one and disregard the other. The same people who are fascinated with what's happening in Ukraine are the same ones who had "Je suis Charlie" over their Facebook profile photos in 2015. They see fair skinned Europeans in crisis and their opinions change dramatically. This is an extension of missing white woman syndrome[0] and part of the training the Western world receives as children to disregard the suffering of non-anglophone and non-Europeans.
You're missing the whole point. The conflicts are not even remotely the same.
If Poland invade the Ukraine, most people wouldn't be 1/10th as interested.
It is almost like you have no grasp of the history of NATO, the USSR, two world wars, nuclear weapons, and the power to deploy military might.
Can rebels in Syria destroy the entire planet with nukes? Can a conflict in Syria cause all NATO nations to be pulled into mutual defense agreements?
Quite literally, this single act of Russia's could have the potential result of turning entire planet into ash, or dragging 100 countries to war, or seeing a new empire carved out.
And I haven't even discussed China's role in all of this, current and future.
This invasion, this single act, could result in billions dying.
It's almost as if you don't comprehend that Syria is a theatre that contains both the US and Russia who both have nukes. Ukraine does not have nukes. In Ukraine, there is only Russia and Ukranians. In Syria, we have at least Turkey, the US and Russia all engaged in direct combat with at least a dozen NATO countries having troops stationed there.
The rebels in Syria can't destroy the planet with nukes... and neither can the rebels in Ukraine. The conflict in Syria has a higher likelihood of pulling in NATO members considering NATO is already in Syria, with Russia, the US and Turkey all engaging in direct combat there.
> Quite literally, this single act of Russia's could have the potential result of turning entire planet into ash, or dragging 100 countries to war, or seeing a new empire carved out.
Except none of that is true. You know, because Ukraine is not a part of NATO and there are literally no NATO forces in Ukraine?
It's funny how you seem to ignore that NATO nations are already engaged in war with Russia's proxies in Syria -- in some cases seeing direct confrontation -- but somehow Ukraine is the one that matters. But it's not about race.
> This invasion, this single act, could result in billions dying.
The single act being invading a country filled with fair skinned Caucasians, you mean.
> But sure, it's all just about race.
Considering the pearl clutchers happily armed the rebels in Syria and supported its partition, and are now crying doom and gloom when Russia does the same in Ukraine, then it is about race.
Let me know when the Polaks on the far right start kicking up a stink about the European refugees about to enter the country and you'll hopefully start to see it's all about ethnicity.
Adding some more context.
The Ukrainian refugees are fellow Slavic people and
the refugees from last time were mostly Muslims from the Middle East... and that the Far-Right tends to be racist.
While the fact that Ukrainians belong to the same ethnicity as Poles definitely makes a difference in how people react, another fact that counts is that the Middle Eastern refugees did not get to Poland directly from a war zone, and they did not intend to seek asylum in Poland, they were flown into a peaceful country, Belarus, and were seeking to reach the richer countries of Europe like Germany, Sweden and the UK... Poland was just their second transit country after Belarus. I think that even discounting race, this is a big difference that we cannot simply forget about.
"Several academics have critiqued the use of cultural racism to describe prejudices and discrimination on the basis of cultural difference. Those who reserve the term racism for biological racism for instance do not believe that cultural racism is a useful or appropriate concept."
> There is over 100 cars long queue at a border willing to transport Ukrainians escaping war where they want. They can travel by train for free in Poland.
That's fantastic. A person I know is in Ukraine (currently at the border with Poland, AFAIK) and he reports multiple-kilometer long queues of people on foot trying to cross the border. It sounds like they'll need all the help they can get.
Same in Romania, the boarders are jammed with romanian citizens providing aid, shelter and transport. I am actually amazed, there is so much help that charities are overwhelmed. People are taking ukrainians in their homes.
Same. While polish society is hugely racist towards refugees from Middle East, largely because of a government’s massive hate campaign from a few years ago, it seems polish nationalists failed to achieve the same against Ukrainians - probably thanks to the fact that many Ukrainians already live and Poland, so people can see for themselves there is no reason to hate them.
Maybe it's time to stop cultivating this hatred. Otherwise, you’ll have to keep hating other nations. It's a road to hatred hell - many countries and nations in Europe had conflicts.
Separate a regime from a nation. I don't know any Russian (I’m Russian in Spain) who would have any negativity to the Poles. Maybe it would be better to stop the hatred from another side as well.
Nationalistic flamewar is not welcome here. No more of this, please. I'm sure you have good reasons for feeling the way you do, but that doesn't make it ok to post destructively to this forum.
> Also, if you read the history of your country (and nation), you’ll see that one of your neighbors was occupying your country for a much, much longer time - maybe you’ll find another target to hate ;)
That is the thing you do not get - when you read about it in history books, it is not the same as experience something yourself. When it is your life that is being damaged, it hurts... and hurt people are not objective. People generalize. Read your own comment - you read one unpleasant comment from one guy on the internet and you are already generalizing it to Czechs you met in Prague. How would you react if someone did this[1] to someone you know?
I did not say that I hate you. I was just trying to explain to you why many people might. They do not want to hate (it is not pleasant). They did not choose to "cultivate hatred" as you say. They were hurt and hatred is natural reaction to trauma. Instead of blaming them, the victims, blame those who hurt them.
In addition to not posting flamewar comments as I asked you upthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30481406), please do not cross into personal attack as you did here. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.
I got carried away. I apologize to both you and EugeneOZ. However, could you please point out what personal attack you mean, @dang? I am asking genuinely to learn. I see now that I did not argue in a constructive way and I am sorry about it but I honestly did not intend to personally attack EugeneOZ. I was not saying that I hate him or anything like that, he is clearly not responsible for what is going on in Ukraine. I was trying to re-frame what he perceives as hatred and explain it as people being hurt, something they do not necesarily control.
EugeneOZ, to put it absolutely clearly, I know you bear no personal responsibility, you do not deserve hatred, and if you understood it that way, there was misunderstanding caused by me and I sincerely apologize.
Please do not take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. Also, please do not cross into personal attack.
I was advocating for arming Belarus rebels from Poland, and Lithuania.
If we had free Belarus by today, this war wouldn't have happened.
Without constant pressure on the capital, Ukrainian military would have easy time doing a general offensive on southern direction, or maybe even reaching Rostov, and Volgograd.
It was very appaling to see Polish government initially agreeing to sneak in weapons bought by volunteers, and then detaining it on the border.
I think most people (mistakenly) would consider me "against Ukraine". I am American and against US military involvement in the conflict. I am for humanitarian support for Ukraine and against military aid.
I think the war is awful, and wish it weren't happening, but think the sooner it is over, the better for everyone involved.
I think that Russia has real concerns about eastward expansion of NATO, and NATO should stop expanding in the region.
As an aside, an interesting concept of the book 1984 was that people could be prevented from thinking against the state by removing the concepts themselves from the language.
One could conceivably be unable to develop a rational full perspective on events of any kind if they are never made aware of a subset of information.
> One could conceivably be unable to develop a rational full perspective on events of any kind if they are never made aware of a subset of information.
This is true but very uninteresting (of course if you're denied crucial information you can't build a holistic view). What's more interesting is: is it actually the case that information is being systemically and totally suppressed, for which there seems to be little evidence.
It also seems like you're trying to use this trivial truth to stealthily support an anti-ukraine position.
You are inferring that which I am not implying. I clearly said this was aside the parent and grandparent posts, as it was not in line with the original intent or content.
You're using HN guideline wording ("uninteresting") seemingly in preparation to flag my comment if I step outside of your box. And your final sentence can have a chilling effect on intellectual conversation.
If this is a "trivial truth" then why do so many people fail to grasp the connections between the work of fiction and the modern realities? Your world view perhaps takes it as a given, but people should be afforded the opportunity to reach realization well after the point that you yourself achieved it.
I was pointing it out because not everyone is aware that this is possible, and it hopefully creates an interesting perspective for someone on an otherwise flamebait comment. It's past the point of usefulness now, however, as the other post has been rightfully flagged.
edit:
To go a bit further, my original comment does feel a bit off-topic on reflection. That is, of course, why these sorts of posts should simply be flagged and just move on. I should've avoided trying to dredge up some interesting conversation.
Additionally, I feel like your post would've been more interesting and encouraging of conversation had you simply stuck with the question "what evidence is there that this is occurring NOW though?"
I personally have no evidence this is happening, but the conversation would at that point be open to a third party contributing evidence if there were any.
Your comment is very vague; I know the views of both sides. When Putin decided to start the war, the arguments of anti-Ukrainians automatically lost their weight. You cannot fight using the argument of the Alley of Angels[0] if you kill civilians. Putin has already lost that part of his war.
I have a friend who is "against Ukraine" so I asked them to explain to me because this is unthinkable for me, especially at this point. He said that Ukrainians were shelling Russian civilians since 2014. And this is true to a point - there have been a few cases of civilian casualties admitted by Ukraine (and of course there was a lot more by the Russian thugs). The point is, none of this would have happened if Putin hadn't decided to incite the war in Donbas.
Now, the mother of my friend lived there in Donbas in 2014. Since Russians took over the territory, at some point Ukrainians became unable to maintain the infrastructure, they effectively lost this land. But my friend had a lot of spite against the Ukrainian government for not providing basic amenities there anymore. Also no longer sending money like pension to people there. Which is debatable: since Russians took over the responsibility, why should Ukrainians be involved? But I understand the tragedy of individual people, without water, electricity and money, with constant fear of being shelled by either side and no refuge anywhere.
So this is how at least some Russians living in Ukraine see the situation. Maybe today a bit less, but still.
>The point is, none of this would have happened if Putin hadn't decided to incite the war in Donbas.
It would have been put down quickly without putin's help but the sentiment there was very real. It's among the most pro-russian areas of the whole ukraine and yanukovych was popular. Only a minority of people there were likely to be happy about the lurch towards Europe signified by the Maidan.
It has close industrial, commercial and cultural ties to Russia.
In a reverse scenario I could well see Lviv revolting.
Yes, that was also a bit surprised to me when I visited Crimea and discovered that practically all people Russians. Speaking only Russian, knowing only some words in Ukrainian, but only watching Russian TV, reading Russian papers, having most writings everywhere in Russian (or both languages) and feeling Russian. But none of them had any negative feelings toward Ukrainians (at that time), they were getting along in a normal way.
Then I went to Kiyv and and asked someone for directions in broken Russian. He said, "Why are you speaking Russian? We're in Ukraine, you can speak English for example". At this point I realized in the West of Ukraine there were already some tensions regarding the coexistence of these two groups.
I experienced a lot of good things both from Russians and Ukrainians and it breaks my heart to see how Putin is sending these poor guys from conscription and sends them as fodder meat. I hope there is at least one sane person around Putin and they do what others had been trying to do in such a situation[0] - but this time successfully.
Now not so good tidbit. Just few months ago we had a lot of people lured into Belarus by Lukashenko trying to come to Europe. Poland treated them really really poorly. Catching them after crossing border and pushing them back. The society was split among pro-refugees and anti. The political parties almost all focused on "protecting our border".
I was afraid that this natalist sentiment might repeat, even though Ukrainians are one of the closest people to Poland. I am very happy to note I haven't heard anyone speaking against refugees from Ukraine, not on twitter not on facebook not by far-right parties, altough I am sure some people are silent about their opinions.