#chauvinism

People ask why I don't want to see Poland or move to Poland, and the answer is as simple as ABC: at least a half of the country are chauvinists and literally beat or persecute Ukrainians. They even beat and insult Ukrainian children and teens saying "go to your fucking Ukraine" or "get the fuck out of here, you are not welcome".

The reasons? Well, I honestly don't even know which of the reasons I listed is more compelling (sorry, more absurd), but I will try starting with the most widespread piece of gaslighting that young Poles eagerly swallow: the Volhynia tragedy. Nobody looks at the prerequisites; nobody considers how many centuries prior the Poles were destroying Ukrainians, instigating genocide and religious wars. All that matters to them to prove that "evil UPA" (I guess all 40+ million modern Ukrainians from Ukraine proper are UPA too) slaughtered poor villagers solely because they were Polish. I don't recall Ukraine ever aggressively demanding reparations from Poles for centuries of terror, or weaponizing far worse Polish atrocities in the media, for example. Guess our people were not taking kremlin rubles for that kind of outrage-baiting.

The second reason, of course, is the absurd belief that we, as refugees, are mooching em off, draining their very last zlotys, and stripping them to the bone. Well, let me remind the especially brain-dead out there: refugees pay taxes and work, too. Refugee status allows to both sue any unhinged scumbag and tell em straight fucking up that their fucking country lives on the fucking refugee taxes, so fuck off.

The third reason is not actually the root cause of the beatings or even the initial spark of hate; I would say it is more of a purely local prejudice that kicked in after Poland got a taste of the EU: that Ukrainians are automatically "third-world people" (a term I’m convinced is manipulative in itself, created by the Western world to somehow justify racism). I hasten to remind everyone that thet very Poland was part of the Eastern Bloc, and its citizens are currently chugging cheap cherry beer outside Żabka while blasting club eurodance (just like somewhere near moscow in the ruzzia that Poland despises sooooo fucking much). Yet somehow, we are always the dumb, uneducated, and dead-broke ones — because, of course, they need a scapegoat. As for the number of Ukrainians with higher education and the objective quality of our healthcare, I will not even bother listing the facts; it’s all in the public record.

So yeah, I am not going to Poland even for a week, not a single hryvnia of mine will they receive. Instead of wasting my nerves, I prefer mentally mature or at least well-not-my-business-where-you-come-from countries.

And yea, "nooooo not all Poles-" — I don't care. I have a sense of dignity and an objective take on who Ukrainians really are and what we all are actually capable of. A couple of idiots from back home are not the face of the nation, for sure. If Poles do not get that on purpose or because of their natural stupidity, then I will not be swayed by "not all Poles are like that" either. Two can play at that game. I will wrap this up with a fine n beautiful quote from Teach You a Lesson:

It was also strange to read their complaints about how poorly they live and how terrible everything is, while in Ukraine cities are being destroyed and people are dying from explosions every day.

Thanks for the ask! You are fully correct — russian imperialism is very overwhelming and ever present. I know no other place where they casually use this many slurs towards literally everyone (I don't know or understand half of them and I'm supposed to be fluent in the language). They're very... casual about their hatred, and being "against war" to a russian usually means being against a sort of metaphor, an ephemeral thing that just... comes and goes on its own. They accept no responsibility and in majority feel no shame, a tendency that is fed by their propaganda, but exists on its own after centuries of imperialism.

They seem to love making victims out of themselves and see no connection between actions and consequences. They always use "why is this happening to us?" like they didn't literally start the biggest war in Europe in the past century. A genocidal war, to be more specific.

May 23, 1957 — see The Complete Peanuts 1955-1958