From the article Bye-Bye, America! as published in Transitions Online, originally from Polityka:
Not so long ago, Poland was said to be America’s Trojan horse in Europe and its 51st state. Indeed, America was our shield and our unattainable ideal. Did we suddenly stop liking it? Did the American dream recede in the minds of the Poles?
Studies of the Polish public’s favorable attitudes toward foreign countries show that America has lost 20 percentage points over the last four years. It is not fully clear when this happened, but let us recall two warning bells. In October 2006, [Foreign Minister] Radoslaw Sikorski, who was then defense minister in the Law and Justice [PiS] cabinet, wrote two surprising comments on a confidential memo about a U.S. diplomat’s visit to the prime minister’s chancellery. One —“ “we can do without it” —“ referred to a proposal related to the missile defense shield. The other —“ “traditionally cheeky” —“ referred to a person who represented Washington. These notes, even if they were made in self-defense as an alibi for the opinion of “the biggest American” in our [ruling] establishment, signaled that Warsaw’s love of Washington was no longer passionate.
Shortly after that, during an international seminar in Warsaw, Sikorski made the audience realize the shocking proportion between U.S. assistance and European support for Poland: $30 million from the United States and 90 billion (not million) euros (not dollars) from the EU. This comparison may have been stretched a little because it does not refer to the same things, but it does put the previous irritating question of whether Poland is more attached to America or to Europe in a different light. (Do you remember it? It was said to be as problematic as the question of who we love more, mom or dad.)
…Today, Prime Minister Donald Tusk is better at sensing the Polish likes. His compatriots understood and supported him when he announced on 4 July (which was not very clever, since this was a U.S. national holiday) that the missile defense shield served only the purpose of U.S. security and, in a word, hinted that the Bush administration had not cared about Poland’s security in the talks so far.
There is widespread conviction that we make bad deals out of business with the United States. Tusk reiterated that the Poles had so far never said “no” to their most important ally, but America had to try harder to win the Poles’ favor. And this assessment overlaps with a new street wisdom. Apparently, the Poles think that the Americans, who are indeed “traditionally cheeky,” took what they wanted from us, sold what they had, and gave us nothing in exchange…
Absolutely true. For all the promises to Poland none of its aspirations have have come to fruition. For all of Poland’s assistance in pursing the United States cause in Iraq and Afghanistan, and perhaps even in housing black sites, the only thanks has been an over-the-shoulder nod, ‘Nice going kid, now get lost.’ Case in point – U.S. aid to Poland is far less than U.S. aid to Turkey and dozens of other less than helpful countries.
In addition, the Iraqi intervention and the manner of managing Iraq have undermined the Poles’ unwavering belief that America —“ the world’s most powerful country, supported by the wisdom of the world’s best universities and renowned government analytical centers —“ plans all its steps perfectly and knows what it is doing. Meanwhile, it is visible to the naked eye that it was instead France and the West’s Arab allies that were right when they insisted, although to no avail, on pushing and isolating Saddam Hussein, but without opening up the Iraqi Pandora’s box.
[In] an important survey carried out by CBOS [publicly-funded opinion research center] in March 2007 [t]he Poles were asked which among the most powerful international organizations and countries had in their opinion a “mainly positive” or a “mainly negative” influence over changes in the world. The findings revealed a revolution that had taken place in the public’s opinions. In the case of the EU, 70 percent pointed to a positive influence and 3 percent to a negative impact. For the United States, only 38 percent replied in the positive, with as much as 24 percent of answers on the negative side. To put this into perspective, 10 percent pointed to a positive influence on the part of Russia, 49 percent to a negative one. When these results are compared with the findings of surveys taken in 2006, they show what can even be called a breakdown in favorable opinions about America, because in the preceding year the United States was 24 percentage points higher in terms of positive influence.
Dr. Elzbieta Skotnicka-Illasiewicz from the Polish Academy of Sciences has been studying the Poles’ attitudes towards European integration on a regular basis for 17 years… She points out the reasons for a decline in favorable attitudes toward America. These are not the only reasons, but they are important from the perspective of commonly held opinions. Almost all countries lifted visa requirements imposed on the Poles. However, the Americans did not. In this way, they showed lack of interest and sympathy. To put it simply, this can be summarized in a complaint that is repeatedly made in Poland: they could accept the support of Polish soldiers in Iraq, but they could not accept the same soldier as a tourist or even as a candidate for illegal work. Moreover, the very stories about visa procedures, about standing in lines, paying in advance regardless of the result of efforts, and questioning applicants in an aggressive manner reinforced the unfavorable image of the United States. …
Beyond the Iraq debacle, and Poles illusory love for Amerika, these are the sorts of bread and butter issues felt by the “man on the street.” In a way it is reminiscent of the communist era: ‘I work hard, and do what you ask, and I am treated worse?’
Likewise, the 9-million-strong Polish community in the United States, an important part of the American myth in Poland, has also shrunk or dwindled somehow. Wealthier Poles suddenly noticed that the Polish community in the United States is composed not of hordes of American millionaires, but —“ with all due respect —“ of descendants of the plebeian masses from Podhale and Podlasie, who failed to pursue the kinds of financial or political careers that the descendants of the Irish, Italian, German, or Jewish diasporas did. Apart from this, what power do they have?
If the Polish government had any influence with the Poles in the United States and their votes in America and if these votes formed a package, then everything really could be agreed with Washington.
But these are just pipe dreams. The old Polish community in the United States suddenly paled in comparison not with the old Polish independence-minded soldiers in London or the Parisian “culture,” but with the masses of young people who set off for England.
We suddenly saw that these are different worlds. The Poles in the United States voted for the PiS under the Kaczynski brothers, while those in Britain stood in lines to cast their votes in favor of Civic Platform. In Chicago, orchestras composed of the inhabitants of the Polish mountains played for we know who. Guided by his instinct, [Civic Platform leader] Donald Tusk promised tax breaks to emigrants at a rally in London, encouraging them to come back to Poland.
In other words what remains of American Polonia is disconnected from day-to-day life in Poland and Poland’s leadership has caught onto that. Most of what remains of activist Polonia is comprised of the Solidarity diaspora. The remainder is three or more generations removed from their Polonian ancestors. As the Young Fogey frequently points out, these ethnics (and by instance mostly Catholics) rarely if ever vote as a block. The last person ever widely supported by Polonia, as a block, was Edmund Muskie.
A relative decline in America’s significance is not merely a game of what are, after all, changing moods, but an obvious outcome of Poland’s historic accession to the EU. Europe is closer, and there are no borders. According to a recent poll, asked about their willingness and ability to take on work abroad, 48 percent of the Poles responded that they would go to Germany while —“ pay attention —“ 6.2 percent indicated the United States. Today, the inhabitants of the Polish mountains more frequently go to Israel as construction workers than to the United States, while Lomza and Mlawa have Brussels addresses.
Any data you care to name show that America is not competitive for the Poles in comparison with Europe. The map of the Poles’ (tourist) visits abroad in 2007 is as follows: Germany, 1.55 million people; Great Britain, 850,000; France and Slovakia, 450,000 each; the Netherlands, 400,000; Italy and Austria, 300,000 each, while fewer than 100,000 visited the United States. In 2007, remittances from Poles earning money abroad were as follows (according to National Bank of Poland estimates): Great Britain and Ireland, 4 billion zlotys [$2 billion] each; Germany, 1.5 billion and the United States, 450 million. Transfers from the United States, which accounted for as much as 13 percent of all financial transfers to Poland in 2004, fell to 4 percent last year. Among the students who went on scholarships abroad (for a period of no longer than one year) and somehow made it into the official statistics, 1,590 went to Europe and 61 to the United States. According to data from 2006, the Americans invested relatively little in Poland. The top spot was occupied by Luxembourg with 3.6 billion euros (probably pure capital), followed by Germany with 2.7 billion euros. Italy and the Netherlands ranked third at about 1.3 billion euros each. For the United States, the amount was 407 million euros…
Immigration is an economic engine. Attracting talent and labor are just as important as importing raw materials. The United States misses the mark here and Europe gains for our loss. Interestingly Poland is one of Europe’s economic engines while the U.S. engine is running out of gas.
Unfortunately, this [—divergence protocol—] has been extended considerably under the Bush administration: the Europeans are more critical about the president himself than about the United States, with the war in Iraq and the president considered the main reasons behind the worsening relations between the United States and Europe. Surveys demonstrate that if the Europeans had the right to vote in the upcoming U.S. elections, they would vote for Barack Obama. In any case, they expect better relations with the United States after Bush leaves office.
These divergence protocols have long demonstrated that the two sides of the Atlantic are inhabited by somewhat different races. “The Americans are more from Mars, the Europeans from Venus.” The Americans rely more on military power, the Europeans on democracy. They believe in individualism and liberal competition; we are more likely to talk about the quality of life and the need for social solidarity. In essence, the threats are the same, but the Americans are more afraid than the Europeans of excessive reliance on foreign energy resources, a serious economic crisis, and international terrorism, a situation in which Iran obtains nuclear weapons, and immigrants from Europe. The only thing that the Europeans fear more than the Americans do is the effects of global warming. With their opinions, the Poles are now closer to Western Europe than they were before. In this sense, we have joined the mainstream.
For a long time, America has been reopening wounds in relations with foreigners, sometimes complaining loudly that “they love us” or “they hate us.” Unfortunately, this country is not in the habit of making special efforts to win allies (especially under Bush’s tenure as president). If it reckons with anyone, this must be someone big. The Americans themselves know that they have wasted a large portion of the sympathy they have enjoyed since the 9/11 attacks, when Le Monde expressed the European mood by saying, “We are all Americans.”
Absolutely right. A wasted seven years, wasted good will, wasted relationships, wasted opportunities, and a wasting away of the U.S. social contract which was a key point of admiration especially in Poland. Sure we can delude ourselves in proclamations of self-love but eventually I hope we wake up and do our level best to reclaim what we were not too many years ago — in our own eyes and the eyes of the world.