Though there are many modern conflicts, and their impact on the environment and on the people in the area is undeniable, I'd like to take a step back from the modern world which we all understand and can see with our own eyes. I would like to take you all back to a time in the middle 1900's, a time when the world was at war, yet again.
Immediately images from the movie renditions of the holocaust may fill your mind, perhaps even German propaganda regarding the evil people that the Germans were. Or maybe you recall the desolated landscape that remained with the people of Poland for a great many years to come.
Though that is unlikely.
Poland was, and is considered one of the greatest mistakes made by the people countering the German offensive. Even within Poland resentment still is not pushed aside for what the 'allies' FAILED to do. They FAILED to provide adequate aid for Poland, they FAILED to save them from the social, economical, and environmental stresses they were put under, then and now.
Of course, one can argue that there was nothing that the 'allies' could have done. Perhaps even argue that Poland was hardly a large sacrifice in the grand scheme of the war. That may be the case looking back, but I feel there is a need to look again and realize exactly what happened because of the inability to create peace in time.
Poland has always had a very precarious standing with regards to its international relations. Russia had annexed a portion of its land, even while it was allied with Britain and France, and when Russia joined the war effort against Germany, there was only more confusion to be had. Seeing as Russia would not directly help Poland, considering their past, and England saw Poland as it did many of its other 'broken off' countries, as a overly ambitius country with no grasp on how a government should be run.
With such misunderstandings dominating the global view of Poland, it seems much less climatic that Poland was taken over by Germany. Particularily in the way that it was done. Germany attacked Poland from north south and west using the chaotic and heavily damaging Blitzkrieg technique, something which had not been performed previously and caught the Polish people off guard. In spite of this, the Poles defended themselves for several days before Russia (then the USSR) attacked from the East, surrounding the Poles entirely. When petitioned for aid by the Polish government, the 'allies' did nothing. After 35 days of fierce battling, Poland was officially defeated, not to be freed until after the war.
The reasons why it would never become strong again was that a great many of the fighting men were dead, the holocaust had taken hold in Poland in spite of anti-germany sentiment, and there had been another genocide involving a Ukrainian semi-ruler and many other issues for racial minorities in the country.
What we end up with is a desperate country breaking away from former bondage after a great many years of not being rescued by the 'allied' forces, its allies. Having suffered more damage to the populous than many of the other anti-German forces and having any infrastructure they had established destroyed, it is no wonder that Poland is one of the worst off European countries.
In addition, due to the Blitzkrieg already mentioned, there was very little environment left over, and what little there was would be destroyed or abused by the occupying forces.
So you see, Poland has received a reputation as being one of the quickest to submit to the German forces, while all along it was the one that was given the least help. It was because of this lack of aid that Poland suffered the incredible losses it did, comparable even to any modern conflict and equally tragic.
"Lest we forget."
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This is an interesting choice for a post...something from the past. It sounds very much like a Social Studies 11 essay, something written to and from the perspective of political borders, allies, militarism, racism, and seen through the "romanticized" lens (not romantic) of a bygone era where the wars, in 20-20 hindsight were reasonably well understood, or at least dissected and cross-dissected through a traditional historical lens.
ReplyDeleteI won't delve into the could have beens and should have beens of WW2 and its precursor, WW1. That is a very long philosophical argument which on another occasion, I'd love to engage in on a broader scale. Rather, I'd like to use it as a lens to understand where we are today, and if such another situation is possible, even plausible? And, how would we avoid it? And, how do we address current geo-politics at a grass-roots level?
What has often been left out of the historical dialogue is how ordinary people mounted extraordinary protests (Polish Ghetto Resistance), how political will imposed almost always fails, and that a failing economic system is often followed by racism and its impact on minorities(as is happening in Bulgaria today). If we were to take a look at the past through very different eyes, with a different focus, then perhaps we would understand the past as it relates to today much differently. Rather than reproduce the same thought processes that manifest themselves in a hierarchical militaristic corporate agenda, we would see that the world and its people are completely interdependent, and that there is a powerful sub-text growing out of the gains of corporate and political power-mongering actions. We would see that wars are about money and power, not about "good and evil," and that it is always the people, the citizens, the soldiers, the children that are played as pawns, often against each other...
The allies on the surface may have "failed" Poland, but it is not enough to see Poland as a victim. There have been tremendously courageous and unselfish behaviours that took place in and outside of the concentration camps by both Polish, Jewish, and non-Polish and non-Jewish people. We cannot simply predicate our future on the global geo-politics of the past. There are tremendous forces at play today that are creating a shift that you and I are part of. We cannot continue to exist in the same structure as we have in the past, because that model does not fit our present, nor our future.
Poland now ranks 21st in GDP worldwide. It is a strong and marvelous country, and now part of the EU. I have had friends from Poland, and have spoken to them about their country's past on numerous occasions.
I suppose what I am getting at is that how does our past inform us now? Is the story of the past, immortalized in news reels, movies, and novels the full picture? And what kinds of critical historical literacy skills can we learn that will fundamentally change the the way we study "history" in the future? Is Poland really that different from Rwanda? Should we be focussing on our past historical wrongs as we understand them through lessons in school (Russia lost 28 million people in WW2, more than the population of Canada in the 1990's), or should we focus on our collective "present" and what we can do to move forward as a global human race independent of, but cognisant of, the political and corporate machinations?
I leave that to you to ponder...
PS/ I also leave these two youtube clips for you to look at, and decide for yourself what you think. One is Howard Zinn, someone whose viewpoint I believe should be studied in school. You can look into his philosophies on your own time, but here's a peak at a really great clip (copy into your browser, "A People's History of the United States")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
...and this pre-WW2 cautionary animated tale called "Peace on Earth":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8OYvHPpGDY
Keep thinking for yourself,
Tamara