> You can't base your opinions based on things like anecdotal accounts of two old ladies in a shopping mall and then extrapolate and generalize.

That was just an example of how widespread this attitude got recently. I've spoken to many people, including my (mostly liberal till recently) family, and the sentiment is similar.

> you might want to distinguish between patriotism and nationalism

I do distinguish them, and I consider myself a "positivist patriot", as opposed to "romantic nationalist" - which is a much more common attitude in Poland.

Patriotism becomes nationalism when people start to exclude others. It's already widespread - see "Poland for Poles" on national holidays, anti-Ukrainian resentment, etc.

> often at odds with the interests of countries like Germany and Russia

historically Poland was allied with one part of Germany, and fighting the other part of it. Most of old Polish cities were settled basing on German law, often by Germanic settlers. We've had our wars, but we've had wars against all of our neighbors.

Currently Poland and Germany only benefit from the cooperation, and the differences are vastly overstated because of internal politics (PIS using anti-German sentiment to fight opposition basically).

> the ~1 million Ukrainians Poland took in from war-torn Ukraine

you know well it's bullshit. 99+% of them are economic migrants. I'm from Lublin. I have Ukrainians in my family. I've been to Kiev this year, and to Ukraine many times. Ukraine west of Dniepr is as war-torn as Poland was in 2004 (we had 2 wars going on, remember?).

> The point is that this is a complex issue

It's only issue because politicians made it one. Had we accepted a few tousand imigrants there would be no issue, just like there's no issue in most of EU countries that did just that. Including even Hungary recently :)

But it was very convenient for PIS to use imigrants as a card during last elections, so they did, fuck the consequences. So we had the campaign of xenophoby in media, and the effects are pretty bad. Poland had 2500 Indian students last year. In the whole world there's almost 500 000 of them abroad. Out of 25 violent incidents against Indian students abroad, 9 happened in Poland in last year.

Violent crimes against Muslim minority in Poland grew almost twice from 2015 to 2016.

These are still minor concerns, simply because there's so few immigrants here. But it will have to change, because of demography. And no, 500+ won't help, it's simpe math. Even if every women in child-bearing age had 1 more kid than now - because of a demographic hole from 90s - the number of kids born will drop to record low in next decade.

Ukrainians are already there, but it won't suffice.

> Western leftists have no qualms trying to strong arm CEE countries into accepting abortion, gay marriage, transgenderism, etc

If you consider these things leftist, then the remaining non-leftist countries are Poland, Russia, and Muslim republics. And with Russia I'm not so sure, it's much more libral on abortion.

It's not "western leftist", who don't want to ban abortion no matter the conditions. Over 60% of Poles want abortion to be allowed (depending on the circumstances). And it was HIGHER in 90s. The propaganda that is the most widespread is Church and conservatives, not the mythical leftists. And it's working.

> I simply cannot fathom what small Polish island you live on where what you hold is remotely true.

I'm living in Lublin, visiting my family in small village nearby, and for a few months now and then I live in Warsaw. I wouldn't call it "island", it's pretty good cross-section of a Polish society.

> most migrants come from societies where legal inventions like gay marriage not only doesn't exist, but gay relations are punishable

Yes, and? Most of them aren't religious. Most of religious Muslims aren't extremists.

It's funny how fragile self-image of western (and - in consequence - Polish) right-wing is. Our (western) culture is WINNING. Kids in Egypt and Saudi Arabia watch Real Madrid and Hollywood movies. We don't watch their movies nor their sports. They know who Lewandowski is and what Shakira wear, we don't know who their stars and celebrities are.

The assimilation is never easy, but it's inevitable. And the problems western Europe has are nothing new. "The troubles" in UK had much bigger cost in lives than all the Muslim terrorists. France and Spain had their terrorists in 80s and 90s, too.

Terrorism crisis is mostly a PR problem.

http://www.datagraver.com/thumbs/1300x1300r/2017-05/ter-we-i...