I think this piece, while more nuanced than "60.000 Neo-Nazis march in Warsaw", still misses many points. #thread wapo.st/2hpCV92?tid=ss…
1. Poland always has had a very strong far right subculture, which is quite diverse, from neo-Nazis, to neo-fascist (Dmowski) to orthodox-Christian nationalists.
2. Because of electoral system and big right-wing umbrella parties far right parties and politicians mainly operated within right-wing parties rather than separately (recent exception: LPR).
3. Far right groups have been organizing these National Independence Day demonstrations for years now. This year's was bigger, for sure, but not very different.
4. While PiS is ruling more and more like populist radical right party, it is, like Fidesz (or Trump's GOP), not same as FN or FPÖ. It is an established party of the system and many of its voters will see it as main conservative, or anti-left party, than the outsider-challenger
5. PiS has always tried to absorb the far right, and successfully did so with support of LPR (with help of Catholic nationalists like Father Rydzyk and Radio Maryja).
6. Polish radical right is quite parochial, in part because of strong focus on (Polish) Catholicism, which is also shown by Kaczynski's clumsy authoritarianism and anti-EU policies.
7. Polish extreme right has been more integrated, both in East and West Europe, with connections to BNP/EDL and Jobbik, for example. Still, these are fairly amateuristic groups.
8. The so-called "refugee crisis" has given widespread nationalism in CEE a particular Islamophobic and nativist slant, even in highly homogeneous countries like Hungary and Poland.
9. This was not surprising, almost all CEE countries scored very high on ethnic prejudices already in 1990s. The issue of immigration simply wasn't salient before.
10. The most disturbing aspect of this weekend's march was the government's embrace of it, which was even more complete than Trump's response to Charlottesville -- to be fair, there were more non-extreme right in Warsaw.
11. Radicalization of PiS, embrace of extreme right (also by Kukiz'15!), and total onslaught on countervailing powers (courts and media) is much more dangerous than this demonstration.
12. Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and broader xenophobia has gone from implicit to explicit and broad parts of society openly embrace and express them -- throughout the region.
13. There is little to no counter-discourse and (true) liberal democratic parties are very weak -- in Hungary and Poland social democrats imploded after corruption scandals.
14. EU doesn't help by having two-faced policies, depending on strength of political group, criticizing Poland for things it accepts of Hungary.
15. At same time, EU leaders pay price for opportunistic critique of "multiculturalism" in the past (e.g. Cameron, Merkel, Sarkozy). CEE says: why should we introduce a policy that you said failed in your own country?
16. "Why should we treat our Roma like poor persecuted people, when you treat them like criminals and send them back to us?"
17. More than anything, current politics is outcome of problematic accession process. EU was "embraced" for economic reasons, as well as stable (minimal) democratic rule. Liberal values were accepted on paper but not embraced by many (and not really enforced by EU).
18. To change all of this will be very hard, as the illiberal right is very strong, and well-organized, and faced by a weak and opportunistic center-left and center-right.
19. And any pressure on Poland should be in line with pressures on other countries and parties, including in Hungary and Western Europe. Current policies give impression of East being singled out.
20. In short, problem of radical right goes well beyond this one demonstration or recent developments. It has gotten worse but Poland is part of a much broader problem that can only be addressed holistically, within whole EU. #TheEnd
