At the same time that Poland has received and provided refuge to over 2.2 million Ukrainians, Germany has processed just 240,000 and now claims to be at its limit.
The German Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser admitted that in a recent interview with the joint corporate newsroom RND, and took the opportunity to call upon the European Union to oversee the relocation of war refugees, which “must be given top priority,” she stressed.
Let’s step into the neutral observer’s shoes, as let him witness this situation from outside looking in. Poland, a country more than half the size of Germany demographically — the Polish population is 38 million compared to Germany’s 83 million — is willing to provide hospitality for ten times the number of refugees.
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When you then add up the differences in country sizes and the number of refugees that they have helped, you get an initial outcome of 16 times more help provided by Poland to refugees — and that is still without acknowledging that Germany is twice as wealthy as the Republic of Poland, and that its state apparatus has a better reputation for its efficiency than its Polish counterpart.
With all this information considered, an external observer is within his rights to conclude that an inexplicable miracle has happened in the center of Europe.
Meanwhile, we know that no supernatural phenomena occurred, only that the Polish state wasn’t actively preventing its own citizens from organizing and taking care of the war victims. There was major criticism, however, that the Polish government wasn’t doing enough to help, but nevertheless, the final result astounded the entire world. Poland has received a massive number of newcomers from a foreign country without experiencing any dramatic fights and upheavals.
This fact should be food for thought.
If Poland is to endure the next big crises and challenges, it needs to change its state structure to the attributes of the Polish society, not the other way around, which is what the Polish ruling parties have been trying to do senselessly until now.
Dealing with the refugee crisis shows that if the majority of Poles consider something important and worth sacrificing their time for, that problem will be resolved with the utmost efficiency.
This is happening due to immense capabilities to self-organize as well as think creatively. It would make sense to restructure the country to provide safety, support and security to its citizens, but still allowing for as much freedom as possible. The centralization and the increase of power of the administration is the simplest way to bury a priceless advantage that the Poles possess: the capacity to self-organize. Now, Poland’s government structures should be built in a way that emphasize this attribute.
