New Racist Attack: Poland isn’t Safe Anymore!
According to Gazeta Wyborcza Radom and Echo Dnia a refugee camp in Radom was attacked by drunk Poles on Saturday night. Fortunately noone was hurt.
A group of young Poles (around 60-70 people) with hood on their heads have thrown stones at the camp building. Four windows were broken. Police arrested nine of them. They were questioned and released.
The police has different point of view. Mr Rafal Jezyk, spokesman of Radom police office, says the attack must have been connected with other incident. Three Poles were bitten by a group of Chechens in Planty area of Radom on last week. The police is working on those two cases right now.
Chechens claim the attack was a political one, as according to Mr Musa Nugayev, Poles were shouting “Poland is for Polish people only” and “Go home”. He also says that it took a lot of time for the police to come so they had to defend themselves. This is why they left the camp with knives in their hands just to scare drunk Poles. Many of them run away. A witness who lives close to the camp confirmed that Chechens had knives but he did not see any fight. He also complaint that Chechens were not good neibourghs, there were a lot of problems with them and this incident wasn’t the first one.
What’s interesting there is one more point of view. Mrs Ewa Piechota, who works for Office for Foreigners says she was told by Chechens that Poles came to the camp looking for a man who has already left the place and they just threw some stones.
It is interesting that there are three different stories made out of one incident. This shows that “the Chechen problem” becomes a real problem in Poland and sooner than later it will turn into political matter (there will be a presidential elections next year). This catholic and mostly conservative country has not learnt yet that all people coming here are bringing something very precious – their culture and experience that can make one only richer.
On the other hand Polish government has no idea what to do with refugees. The refugee camps are building a wall between refugees and Poles. Integration programmes are a comedy, actually very sad comedy. Financial support is a sort of symbolic. Without help from Polish people it is almost impossible for a Chechen person to find a flat or a job. Will it change? Well… it’s hard to say especially when one looks at racist attacks targeted at people from Africa for example, even those who are playing for Polish football or basketball teams.
During last thirty days, the other big racist attacks against Chechens in Poland which we have published:
New Racist Attack to Chechens in Poland
Racist Attacks to Chechens in Poland
Author: Joanna Wrześniowska Bataev, the correspondent of WaYNaKH Online in Poland
Obviously attack in Radom had no political background. Firstly you should consider behaviour of chechens that live here. As it is underlined in the articles (polish ones,)they increasingly provoke such situations and what poles do is only “revenge” (ofcourse unacceptable as well). Im not a witness of what happened in Radom or Bialystok, but I can imagine especially that I have exemple in my own town – Lublin. I met very pleasant chechens (mostly older ones) but also other group (mostly youth) that behave unproperly and very rude which is seen on the streets. Its sad but its truth, they provoke and you should not be shocked that people dont want them here. Personally I support your struggle, have nothing against refugees living here but its improper calling Poland ‘racist country’.
You are our guests so you should at least show us some respect, especially your youth.
We are very grateful to Poland and Poles for granting us and our families asylum and a possibility to live and work opportunity in their country, even such worse situation than other European countries.
We have respect to Poles and their culture; but Polish youngs provoking to our children, especially at the schools. They are calling us with bad words and try to humiliating. It is normal to defend yourself, if somebody attack you without any deductive reason.
Poles must try to understand our culture, our values; in this aim they must spent effort to educate themselves for have respect to foreigners.
Im not shocked with a kids behaviour, especially young ones in schools. If someone is fat or has for instance strange name he is also a object of laughink stock. The same situation or even worse is when they meet strangers (majority of whom are only chechens). This issue should be solved by proper education given by parents.
Unfortunately, as you know Poland is a bit old fashioned and backward country, foreigners here are rarity especially amongs pupils in schools. In fact, Poland looks very bad in comparison for example with France, Germany or England, but in those countries peoples with different culture/religion/skin colour are high percent in society and natives (especially kids) got used to them, its normal for all.
Therefore you are right, community here needs more tolerance towards foreigners, but both sides should pay more attention not to provoke others, and also try to understand them (with all their disadvantages).
Besides, in schools there are pedagogues and teachers which -im sure- do not leave the problem with no respond.