Hutchinson on the Vistula

Poland is full of Hutchinsons – er – theorists of clash of civilizations. Understandably. Occupied by Russia, Poles affirmed their unRussianness by claiming membership in a different cultural stock. We are from Greeks and Romans, they used to say, while you, Russians, are from the Mongols. “These different political traditions are irreconcilable”, they said.

Russians left, but the theory stayed. Poles are still enthusiastic Greeks and Romans. Learned professors, who have never been east of Brzesc pontificate about the essential and unbreachable differences between the East and the West, us Europeans and them Turks, Chinese and all the rest. Differences about which, of course, they know nothing at all, certainly not first hand.

Poles are therefore to a man opposed to Turkish membership in Europe. Which is really silly: Turkey in Europe would mean at last a powerful European army and 70 million new Europeans who hate Russians even more than Poles. For Russian-fearing Poles it is hard to imagine a better outcome.