Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Chairman of the Law and Justice political party, during The Patriotic Meeting of Independence Day, November 11, 2017, Kracow, Poland. NurPhoto/Press Association. All rights reserved. According to a recent poll, the attitude of the Polish people towards other nationals changed dramatically over the period of just one year. Compared with 2017, Polish approval rates of many nations took a deep plunge. Sympathy towards Jews and Arabs, already low, dropped in 2018 by 13 and 6 percent, respectively. Given the persistent anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic propaganda in the Polish media, this is rather unsurprising. Approval of the Germans dropped by 16 percent, as if the difficult and protracted process of the reconciliation between Poland and its “eternal enemy” had never happened.
What is really puzzling is that Polish approval of their southern neighbours, the Czechs, took a nosedive by 15 percent; Italians, Russians, Vietnamese and Japanese by 13 percent, and the British by 8 percent. Even the Hungarians and Americans are liked less among Poles by 14 and 11 percent, respectively.
To complete the picture one should also mention that the Poles never liked each other very much. According to a recently published book, they were particularly disliked by their own political and intellectual leaders[1]. This abrupt change in Polish sentiment requires some explanation.
