👀Mike👀

Dude, I'm Polish and I'm in my fifties. I remember all of this. I remember the nineties, where we were the butt of Europe's jokes as car thieves, stolen goods dealers and so on. I remember well jokes like "Visit Poland, your car is already there." And many, many similar ones. Know what? We were then laughing at the same jokes, because, in our hearts, we knew they were quite true. Know what else? We didn't cry how Western racists are making ugly jokes about us and it hurts our feeeeelings (ok, some did, but they were a minority). We knew we had to work really hard and long to earn back our self-respect, and respect from others. In this order. And we did. I remember how, in the early 2000s we were poor supplicants begging to be admitted to the EU. Admitted we were, but with an extra humiliation - seven years of being officially second class member state. We swallowed this bitter pill, and many, many other ones. And we worked really hard all along. Know what? Now we have lower crime, cleaner streets, safer subway than most of Western Europe. We may be still somewhat behind on GDP, but we're no longer the poor neighbors the Westerners can humiliate as a matter of course. Our compatriots, who left twenty years ago to work in the West start returning home. It's safer and nicer, and they bring their own, not stolen, cars. Now we look with disbelief at the cesspools many cities, or their quarters have become. We look with disbelief at gang violence in the West, worse than the one that plagued our cities in the nineties. We look with disbelief at what the Spaniards allowed to happen to Ceuta, and are proud at how our authorities handled our border crisis. We welcome foreigners, provided they want to live and work here. If they want to become our people, most of us are more than happy, but that really means "become our people", not "get a passport for some years' stay". Yes, we know it's hard, but looking at the West, we know it's also necessary. That's why we ask this from others. And if they prefer the easy way, well, our police is no joke, and neither are our prisons. We know we have still lots of work to do, and we will do it, sooner or later. Probably sooner. In the nineties hardly anyone would believe we'd achieve today's level today, we expected it to take generations, we still wanted to do it all, for our children and grandchildren if not ourselves. And, last but not least, we know we don't have to give a slightest fuck about some Belgian shithead lumping our "fellow citizens in with drunken louts who defecate in the street and assault passersby" because we know its this shithead who's still living in the nineties, not we.