Is Poland ready for multiculturalism? This was the leading question put on the floor by Mrs. Agnieszka Kosowicz in her speech on refugees and migration policy in Poland.
In order to better grasp the whole dimension of migration and integration in Polish society, she stressed the international context and global interdependencies of the topic. Since Poland has signed up the UNHCR Geneva Convention on Refugees in 1991, 60.000 people have applied for becoming refugees in the country and over 3.000 people have been granted the status, most of them originating from Chechnya or the Balkans.Although numbers are margin compared to the huge migration streams e.g. across the Mediterranean, and, along with that, the refugee quotas of other European countries, major problems appear when it comes to the administration and integration of refugees in Poland.
The lack of a coherent migration and integration policy leads to random decision-making based on each individual cases, which let us Fellows come to the conclusion that from the government point of view there is still a long way to go until Poland is ready for embodying different foreigners seeking protection in Poland, and multiculturalism as a consequence thereof.
When we look deeper into Polish society in terms of the Vietnamese minority, Dr. Teresa Halik pictures their story as a division into forced and voluntary migration.
The first Vietnamese settlers came to Poland in the context of American-Vietnamese war in1970’s in order to build up a future political elite of post-war society. These immigrants were highly appreciated by Polish as friendly, open-minded and extremely civilized, well-educated professionals and tradesmen. A picture which lasts until today, although the „2nd wave“ of Vietnamese migrants in the 1990’s came with a very different motivation:As young middle-class citizen they use already existing „migrant nets“ in Poland to seek for a better future in economic terms. Interesting to us, the Fellows understood the Vietnamese community as an extremely proud and conservative society in terms of traditions which is, on the other hand, well-integrated into Polish society. This is partly due to a economic win-win-situation for Vietnamese and Polish society as well as we found out due to the common catholic belief which plays a major role when it comes to shared values.
Moreover, the Fellows discussed intensively the different perceptions of life in a Confucianism compared to a western model of society and the role and categorization of Human Rights according to these terms. Interestingly enough we examined the different shapes of „duties“ and „rights“ and its reflection in nowadays Vietnamese and Polish society, which gave us all an enriching perspective and more food for thought.
After all these interesting inputs, it was time for us to put all the theory into praxis. In our Fellow’s Discussion we focused on a practical elaboration and implementation of a simulative Polish migration policy, both from the refugees as well as from the government’s point of view. Our group leaders had prepared the five following questions for us, on which we discussed intensively our respective vision:
1.) On what basis to grant a refugee status?
2.) How to prove the need to be given a refugee status?
3.) What should the status of refugee entitle to?
4.) Stages and means of integration of refugees into society
5.) How to treat applicants during the application consideration process?
To our all surprise we found out that both parties, government and refugees, were e.g. advocating for an immediate temporary work permit for refugees in order to allow a better integration into local society as well as to take off part of the financial burden from the state as fast as possible.
In a second phase Fellow’s had organized a role play in order to get a better practical experience and understanding of what it means to decide on individual refugees cases. In order to perform this, seven examples were given from which a „court“ out of the group had to decide in favor of only three cases. This was a good conclusion of the day for us incorporating also the first session in the morning and making the day complete.
Topping this rich day full of thought and experiences off, we had - in line with the topic of multiculturalism in Poland - an intercultural evening altogether. Organized for us by the HiA staff in Warsaw, this was taking place in a private flat and we had really great fun! Divided in our four groups of origin (Germany, Poland, Ukraine, USA) we came up with small and funny presentations of our home countries involving the whole group and then enjoying ourselves taking the opportunity to socialize even more and learn to appreciate the colorfulness and diversity of our group, which was great!-Katharina Timm (German Fellow)
