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The pseudo-colonial takeover of Poland that this article alludes to was already unmistakable when I visited some three years ago. The cities — especially the ma
by zukzuk 9y ago
The pseudo-colonial takeover of Poland that this article alludes to was already unmistakable when I visited some three years ago. The cities — especially the malls and shopping districts — looked much like they do in western Europe, completely dominated by western European retailers and brands. The people wandering through these stores though looked dazed, alienated, and entirely out of place. This is what they wanted and what they fought for — western plentitude, with all those shiny, colourful goods they dreamed about. So why isn't it making them happy?
A big part of it may be that eastern Europeans are now effectively strangers in their own land. They have no sense of ownership or agency. During the day they work for foreign corporations, usually in low-level positions, and then in the evening they go out to spend their wages at those same foreign-owned establishments. This is definitely neoliberal colonialism, and it will not end well for everyone involved.
- jedrek 9y agoAre you serious? If you saw anybody under 42 they didn't do shit to fight against Communism, as they were 16 years old - TOPS - during the first free elections. Maybe they didn't seem happy because Eastern Europeans don't walk around with fake smiles on their faces.
- keymone 9y agotoo much doom and gloom. The EU is comfortably within top 3 of largest economies in the world (2nd place after china in 2016) and most countries and certainly most citizens of the EU have profited more than they've lost/compromised by joining the union.
- forapurpose 9y ago> why isn't it making them happy? The parent comment's evidence that it's not making them happier - "The people wandering through these stores though looked dazed, alienated, and entirely out of place." (during the commenter's visit to the mall?) - is a bit sparse.
- kome 9y agoPerhaps your language is a bit too "colorful,” but I don't think you are wrong and I don't think you deserve those down votes. I have made similar observations myself in Hungary.
- smcl 9y agoYou're painting Poles As backward and unable to comprehend or adapt the change that's gone on since the revolution in 1989, and it's absolute nonsense. I've been in Poland and didn't see any "dazed, alienated, and entirely out of place" people in any of the redeveloped areas.
- gerikson 9y agoWalk around in any shopping center in Sweden - a country that has had agency over its history for centuries - and you will also see people who look dazed and alienated. This isn't a symptom of a national malaise, it's simply being tired.
- toxik 9y agoI think it's just the increasing levels of stress in the general population. People looked forward to tomorrow, and thought it would be good -- people would work less. Tomorrow came and it meant more work, for less relative wealth.
- saiya-jin 9y agowtf are you blabbing about? people have freedom of speech, thought, travel, and they are massively better-off than they were during communism (pardon, 'socialism'). there are issues, of course, like everywhere else. malls are pathetic places anywhere, why the need to judge nations by these strange merits?
- emptyfile 9y agoHow the hell is this comment upvoted, it's insulting beyond belief. I guess the solution could be to concentrate the poor backward slavs into some kind of fenced areas where they can live their primitive lives in peace without disruption from the outside world.
- kome 9y agoThat's really not the point of his comment, at all. He is not saying that CEE is backward. He is saying that the economic life in CEE is almost outside the control of local populations, because everything it's already controlled by western corporations.