The Guardian: Don't judge Poland by what has happened here since 2015

For many, including successive generations of Polish leaders after 1989, this meant anchoring the country in western political and security institutions and adopting the liberal democratic values that underpinned them. But others, who regard godless liberal rationalism as little more than a variant of Soviet social engineering, harboured the delusion that the west represented a kind of pre-Enlightenment medieval Christendom. As they have become disabused of this fantasy, so many are creeping towards the conclusion that they are stuck within a value system they do not believe in. Membership of the European Union meant money and respect, but little attention was given to the nature of the transformation of the Polish economy and society – and the ensuing obligations – that would accompany it.

In retrospect, it seems a miracle that liberal democracy took hold in Poland in recent decades in the way that it did. Contrary to national myth, which often confuses the long-held desire for national liberation with a genuine collective commitment to democratic values, the democratic tradition was never very deeply embedded in Polish society. Liberal democratic values in Poland have long had to contend not only with the legacy of communism but also with that of a peculiarly Polish brand of national Catholicism that shares with communism a commitment to hierarchy, dogma and ritual, and the associated authoritarian vices of ignorance, passivity and paranoia that have come to the fore in recent years.[...]

For some Europeans, the fact that the Polish crisis has reached this point constitutes proof that the country should never have been allowed to join the EU in the first place. This is deeply unfair – Poland should be judged on the achievements of the last 30 years, not the events of the last three. But it does serve as a reminder that it was never Poland’s “destiny” to be so deeply embedded in the west. It was a choice, and it is a choice that must be renewed by each successive generation if it is to be sustained. As the British are finding out at the moment, the decision to pursue a European future can be “unmade” more easily than you think.  

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