Writing a erstwhile column to this magazine on the humanitarian crisis at our east borders, I did not anticipate to get back to this subject so quickly. I am encouraged to reflect on the events related to the premiere of the movie Agnieszka Holland "Green Border".
An highly moving movie by our distinguished manager shows the drama of refugees on the Polish-Belarusian border in a real to pain and at the same time objectivized way. So we have a tragic position of the Syrian household trying to get to Poland, a point of view of the hesitant experiences in the forest of the Border defender soldier, the optics of activists from the Border Group, performing heroic work in the forest and the decisive aid of the psychotherapist from the city, who after traumatic experiences settled in Podlasie, on the border area.
So we see a wide spectrum of this picture, a cruel and complex communicative that has been happening in front of us for respective years. It is simply a universal film, showing the faces of human nature – a large fear, a conflict for survival, cruelty and moral dilemmas, but besides heroism, empathy, love for man. As Agnieszka Holland herself said, it is an arch-Polish film, showing besides the beautiful face of the Polish soul. Meanwhile, the premiere of the film, which due to the show at the Venetian festival fell in the mediate of the election campaign, caused an unimaginable, unprecedented storm of hatred for the manager and her film.
The anti-immigration and anti-immigration messages were on the forehead. It turns out that the run of hatred against the Green Border is perfectly compatible with the subject of the electoral campaign, that is, spreading the fear of illegal wave of refugees, which is expected to flood Poland and make our lives hell. Returned to a proven recipe for the nation's enemy. All of this was reinforced by a referendum campaign, especially 1 of the questions that de facto came down to whether the majority could take the minority's right to dignity and respect.
The Green Border is simply a movie we needed. besides to return to what we sometimes seem to forget: that people die on the Polish-Belarusian border. They frequently die in silence and in oblivion. It's a movie that was expected to knock us out of the comfort region and remind us that humanity, empathy and compassion are for everyone and can't be part of a political game. Agnieszka Holland points out weaknesses not only of the Polish Border Guard. It is besides critical of the EU's migration policy, signaling cruelty not only at the Polish-Belarusian but besides at the confederate ends of the European Union, where the scale of crisis, suffering and death is incomparably greater. East-, Central- and West-Mediterranean routes have been bringing a immense wave of refugees to Europe for years before wars, poorness and hunger.
The manager of activists' voices shouts protest against the full helplessness and inability of EU institutions and associate States. The EU programmes of 2014-2015 have completely failed, they have been allocated by far insufficient resources. Neither was it possible to prevent, at source, the process of mass migration itself, nor to master the logistics of the movement of people and their integration into society in fresh places.
A fresh migration pact is now being created for the Union, which has become an excuse for manipulated, untrue propaganda. Tales of “forced relocation” are the best example of this. The migration pact provides for a solidarity mechanics which can be implemented by Poland in 3 different ways – by adopting an adequate, proportionate number of migrants, by paying an appropriate amount or operating aid, i.e. sending services and equipment to the external borders of the Union, supporting patrol boat crews, etc. Poland, as a consequence of a peculiar algorithm, would presume about 2.5 1000 people each year or execute replacement commitments.
We have an chance to learn a lesson from the Green Border. Poland, as a country that I hope will regain its fast-founded position in the Union, will be able to give fresh impetus to Europe, and given the experience of its east “green” border, usage it to build a smart and effective EU migration programme, based primarily on respect for human rights
and his needs.
