對波蘭右翼六萬反伊斯蘭示威的幕後報導
Like hundreds of thousands of her compatriots, Anna Lachowska left
her native Poland shortly after its accession to the EU in the hope of finding
opportunity elsewhere in the bloc.
The journey
first took her to Ireland, then the Czech Republic, and later to the UK
where she spent a decade living in the capital London.
It was
there that she underwent a spiritual transformation leaving the Christianity of
her upbringing behind for a faith few in her native land knew much about.
"Islam showed me God like I had always felt I seen," she
told Al Jazeera, describing how the decision prompted a reaction of
disappointment from her mother.
Initially heated conversations about Islam, however, turned more
conciliatory and eventually Lachowska's mother came to defend her daughter's
decision.
"Whenever she is on the phone with some relatives from
Poland, if they say something 'anti-Islamic', she bravely argues with them,
defends Islam, defends my choice, alhamdulillah (thank God)." (因為在英國入教的波蘭人)
Refugee
crisis
Lachowska's relatives are not alone in their negative opinion of
Islam and the scale of anti-Muslim feeling in the country was on display at
Saturday's Polish independence day march, which drew around 60,000 people, many of them
from far-right groups.
One banner
carried by protesters showed a trojan horse labelled "Islam" attempting to
enter a fortress marked 'Europe'.
Inside the
trojan horse was a stereotyped caricature of Middle Eastern man with a long nose
wearing a suicide vest and carrying a banner, which read "I'm a
refugee".
Fears of Islam and an influx of refugees to Poland, similar to what
neighbouring EU countries experienced, have been amplified by politicians and
sections of the media, according to Konrad Pedziwiatr of the Cracow University of
Economics.
"Most
of the information people get about Islam and Muslims come from the media and
what has been happening over the last few years especially is this tendency to
lump together the issues of terrorism, the refugee crisis, and Islam," he
said.
"You
always had politicians who had strong opinions against Islam, but the refugee
crisis helped jack the cause and helped the Law and Justice party come to
power." (難民議題是一個製造恐懼的主因)
Poland's largest party came to power in 2015 on a platform of restoring Polish pride and keeping refugees out of the country.
Poland's largest party came to power in 2015 on a platform of restoring Polish pride and keeping refugees out of the country.
Pedziwiatr explained that the rise of Islamophobia in political
life had been in tandem with increasingly unfavourable coverage of Muslims in
the media, especially state media outlets.
"Whenever
the issue of Islam and Muslims is there, it's always (represented) in a super
negative way," he said. (其次媒體對伊斯蘭的報導也是一個因素)
The combined effect of villified political and media discourse on
Islam, he argued, has brought about a "banalisation" of Islamophobia
and led to many Poles holding inaccurate perceptions about the Muslim
community.
Muslims make
up just 0.1 percent of the Polish population or around 35,000 people, including indigenous
Polish Muslims, such as the Tatars, converts, and immigrants from all over the world.
However,
the average citizen believes the number is much higher.
"Poles
hugely overestimate the size of the Muslim community, the average that
people think is seven percent, which is ridiculous because it means over two and a half
million people," Pedziwiatr said, explaining that such perceptions were of
"the Polish fear of Islam and Muslims".
Historic ties
While Poland's Muslim population is small,
Islam has a presence there dating back to at least the Medieval era.
The Lipka Tatars are a Muslim community
descended from Mongol conquerers who later served as soldiers for a succession
of Polish monarchs.
Though initially thought to have numbered in the tens of
thousands, the
community now has just over 10,000 members, with just under 2,000 remaining in
Poland,
due to border changes and assimilation into the wider Polish community.
York
University academic Kasia Narkowicz told Al Jazeera that Islamophobia had been
brewing in Poland for years, in keeping "with broader global trend of
anti-Muslim sentiments
She argued that in that atmosphere the historic contributions made
by the Lipkas were largely forgotten.
"When
I did research on Islamophobia in Poland in 2011... people spoke about the 1683
Battle of Vienna, which they perceived as a key event where Poles stopped
Muslims at the gates of Europe," she said.
"Now
they are using another battle, the 1571 Battle of Lepanto, as example of Polish
resistance to Islam that saved Europe from 'Islamisation'.
"What
many ... do not realise is that many of the soldiers fighting for Poland at
that time were indeed the Tatars, Poland's Muslim minority."
Narkowicz
was keen to stress that Poland was once home to more Muslims than it was likely
to have in the near future.
"Muslims in Poland have practiced their religion freely for
hundreds of years without any issues ... many Poles who are now worried about a
Muslim invasion are completely unaware of [this history]."
Perspective
For Ana
Lachowska, while the rise of Islamophobia in her native land is worrying, it is
important to put the trend into perspective.
Now a
resident of France, she described how she was asked to remove her headscarf
while waiting in line for a travel pass, something she said would not have
happened in Poland.
"I am
a proud holder of a Polish passport with a hijab photo and it wasn't a problem
to make it," she said.
"It's
not that I am fixated about the scarf, but I cannot agree with the French
fixation on this ban.
"Poland
is better, more open, more respectful in this matter. "
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