Football and Rasicm

Did anyone see the Panorama programme last night? The one about thugs in Poland and the Ukraine. Interesting that the BBC news in its reports emphasized Ukraine but the situation in Poland was equally disturbing.

Those who have known me for a long time will be aware of my deep and somewhat irrational feelings about the Poles. Perhaps the fact that my maternal grandparents had left Poland because of anti-semitism might have been an influence. My grand mother never admitted being able to speak Polish though my mother said she could.

During World War 2 there was a lot of enthusiasm in both Poland and in the Ukraine for the Holocaust, many Poles and Ukrainians joined in the slaughter of Jews very enthusiastically. The depressing things is that such attitudes still seem to be very strong in those parts of Eastern Europe. It is just not antisemitism that is strong, we saw Asians being beaten up by the crowd.

It reinforces might feelings that it was a mistake to admit Poland in the EU before Turkey.  The reason for the opposition to Turkey was religious and pro-Greek. The same reasons why the EU admitted half of Cyprus. It always seemed daft to admit the Greek half only. The terms of the agreement should surely have been that Cyprus could only join when the to halves had been united.

Somehow the idea that modern day Greeks are the forefathers of democracy is a romantic illusion, If it were not for the Muslim and Jewish scholars the so-called civilized west would have completely forgotten the ideas. Remember it was the "civilized" Christians who brought antisemitism to Spain!