THE IMPACT OF IMMIGRATION CRISIS ON EUROPE’S CULTURAL CONDITION: WHY ARE THE POLES ‘APPREHENSIVE’ ABOUT MUSLIMS?

Abstract

The 2015 immigration crisis revealed the weak cultural condition Europe finds itself in, given the adoption by a majority of states of a model for development that deliberately severs ties with common civilisational roots. However, while Poles do not really nurture prejudices against either Islam or immigrants, a decided majority of them (and even Poland’s political elites, notwithstanding all that divides them) voiced their unwillingness to accept new (mainly Muslim) arrivals, in the context of a solution to the above crisis the EU was intending to impose. A change of policy was thus forced upon the Union by Poland and other CEECs, given the latter’s strong guiding conviction that pursuit of a multicultural ideology leads to a weakening – rather than any improvement – in the condition of culture in Europe, and hence to a sapping of the continent’s power in the international relations sphere. As the crisis has made clear, the EU will probably have to start taking more account of preferences in this part of Europe, i.a. as it strives to shape its cultural identity. This means opportunities for the political science of religion to research the likelihood of a return to the Christian component of European identity, as well as the role this might play in improving the cultural condition of this part of the world.