Ideally, Polish Muslims should be subjected to secularization processes, and Islam in its mainstream Polish form should assume forms capable of functioning well with the rules of a democratic-liberal society. Such Muslim circles should also enjoy special support from the state and local government - for example, in the form of the possibility of renting premises in the center of Warsaw.
This text has been auto-translated from Polish.
As is well known, the Polish right-wing cannot function without whipping up moral panics, mobilizing fears of more or less imaginary threats and waging media crusades against them. In this key, in the last dozen years or so it has already fought against "gender ideology" and "LGBT ideology," the European Union's allegedly pending compulsion to "eat worms," and threatened the migrant "invasion" taking place only in its minds, the proof of which was supposed to be photos of people of non-white skin color peacefully standing around or walking in the space of Polish cities.
Recently, she started heating up a new topic: mosques in Warsaw. It started with a social media post by MP Sebastian Kaleta (now of the Law and Justice party, formerly Sovereign Poland), warning that with Trzaskowski's approval, a mosque was to be built in the very center of Warsaw, in the Marszalkowska Residential District. Right-wingers on social media wrapped this information in the expected narrative: Tusk and Trzaskowski are planning to flood Poland with migrants and are Islamizing the capital to that end.
One right-wing columnist, prone to exceptionally amusing outflows, even began to spin an apocalyptic vision of Marszalkowska Street dominated by kebab bars and barber shops for men - implicitly, from the Middle East - just as has happened in "Islamized" Dublin. One can only wonder when the author last stepped out onto the street of a Polish city, since the kebab appears to him to be a harbinger of the Islamic apocalypse that is denationalizing the Polish capital.
As is generally the case with panics stoked by politicians like Sebastian Kaleta, it all turned out to be another incarnation of the old joke about oxen being handed out in Red Square. Yes, the only bidder in the competition for the lease of the city property on Marszalkowska Street was the Muslim Foundation for Education and Integration, planning to run a store, community center, conference center and prayer hall there, but the city has not decided to sign it.
Religious freedom is also granted to Muslims
And here the topic could be closed, if it weren't for one thing: what would be wrong with a Muslim center, even with a prayer room, standing in the center of Warsaw? When responding to similar campaigns by the other alt-right, it is worth not only pointing out that they are based on ignorance at best, fake news at worst, but also raise questions that challenge their very assumptions.
And the assumption behind the panic filmed around the alleged "mosque on Marszalkowska Street" is deeply problematic: for behind the campaign is the conviction that religious freedom in Poland is not fully enjoyed by Muslims, and even if some followers of this religion have already found their way to Poland, it would be best if they did not flaunt their faith in public, and certainly should not be facilitated by the state or local government.
Meanwhile - as much as it would not shock Law and Justice or Confederation MPs - in Poland Muslims enjoy exactly the same religious freedom as Roman Catholics or Reformed or Augsburg Evangelicals. After all, Islam is professed not only by migrants, but also by Polish citizens - including Tatars, whose allegiance to the Republic even the right wing likes to emphasize. Any male and female citizen can adopt this religion. Some part of the Islamic migrants will stay here for a long time, get citizenship or have children with Polish citizens.
All these groups have constitutionally guaranteed freedom to practice their religion, which also means the right to erect temples, cultural centers, conduct missionary activities. And very well, let the best win in the free market of religion.
Out of concern for the historical substance of the city, it would probably be inadvisable to build a large mosque with a dome and minarets near Warsaw's or Krakow's old town, but I see no reason why a Muslim cultural-religious center should not stand on the MDM site, adjacent to the Catholic Church of the Most Holy Savior and the Methodist parish. If Muslims had a good idea for such a center, it could enrich the neighborhood, expanding its spiritual and cultural offerings.
Stigmatizing Muslims is a recipe for radicalization
There is a problem of radical Islam in Muslim post-immigrant communities in Western Europe. One can understand that it raises fears and concerns in Poland. In planning migration policy, it is undoubtedly necessary to take into account the fact that migration from countries where Islam is the dominant religion raises particular social resistance in our country. The discussion about which area we would prefer to migrate from is most legitimate.
We also have the right to expect Muslims living in Poland to abide by the laws and rules of social coexistence prevailing in Poland, related, for example, to gender equality and the presence of women in the public sphere, or freedom of speech - followers of Islam must accept that they live in a country where one can freely publish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Although the most traditionalist part of the still-dominant Catholic religion in Poland also has a problem with accepting that freedom of speech, including, for example, the right to satire aimed at religion, should not be restricted in the name of "protecting religious feelings."
Certainly, it would be best if Polish Muslims were subject to secularization processes, and Islam in its main Polish mainstream took forms capable of functioning well with the rules of a democratic-liberal society. Such Muslim communities should also enjoy special support from the state and local government - for example, in the form of the possibility of renting premises in the center of Warsaw.
At the same time, the best formula for the radicalization of Muslims living in Poland is the stigmatization of Islam as a religion inherently incompatible with Polish reality and unable to find a place in it, organically linked to anti-Enlightenment obscurantism or even terrorism. This could easily turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially if this narrative is accompanied by policies that overtly discriminate against Muslims.
Campaigns on X will not stop civilizational change
Poland will secularize, and the Catholic Church will play an increasingly irrelevant social, cultural and civilizational role - even if it decides to make the necessary deep reforms to bring the institution in line with the values of developed societies in the 21st century. With the demographically necessary influx of migration, there will in turn be an increase in the social importance of religions historically playing little (such as Islam) or virtually no (such as Hinduism) role in Poland until now.
These processes will not be stopped by campaigns on the X portal. The panic around mosques and alleged "Islamization" will not halt the decline in the importance of traditionalist Catholicism, which has been the electoral base for the conservative right over the past 30 years - and it is the electoral aspect of civilizational change that hurts it the most.
Instead, we can create a worse or better model of a diverse society, better or worse reconciling the coexistence of an increasingly secular majority with various religious minorities: from conservative Catholics to liberal Jews to moderate Muslims and Hindus. I have no doubt that the panics that the right wing is trying to whip up, whether around mosques or blacks on the streets of Polish cities, are pushing Poland toward the worse.
