It's decidedly worrying, Paul. Maybe it's why lots of the young are leaving? To understand the Polish people and culture would take a lifetime of study to an outsider. Historicaly the country has seen more flux than any other European country I think. It has in it's history been changed, re-shaped and occupied by more outsiders than anywhere else. There has been times in it's history where little has existed at all apart from a small area around Warsaw. Where else in the last 60 years has been an independant nation, occupied and ruled by Nazi Germany, all but ruled by Soviet Russia, been goverened by a Trade Union and produced a Catholic pope?

I suspect that the nationalism there is direct backlash to those years of being governed by extreme factions. Much the same as the nationalist reactions in both East Germany and Cossack Ukraine. The religious side of it is, in my opinion, part of that nationalism due to the countries undoubted religious ties. As Ard Mhacha is now saying it is the young people leaving Poland that want to have little to do with that religion. Understandably so in my view. With reference to this argument the country will be undergoing a political and religious freedom they have not seen for many years. Possibly much akin to England (and Ireland of course) emerging out of the 'Curse of Cromwell'.

Little aside - My Grandparents, as I said, left Byelostok (or Bialystok to give it the more suitable Polish spelling) at the tail end of WW11. They lived near the Jewish Ghetto which all but wiped out the Jewish population of that town. They both literaly risked life and limb to smuggle books and possesions out of the Ghetto for safekeeping and to pass to the surviving relatives. I never found out what became of the stuff! Interestingly enough Bialystok now has a very high proportion of Moslems in place of the Jews. Remember Cheetham Hill from your days round here? It is pretty much the same there but for much different reasons of course!

Cheers

DtG