I wrote many articles on this subject, which were published in four countries with large Polish diaspora: the USA, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, and of course in Poland. I wrote about the influence of the Polish community in regaining independence by Poland, about its economic and intellectual potential.
Kuryer Polski, of which I am the editor-in-chief, shows in two languages the profiles of great Poles from the United States who devoted their entire lives to the idea of free and sovereign Poland. Many of these articles concerned pro-Polish lobbying around the world. In Poland, I published them in leading independent media and the most important national publicationss. In my presentations, apart from the diagnosis, I always try to show strategies for implementing these changes.
I promoted pro-Polish lobbying at several large conferences. My presentation was on the website of the National Institute of Strategic Studies. I tried to reach ministries and other government agencies with this project.
How to build lobbying in the United States - the Hungarian solution
The Republic of Hungary has about 10 million inhabitants, which is as much as the estimated Polish diaspora in the USA. The Hungarian diaspora in the USA has about 1.6 million Americans of Hungarian origin. Its history dates back to 1849, but the largest wave of immigrants came to the United States after the memorable year 1956. A breakthrough in relations with the USA, just like in our Polish case, comes in 1989, and after Hungary joined NATO, serious cooperation begins. The Hungarians are also sending their military contingent on a mission to Afghanistan.
The Hungary Initiatives Foundation (www.hungaryfoundation.org) was established in 2016 in Washington, and its director was Anna Smith Lacey, a Hungarian diplomat. The mission of the Foundation is to improve understanding and cooperation between the United States and Hungary. The members of the Foundation Council are representatives of American and Hungarian diplomacy with names such as April Foley and George Pataki. The Foundation focuses on promoting Hungarian-American organizations, trying to revive and integrate them. The Foundation focuses on training the young generation of American-Hungarian leaders through the Meridian International Center and aims to use the infrastructure of American think tanks, foundations and other institutions in Washington.
Another area of activity is the diaspora digitization program. First of all, increasing the diaspora's activity on the Internet by helping to obtain grants for setting up websites, digitizing archives, and creating an online archive system for people who left Hungary after World War II. The Foundation clearly explains the principles of awarding grants in terms of American law. This activity is best characterized by numbers.
In 2016 alone, 94 grants were awarded, 23 scholarships were awarded, and 42 organizations were supported. The total amount spent was: $608,320. An up-to-date database of all Hungarian organizations in the USA was compiled. For 31 celebrations across the United States, $262,120 was spent.
10 people were involved in the internship system at the Foundation and other organizations, and their salary amounted to $99,200. $101,000 was spent on US study scholarships for 13 people.
With the Foundation's current assets of $15,767,793, total expenses were $782,912. By following the activities of the Hungarian diaspora, it was also possible to reach the Hungarian English-speaking media. Their number is impressive for a country with a population of 10 million. Here are the most important of them: "Budapest Times", "Budapest Panorama", "Diplomat Magazine", "Funzine", "Trade Magazine", "Best of Budapest", "Budapest Business Journal", "Hungary Around the Clock", "Hungary News "," Portfolio ".
The Irish example as one of the good solutions
We all probably remember the great investment boom that took place in Ireland. There were a number of studies on this subject, but none of them focused on the simple fact that it was due to the effective cooperation of the Irish diaspora and the government in Dublin. According to the most famous researcher of this diaspora, prof. Christine Kinealy, there are 70 million people of Irish descent worldwide. The most, 39,285,000 live in the USA. The basic tool of cooperation is an open and transparent program of cooperation between the government and the diaspora entitled: "Global Irish-Ireland's Diaspora Policy". The vision of this policy is expressed simply: "Our vision is a vibrant, diverse global Irish community, connected to Ireland and to each other".
In Ireland, there is only one political center that works with the Irish diaspora. In an interview with the minister for the Diaspora, Ciarán Cannon, we find the most important statement: "We need to know what the diaspora wants". Ciarán Cannon is one of Ireland's leading politicians and one of three ministers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Every few years, this program is carefully modified.
Ireland has 5 consulates in the USA, 12 honorary consuls, and 3 professional government agencies — 2 for business, and 1 for tourism — operating in major US cities. Coupled with the organizations of the Irish Diaspora, it is a powerful engine for Ireland's economy.
The Polish reality
Let us try to look at some facts, make a modest analysis of them, and indicate some directions for integrating the Polish diaspora.
Recently we asked several MPs from PiS (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, Law and Order Party) about who in Poland is responsible for cooperation with the Polish diaspora. Most of them indicated Minister Dziedziczak, others indicated the Marshal of the Senate Stanisław Karczewski, still others indicated the deputy commission for liaison with Poles and the Polish diaspora, still others pointed to the Senate commission for communication with Poles and the Polish diaspora, others to minister Kwiatkowski from the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland, also Senator Anders, MP Gosiewska, Minister Macierewicz, the US market section of the office of Prime Minister Morawiecki, clubs of "Gazeta Polska" edited by Sakiewicz, and the family of Radio Maryja. So we have a long list of various centers of power and influence that are trying to influence the fragmented and heterogeneous centers of the Polish diaspora, and perhaps this influence does not go in a clearly defined direction.
I would like to mention that the realities of practical communication with all these offices are the bane of many Polish activists. Some of these offices, for example, provide telephone numbers that are only open during [Polish] office hours. Nobody takes into account the time difference. And regarding replying to our e-mails, one could write a serious research paper. Since 1989, no real program of cooperation with the Polish diaspora has been created, nor has any government center been established that would try to create such cooperation. There is no current research on the Polish diaspora or even a report on the state of the Polish diaspora. A large number of organizations and foundations in Poland simply leech off this cooperation, drawing public money from government funds and other sources allocated to the Polish diaspora and the Poles in the Borderlands.
The conclusions are obvious. There is no clearly defined direction of cooperation. Lack of tools in the implementation of the Polish diaspora policy. Lack of real knowledge about the Polish community abroad and its possibilities in implementing the state policy.
The potential of the Polish Diaspora
Americans of Polish descent are richer than the average American ($79,000 compared to an average of $63,000 in terms of annual family income) and are better educated (36% as against 28% have graduated from university). "The majority (71%) declare to belong to the Roman Catholic Church." [6]
The intellectual background of the Polish community
Just like in Poland, parents invest in their children and try to send them to the best universities in the United States. This is a sizeable investment as the average annual undergraduate degree costs $33,215 (www.collegeboard.org), Master's degree programs cost annually, depending on the specialty, from $30,000 to $120,000 ( www.bestmastersdegrees.com ), and doctoral studies cost annually, depending on the specialty, from $53,625 to $113,035 (www.collegedata.com). I have only provided data for public universities.
A well-educated American of Polish descent with a doctorate, from the very beginning, is worth around $250,000. Polish student clubs exist and are being established at universities, from the East Coast to the West, to Alaska and Hawaii.
Students from Poland constitute a large and constantly growing group. They need a plan, a vision that unites them around common goals. One of such tools could be the idea of creating a transparent scholarship system. Apart from the Kościuszko Foundation, no other Polish community organization has yet developed a truly legible, accessible and stable scholarship system. To be serious about creating pro-Polish lobbying in America, scholarships play an important role here.
We are also waiting for research projects and programs for our students and scientists from Poland. Without intellectual background, it is impossible to build a Polish lobby. An important role in this process is played by Polish scientists working in the USA, American scientists of Polish origin, and others who deal with Polish issues.
"The Kościuszko Foundation decided a few years ago to prepare a list of recognized scientists of exact sciences and this is how the Collegium of Issuer Scientists was created," says Marek Skulimowski, president and executive director of the foundation. "In this way, the foundation has compiled a list of nearly 400 eminent professors of science, which is constantly growing. The next step in the near future will be the creation of a similar list of eminent humanists - Collegium of Eminent Humanists."
Initial estimates say that in the United States alone, there are over 800 [Polish] tenure scientists. "From instructor to professor" is a serious group of people with enormous intellectual potential that cannot be underestimated.
Polish scientists work at hundreds of universities around the world and this group should also be the driving force of development in Poland, and Polish universities. Research and development centers and government centers of various levels should strive for them. Exactly as the Second Republic did.
Financial resources of the American Polonia - the largest middle class outside Poland
The financial resources of the American Polonia, based on the data of the Polish & Slavic Credit Union, indicate the average savings per person at the level of $17,500. And these are just the savings of a diverse group of 100,000 Polish residents from the New York, New Jersey and Chicago area. It is easy to quickly multiply these amounts to get the astronomical amount of $1,750,000,000. Let us remind you that the entire Polish diaspora in the USA is estimated at 10 million.
The overall Polish diaspora, as a group of 20 million, which accounts for 40% of all Poles in the world, is a powerful political and intellectual force with enormous influence in various areas of social life. It cannot be underestimated on the American political scene.
Recently, a lot has been said about innovation, creativity and the possibilities of the Polish economy, forgetting an important fact. Every year, Polish diaspora from the United States (not to mention other countries) sends about USD 900 million to Poland (based on the World Bank, prepared by the Migration Policy Institute). These funds are comparable to those invested by foreign companies.
It's worth referring to the best practices...
The Jewish people have the best lobbying in the world, based on various organizations, and their goal, regardless of the profile of the organization, is to work for the benefit of the State of Israel, whether it is a prayer group or a discussion club about the superiority of the concave over the convex.
In every state in the United States, there are at least 3 independent such organizations that monitor the world's press, media, and public education programs in addition to their core activities. They are all involved in world politics. Each executive director is a full-time employee of a given organization and has key skills in the field of cooperation with the media. Most of these organizations are interconnected in such a way as to provide immediate action in all states simultaneously. These organizations are generously financed by the Jewish diaspora and other institutions influenced by the Jewish diaspora.
A great example is NPR (National Public Radio), the public radio in the United States, where the largest percentage of donations comes from the Jewish diaspora. Let's not be surprised that many programs are about the Jewish diaspora. The diaspora itself is perhaps more politically divided than the Polish diaspora, but there is always unity and full support for the state of Israel when it comes to the Jewish cause.
Israel's ambassador to the US was an American of Jewish descent, and in Israel it didn't bother anyone that Ron Dermer — raised in Florida and educated in the best American universities — speaks and acts like an American. He has many colleagues from the time of his university studies, which is a huge social capital.
Israel currently has as many as 8 consulates in the US and actively supports the Jewish lobby. Prof. John Mearsheimer, in the book which became a bestseller in the US in 2008, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, shows how the network of connections from former officials, politicians and influential representatives of a given diaspora, businessmen and — most importantly — journalists, should work. In Polish diplomatic missions, even consuls for the matters of the Polish-diaspora must be Poles from Poland. Let it be a somewhat bitter conclusion of this thread.
American Polonia — the current state
The Polish diaspora in America has never experienced such a crisis as at present. The presidential election in the United States polarized the Polish diaspora thoroughly.
During the campaign, attempts were made to engage on both sides of the political spectrum, but Trump's staff did not take seriously the efforts of the Polonia group on his side this time. Biden himself spoke about the Polish diaspora in an interview in the New York Times, saying: “We stopped appearing in the Polish-American club. We stopped showing up and we all went to you, really smart people."
Let me remind you that during the Clinton-Trump presidential campaign, the latter met in Chicago with a group of activists from the local Polish community, while the Clinton staff refused to meet. The Polish community, however, was unable to take advantage of the winning streak during Trump's tenure. No American of Polish descent who comes into contact with the Polish diaspora has been nominated for the ever-changing Trump administration. In conclusion: Donald Trump's term in office did not bring much to the Polish diaspora. It brought benefits to Poland, but not to the Polish diaspora. Now a pandemic has added to the political difficulties and has brought any action to a halt.
The last action of the American Polonia was the performance of a spectacular lobbying campaign in 1994 for Poland's accession to NATO. Prof. Donald Pienkos wrote about it in the pages of Kuryer Polski. At the time, president Edward Moskal collected 9 million signatures of American citizens and sealed Poland's accession to NATO.
As early as 1989, the round-table agreement assumed the political alienation of the Polish diaspora, as expressed by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland Mazowiecki during his visit to London. When asked why he did not meet the President of the Republic of Poland in exile, Ryszard Kaczorowski, he replied that "it would be humiliating towards President Jaruzelski."
Thus, since 1989, governments have not established political cooperation with the Polish diaspora, despite the fact that at that time it had active structures and still had a strong influence on American politics. Hopes for such cooperation arose after 2015, but the Polish community abroad has long been systematically extinguished. At that time, the Polish community demanded that Warsaw conduct a vetting of former SB agents in the structures of the Polish community. However, no one knew that most of them were recruited after 1989 and continued to destabilize all Polish political actions. We all remember the attempt to extradite a suspect in the case of the murder of the Polish police chief. The US Department of Justice, however, strongly refused to hand over the suspected perpetrator to the Polish Minister of Justice.
The flagship projects of the Polish diaspora, once built on traditional values, began to be "modernized". After Poland joined the European Union, research programs on the Polish diaspora in the USA were discontinued in order to finance other research by European Union funds.
In the United States themselves, as part of the new political correctness, leaders with highly conservative roots were sacked. These, in turn, tried to build new conservative projects that never reached a professional level. Also, it has never been possible to build a solid counterbalance to the projects taken over, albeit of a liberal nature. The polarization is progressing, and the State Department is discreetly watching the collapse of the Polish diaspora, once a major driving force and influence on American politics.
Since Poland's accession to the European Union, we can see that the interest in the Polish diaspora by the Polish government has significantly decreased. Research on the Polish diaspora has been completely abandoned, and the knowledge of it is so insufficient, that the Polish political class has heard little about us. The knowledge by the average Pole from upon the Vistula River about the Polish diaspora is negative, and further negatively stimulated by silly films and superficial programs by the entire army of people in Poland who "deal with the Polish diaspora". As a liberal diplomat from Krakow explained to me, the vectors of foreign policy changed after 2004 from interest in diasporas being replaced by multicultural issues.
Paderewski's leadership in the USA - A case to study
The result of Ignacy Paderewski's three-year work in the United States was the recruitment of over 20,000 volunteers to the Polish Army in France, the so-called Blue Army, commanded by General Józef Haller. It is also important that Paderewski had an impressive social infrastructure, namely hundreds Polish community activists and organizations that recognized the authority of the "master" and followed his leadership, as well as the Polish press.
It is worth mentioning at least some of them here: Dr. Teofil Starzyński, Jan Smulski, Franciszek Dziob, Jan Styka, and Władysław Benda. Paderewski has created a huge intellectual and financial base around the "Polish cause". He delivered over 340 speeches and personally wrote thousands of letters to important personalities of American life. An important fact was the diplomatic efforts of Polish organizations, and above all the personal influence and friendship of Ignacy Jan Paderewski with the President of the United States, Wilson. Thanks to the personal involvement of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, President Woodrow Wilson signed a decree on October 5, 1917 allowing Poles from the USA to form their army. Since American law did not allow for the training of a foreign army on its territory, Canada came to the rescue, giving access to the area near the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. The camp was named after Tadeusz Kościuszko.
On January 8, 1918, the United States officially took a stance as well. The American president Thomas Woodrow Wilson, addressing the US Congress then, stated in item 13 of his program:
An independent Polish state should be created, which should include territories inhabited by the undeniably Polish population, which should be provided with free and safe access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by an international treaty.
The spectacular activities of Polish patriots in the USA, led by Ignacy Jan Paderewski, led to the creation by Herbert Hoover of the organization for the American relief effort in Poland. This American government organization, together with other organizations such as the Polish-American Children's Relief Committee, donated $250 million to Poland. It must be remembered that the value of the dollar in the pre-depression period was astronomically high. [$250 million in 1923 is $3.8 billion in 2020 (dollartimes.com) – ed.]
Financial aid for Poland did not end with regaining independence, but it continues to this day. Walking through Polish streets, we never wonder which house was built with the money from Polish emigrants. The Polish community in America, during the Second World War and during the communist period, took over the important duty of representing the historical truth and preserving the Polish national identity. However, it was under surveillance and successfully broken up by the communist services.
The Paderewski Institute in North America
The Polish community abroad is the greatest ambassador of Poland in the world. I do not want Polish diplomats in the US to remind me again that I do not always write well about the government, but — after a few years — we have to start noticing certain facts.
In order to defend Poland's good name, especially in countries of strategic importance to Poland, the Polish diaspora must have appropriate tools. The most important of them is Polish English-language television, which would promote the Polish raison d'état 24 hours a day. It is necessary to invest in the Polish community media and connect them into a strategic network. An example of such a medium is Kuryer Polski, as a bilingual portal emerging in the USA, reaching Americans of Polish origin, the global Polish community and Poles in Poland. Such projects, however, cannot just bounce off the bureaucratic machine in Warsaw.
Creating a network of multilingual Polish diaspora media connected strategically in countries important to Poland is an important step that nobody talks about. Why do we, the descendants of the Chodkiewicz, Sobieski, and others, fall so far behind Hungary?
Let us set up, like the Hungarians here in the US, a government foundation that would support building a pro-Polish lobby. Let's hire the best professionals from the USA, Canada and Poland. Let it be the "Polska Team", a team of professionals who speak and write in English and Polish, who would be able to build such an integrated network of Polish media and organizations. By making this investment, we could restore the former importance of pro-Polish lobbying in the US for decades.
The greatest deficit in the Polish community in America is a complete lack of leadership at the national level. The activity of the Polish community is limited to traditional balls, taking selfies, and getting excited about new gadgets. The Polish diaspora policy boils down to the usual existence and making sure that no one comes up with anything or forces the "permanent ones" to do a specific job. The pandemic put the Polish community to sleep just as it put the rest of American society and the American elites to sleep. After the last elections, everyone is so polarized, that it is difficult to meet someone with whom you can find a common language even in your close neighborhood.
But it's time to wake up. It's time for organic work again — training leaders and future politicians of Polish origin. The Polish diaspora in America must re-introduce their representatives to the US Congress. It must have governors, state officials, city presidents, and other prominent representatives in US government agencies.
It is also a fact that American Poles work at the lower levels of the American administration. To advance, they need a political springboard to promote them. The Polish diaspora should, above all, create a sensible political program that would allow it to influence American domestic and foreign policy. For any significant changes to occur in the world of the Polish diaspora, a profound generational change is also needed. The policy of mere existence turns into a slow assimilation of the Polish diaspora.
A similar situation prevails in Canada and other strategically important countries for Poland, such as Germany, France, Great Britain and the Benelux. Each leader has their own priorities, which are steered — more or less discreetly — by individual political factions, often of the same party in Poland. At present, we are standing alone under pressure on Poland from the United States, Germany, the European Union, Israel and Russia.
It is time to create professional, pro-Polish lobbying in strategic countries for Poland, and to invest in the collapsing Polish diaspora media. The network of Polish diaspora media and strategically connected organizations in countries important to Poland is an important step and the most important priority that nobody talks about. The Polish diaspora around the world has the potential that can not only help strategically support Polish interests, but also help change the image of Poland.
Translation from Polish by Andrew Woźniewicz.
