AFTER A FOUR-hour layover at Frankfurt International airport, I finally boarded the plane to Warszawa (Warsaw), the business capital of Poland. Padre Luis met me at the airport. Two priests from India and I were given a quick tour of Warsaw before we took the bus to Pieniezno, three hundred miles away from Warsaw, where the 3rd International Assembly of International Catholic Missiologists would be held.
There are 36 million Poles and around four million are in Warsaw. Ninety five percent of Poles are Catholics. Poland has a lot of history punctuated by cultural and political upheavals. Poland as a nation came into being in the second half of the first millennium. Polish people belong to the Slavic stock of Indo-European peoples and they were basically dwellers of the field (thus the word Polish or Poland from “Polanian” tribe).
In 966 AD, Mieszko I, the second leader of the “Polanian” tribe was baptized and embraced Christianity. Poland was a multicultural state prior to World War II and for almost a thousand years Poland was a country of farmers. After the Second World War [1944-1989], Poland was under a communist regime. One can still see the communist monument at the center of Warsaw that remains as a constant reminder of the suffering that the Polish people had to undergo for forty-four years under the communist rule. Nevertheless, for one thousand years a strong Catholic faith has been the source of strength and unity of the Polish people. In just a matter of seventeen years since 1989, when through the influence of John Paul II, the communists finally left Poland, one can feel a new sense of enthusiasm among the Polish people accompanied by a rapid progress in economy and infrastructure as Poland joins the European Union [2004].
As I was listening to the stories of Padre Luis, I felt a mixed feeling of hope and pity for the Philippines. Poles are proud of their country and their language. But like Filipinos, they are family-oriented and hardworking. What characterize Polish people are the clarity of their identity and the collective memory of their own history. They had been through difficult times but they never gave up their identity and faith in God.
I am sure that we, Filipinos, are proud of our own country. However, unlike the Polish people, we cannot speak of one common language but we are proud of our divesity. I also doubt whether many of us in the Philippines have a clear idea of our Filipino identity that is beyond festivals, costumes and food. Like the Poles, we have been through difficult times but the difference is that we have never really recovered from crises as shown by the fact that many Filipinos still see their life as bleak and hopeless. In 2006 alone, 1.52 million Filipinos have left the country as overseas contract workers. Even if the government trumpets an increase in economic growth yet the happiness index of Filipinos remain very low. We, Filipinos, have a strong faith in God yet as we pride ourselves to be the only Catholic country in Asia, we also have to contend with the perception that corruption and poverty are becoming popular impressions of our identity aside from our boxing popularity in the world.
It might be too much to compare the Philippines with Poland but I always believe that there is always something that one can learn from an encounter with another culture.