Creating the Polish stereotype

To make the world around them less complicated, the British have – as indeed all peoples – devised simple stereotypes to help them understand their neighbours and other foreigners. The Frenchman has perennially been portrayed with his striped jersey, beret, Gauloise dangling from lip, string of onions, bicycle. The German, pompous, in lederhosen, intent on invading other countries or nabbing the sun beds. The lustful yet jealous Italian lover, the American tourist totting multiple cameras, the shifty work-shy Arab. Yet there is no stereotypical Pole in British popular culture. No Manuel from Faulty Towers. No René from ‘Ello, ‘ello. No Crocodile Dundee. The sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of Poles spread evenly across the towns and cities of the United Kingdom must undoubtedly result in a new stereotype being created.

What will it be? Is it indeed possible for Britons to have positive stereotypes of other nations? Prickly Poles? Impatient Poles? Complaining Poles? Poles taking umbrage all too easily? Poles making no attempt to disguise their hypocrisies?

Oliver Pratchett’s ‘Honest guv, we’re not your cowboyskis’ (Sunday Telegraph, 27 August 2006), is the first article I’ve seen in the British press attempting to create a recognisable Polish stereotype. Pratchett’s Polish builders are over-qualified (one’s a gynaecologist, one’s an economic adviser, one’s a former foreign minister, the fourth’s actually the Archbishop of Warsaw); they are homesick (for Łódź, Katowice, the Carpathian Mountains); they miss Polish food (goose, carp), and haven’t caught on to local ways (dumping rubble in neighbour’s skip, dismantling motorbikes in the bathroom). Accurate? Partially. Humorous? Very. Indeed, were Fawlty Towers to be remade today, Manuel, Polly, O’Reilly (the jerry-builder) and Stubbs (the reliable builder) would all be Polish.

If anything, Poland in the British mind has been a drab, post-communist country of grey tower blocks, crumbling soot-stained heavy industry, toothless peasants, a vodka-swilling people who may or may not have once been part of the Soviet Union. Or Russian Empire. Or something. Ah yes, Lech Walęsa and Pope John Paul II.

But an older stereotype of Poles lingers from WW2 days;the dashing, courageous yet ultimately tragic fighter, doomed to an émigré’s existence, forever dwelling on a lost fatherland.

Layer upon layer, the British will construct a new and viable stereotype, I just hope it's rich and not one-dimensional.