[orleyhuxwell]

I'm Polish and I was positivity shocked that we oppose it. I remember attending some protests against ACTA which as far as I remember was supposed to be something similar, back in my student days. It was -17°C and people still showed up. Apparently we have some culture of opposing censorship and invigilation by state. May come in handy if the democratic decline keeps progressing...

[warkdarrior]

Do you mean "surveillance" by the word "invigilation" here?

[subscribed]

Could be a wordplay due to the fact "invigilation" can be translated to and from the Polish word with a _very_ heavy and long connotations to the USSR state surveillance, oppression and abuse.

Surveillance would be a more "modern" (even if more natural or seemingly correct word), without this sort of the implied baggage.

[pietmichal]

It's not a wordplay. Poles usually make a mistake because "invigilation" sounds english enough to them and just assume it is an english word.

[orleyhuxwell]

Yes it was my mistake, exactly the case you've described.

[Imustaskforhelp]

If we are talking about freedom fighters, Polish freedom fighters/struggles are second most influential to me after my own country especially because of Witold Pilecki.

I once wrote a paper about Witold pilecki for my english project for who I consider to be the most influential person or something similar.

I picked Witold pilecki because I had read a book which talked about him and it captured so much of my mind.

For those who don't know, Witold Pilecki is a polish person who was the first and perhaps only person who willingly entered holocaust/auschwitz and then he was the first person to realize all the horrors happening inside, He then used washing machine parts (iirc) to send the signal to the allies, who COULDN'T believe what Pilecki said was happening. The amounts of Atrocities they thought wasn't possible.

When he found out that help wasn't coming, He decided to free himself and He accomplished doing that by taking a job at something bread related who then ends up leaving.

He then married an Polish teacher (iirc) and had kids but after Russia had won over Polish, he was fake trialed and he was falsely accused of treason.

His last words were, "I've been trying to live my life so that in the hour of my death I would rather feel joy, than fear."

On a personal level, when I was writing that project and this line, I genuinely believe that this might be one of the most influential lines to me that I have ever heard which has genuinely influenced me.

It was during this project that I found Sabaton from trying to research about Witold pilecki and found so many gems that Sabaton is quite part of my music taste now :-)

Sabaton- Inmate 4859: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pc1oSYXlUQ (This song is about Witold Pilecki)

Sabaton Uprising: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzeNBRbWXpI (Another Polish warsaw related song that I found after I had discovered Sabaton from the Inmate 4859 song)

I hope that you are proud of your heritage/nation. I am sure that Poland might have flaws too but I do believe that its history is quite rich and something to be quite proud of.

I am surprised not more people know about Witold Pilecki but I hope I am doing my part raising awareness about that hero.

Within my country, some of the revolutionaries which feel influential on such level to me feel most importantly Bhagat Singh, Subash Chandra Bose, Chandrashekhar Azad. These are also people who have influenced me.

There is also the story of how an Indian ruler hosted Polish WWII refugees[0] and helped them within his kingdom, which I am not sure if many Polish know.

While I was writing this comment, I discovered a good song about Indian revolutionaries as well which I feel like sharing too: Krantiveer (Revolutionary): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uXZG0pTxME [Turn the subtitles (on)]

I think my point can be summarized by a quote from Subash chandra bose, that freedom is not given, it is taken.

[0]: https://indianexpress.com/article/research/the-good-maharaja...

[orleyhuxwell]

Thanks for sharing that! I actually know very little of Pilecki, because I was mostly hearing about him from far-right teachers & I have an allergy to personality cults.

Ironically I've spend a lot of time reading about Gandhi .

But I will read more on him, and also about the 3 revolutionaries you mentioned.

> I hope that you are proud of your heritage/nation.

We're in this weird limbo in Poland, all the patriotic stuff has been hijacked by the virtue signaling (far)right and the centrists and left didn't bother to fight for it (even though all the remaining veterans of Warsaw Uprising were protesting the takeover).

I am proud, but it takes an actual effort to remind myself, that a real thing exists below the surface layer of daily politics...

[Imustaskforhelp]

It's sort of sad to see that Pilecki has been used by far-right teachers for their own cult as you mention because Pilecki fought against the fascism of both the german far right (Hitler/Concentration camps) and Russia (Stalin) at the time.

> Ironically I've spend a lot of time reading about Gandhi .

> But I will read more on him, and also about the 3 revolutionaries you mentioned.

Indian revolutionaries can be divided into two parts for the most part, some wanted peaceful changes and some wanted change through actions. The 3 I mentioned are revolutionaries within the second aspect.

I am personally not a big fan of gandhi given his personal history and controversies, but I am a fan of the satyagrah movement and the people who participated in them like gaffar khan,sarojini naidu and our second prime minister, lal bahadur shastri.

Within the satyagrah movement, I am particularly a fan of Shastri Ji as he might've been the humblest prime minister of our country and he was closely linked to the satyagrah movement, when our nation was going through a acute food crisis, he asked his wife while being the PM of the nation to not make food one time (so only 2 times) as he could only urge the people of the nation to do the same if he and his family could do that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eauajC1U0X8, Here is one of the rare interviews he did outside of India as he was very focused in the nation himself. This might be the reason that many outsiders dont know him whereas gandhi used to travel quite frequently (as far as I can remember)

I also recommend watching a more personal movie about gandhi and his relation with family called "Gandhi, my father", its available on Youtube for free. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7jcXv5MwMU) which shows the troubled history gandhi had with his son

My thoughts on gandhi are a little nuanced. He was good for the nation in the movements but his personal life was also controversial and its best to view him as such and view both his flaws and positives about peacefulness in a more holistic manner while also taking a look at all the other people within the satyagrah movement like Shastri Ji for example and also people who sacrificed their lives for the nation like Bhagat Singh in hopes for a freed India.

> We're in this weird limbo in Poland, all the patriotic stuff has been hijacked by the virtue signaling (far)right and the centrists and left didn't bother to fight for it (even though all the remaining veterans of Warsaw Uprising were protesting the takeover).

if I have to comment on Indian politics right now, I would say that the media is at its weakest and feels very fake at times that independent channels are usually the ones only left if you want nuance. India's far right feels more religious rather than economical to me because economically, the far right is still having "freebies" but in some sense, they help the poor. Its the middle class which struggles a bit within India (I am from middle class :[ ) but overall, I am a bit happy in how our country is handling its geopolitics (India feels unique in the sense of its a friend of both Iran and Israel, a friend of both Us and russia, our only enemies are probably Pakistan and China and Pakistan is in a bit of quarrel with Afghanistan and isn't so much of a threat as China is, which is realisticly the only genuine threat that I can feel towards India)

It's a very unique country for the most part. I have written quite a lot about India on hackernews, so feel free to search it on algolia[0]

I do feel like India is an land of co-existence with both Human and animals as well. We all have our flaws but our diversity and heritage is truly rich and I hope that India can uplift itself in the future even more.

It is great to hear though of how each of our culture impacts the other. How polish culture/Witold pilecki influences my Morals and how on the other hand you are also interested within the Indian culture while at the same time we are both proud of the base realities of both nations but also realize its flaws and hope to improve nations.

I wish for Poland to have a great future ahead :-)

(https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)

Edit: I also recommend reading about Lal Bal Pal and the radical movement if you are interested to know about the anti-colonial movement within India as well whose combined with all of the nationalists that I have mentioned within the list ultimately led to the independence of India.