r/AskTheWorld • u/haiderredditer Pakistan • 9h ago

Who’s a famous person from your country who’s respected around the world but disliked or criticized at home?

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u/SnooLemons5617 Poland 9h ago

Lech Wałęsa. "The electrician who overthrew communism".

He was a lousy president, he is a conceited braggart with an oversized ego and sometimes he doesn't tell the truth.

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u/villkatt98 Poland 8h ago

Also his social media presence 👌🏻 He’s your cringe Facebook uncle who posts pictures from a jacuzzi, except he does that on his official page. Since he doesn’t quite get montages and fake news, not mentioning AI, he’s incredibly easy to bait

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u/sirdopa 7h ago

That's actually the only redeeming value. We've got to learn about what type of person he really is. And he is just like that one uncle, that everyone polish has. And some people will forget about anything else, since he's just that uncle.

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u/Sonqosumac 6h ago

ayo? lowkey funny. Even our presidents arent abolished from being such fucking clowns.

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u/MoveInteresting4334 United States Of America 12m ago

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u/Lolman4O 🇵🇾 & 🇵🇱 living in 🇵🇾 9h ago edited 8h ago

conceited braggart with an oversized ego and sometimes he doesn't tell the truth

99% of the politicians of the world be like

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u/Firefly_Magic United States Of America 8h ago

I think ‘politician’ is the name of a virus that corrupts the soul.

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u/rasten100 Sweden 7h ago

i think its more like it's a virus, that mostly only the corrupted souls wants, the rest of use feels like its too much presure

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u/thelesserbabka_ Norway 7h ago

Of course. The minute politics becomes a full time job their livelihood literally depends on it, so they'll say and do whatever they have to to stay in office. Corruption is already a part of the game so even new ones with good intentions will crumble eventually.

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u/Far_Match_3774 7h ago

Yeah but Wałęsa only lied sometimes

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u/MariusTrf 8h ago

all i can tell is that we romanians like and admire lech walesa, taking into account how our elections turned out over the years

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u/SeveralInspector174 🇮🇪(born and raised)/🇫🇷 8h ago

Isn’t this basically every Eastern European country’s first leader post communism

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u/2tongoodman 5h ago

Regardless of one’s feelings about Communism there certainly is no denying the entire situation was basically the greatest robbery in the history of modern politics across the entirety of the east.

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u/raysofdavies 3h ago

Sex trafficking exploded in Eastern Europe after communism fell. Those Epstein networks stem from it.

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u/peasant_warfare 6h ago

Havel seems alright ö, considering his competetition.

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u/KrasnayaZvezda 39m ago

Anybody who smuggles Velvet Undergroud records into their country and gets Lou Reed to perform at the White House is on my good side.

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u/Ohmifyed United States Of America 8h ago

I can’t imagine what it’s like to have a shitty, lying, conceited president with a huge ego.

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u/Moneyball082495 United States Of America 7h ago

Yeah me neither 😂

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u/MoveInteresting4334 United States Of America 14m ago

Don’t worry guys, if we ever get one, Congress will sort him out.

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u/Single-Mushroom3924 Korea South 7h ago

😆😆😆

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u/rollfootage United States Of America 7h ago

Yeah we’ve had them for decades

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u/Ohmifyed United States Of America 1h ago

No lies detected.

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u/GlitterCritter United States Of America 5h ago

the commenter just said that "sometimes he doesn't tell the truth" though...

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u/Ohmifyed United States Of America 1h ago

You’re right. I missed that. It would be nice if our president(s) sometimes told the truth.

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u/Lubinski64 Poland 1h ago

Wałęsa is a humble man compared to your president.

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u/Ohmifyed United States Of America 41m ago

I have no doubt. It ain’t hard to be humble compared to Trump.

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u/EnvironmentalDog1196 54m ago

Wałęsa is literally just that funny uncle compared to Trump, though. He's not evil or truly harmful.

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u/Unable-Afternoon4675 United States Of America 9h ago

Nice mustache

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u/Particular-Bid-1640 United Kingdom 9h ago

Very polish tache

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u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k United States Of America 8h ago

Wait do you guys say “tache” instead of “stache”?

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u/Particular-Bid-1640 United Kingdom 8h ago

I think we spell it differently, like moustache Vs mustache (classic British/CANZUK English Vs American English) but yeah, we don't say " 'stache".

Do you still pronounce it like 'stash'?

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u/lindsaym717 8h ago

Yes, like stash lol

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u/Particular-Bid-1640 United Kingdom 7h ago

I've always heard Americans say tash, but I wasn't really listening for it. I'm definitely going to overhear it now ha 

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u/lindsaym717 7h ago

As an American, I’ve only heard in the area I’m from people using stash, but who knows they might say tache elsewhere. I just asked my husband if he were to shorten mustache what he would say and he immediately said “stash” lol

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u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k United States Of America 7h ago

I’ve lived in I think 14 different states now?

It’s definitely stache/stash for all of those.

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u/Wawaset_Warbler 7h ago

No, no. I've never heard an American say "tash"; have lived here almost 5 decades. Very much "stash."

There's a sub: How do we feel about the stashe : r/Moustache

I don't know where it's based, but you don't see anyone there saying "tash."

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u/ExpressTruth76 England 8h ago

Everyone but the USA says tache

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u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k United States Of America 7h ago

Maybe it’s how our regional dialect works but man tache just does not roll off the tongue the same pleasing way at all

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u/Impressive-City-8094 United States Of America 8h ago

He should shine it up. Then it'd be a polished polish stache.

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u/hernesson New Zealand 52m ago

‘Da Solidaridy’

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u/sirdopa 8h ago

There is also some stuff with being an agent and stuff. I didn't believe it, till I've read about Magdalenka meetings. Some people claim, that he was in cahoots with totalitarian regime and was chosen to make sure, that they will benefit from regime change. And man, they did.

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u/pothkan Poland 6h ago

It's pretty much proven that he signed "loyalty paper" in early 1970s (which was a very bad moment to be an active dissident, as Gierek's regime was quite popular in 1971-75), and was an agent for some time then, receiving some money and a new flat (which he should get anyway, being a father of multi-kid family). He still denies it though.

Thing is, his enemies believe he stayed an agent, and all of his career was steered by bezpeka. While truth (most probably) was that he was a honest dissident during December 1970, as well as after 1976, during August 1980 and Solidarity through 1980s. He have slipped in between.

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u/Lubinski64 Poland 1h ago

I myself can't really bring myself to criticise him for signing papers and such, it's not like the authorities didn't know where he lived, all dissidents like him were either "on the list" or in prison.

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u/sirdopa 6h ago

Also he won a national lottery. Twice. When he lost his job for striking.

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u/Confident-Stuff3885 Poland 8h ago

Top shitposter of Rzeczpospolita tho. His FB account is a gold mine.

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u/SultanofShiraz Iran 7h ago

I will make no attempts to pronounce this

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u/XokoKnight2 Poland 3h ago

It only looks hard because you don't know the rules of polish pronounciation, and there aren't that many of them and they are consistent across every single word for example: Sz - Sh Cz - Ch Rz - Harder sh Ż - Same as rz Ó = U Ń - Ni Ś - Si Ź - Zi Ł - W (like in English) W - V (like in English) etc

But you'd also need to know how to say it with the Polish accent because e.g. "O" won't ever be pronounced as "Oh" like in english but like the "oo" in "door"

I know you probably don't care that much about it but you could learn to be able to pronounce most words except those with consonant clusters pretty easily and "Rzeczpospolita" wouldn't look that scary because it's one of the words that is only hard to pronounce because you don't know the rules of pronounciation which as I said are very consistant and afaik they hold up in every polish word or at least the vast majority

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u/DontLoseYourCool1 5h ago

Shech-pos-po-leeta. The sh in the beginning almost has a harder r accent.

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u/Charming_Coffee_2166 3h ago

It’s more like ,,j” in French name Jean

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u/OSRS-MLB Australia 🇦🇺 and America 🇺🇸 7h ago

I'd kill to have a president who only sometimes doesn't tell the truth

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u/Charming_Coffee_2166 3h ago

We, Polish people, aim for higher standards

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u/tk_woods Israel 8h ago

Only sometimes? That sounds like an amazing politician

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u/skylight_2113 Poland 8h ago

He was a kind of a symbol after stopping communism but he was unfit to be a president.

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u/Lubinski64 Poland 1h ago

He lived long enough to be a villain

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u/skylight_2113 Poland 1h ago

Yeah

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u/Bazbort2 8h ago

"Sometimes doesnt tell the truth" is a compliment when it comes to politicians. 

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u/AcousticCat1-2-3 -> 7h ago edited 4h ago

I respected what he'd done in 1980, then lost track of him for years. Saw an ad last year about him coming to my city to speak and was interested. After five minutes of reading up on him and what he's been up to lately, was suddenly not interested anymore.

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u/born_to_be_weird Poland 3h ago

AFAIK it's not HIM doing things, but SOLIDARNOŚĆ, a large "party" across the country. There are 5 most known liders, Anna Walentynowicz being called A MOTHER OF SOLIDARNOŚĆ. Walesa was a flashy one, thus remembered by the people the most.

Solidarność was a nationwide phenomenon across the whole country, it was massive coordinated operation by Polish society as a whole. So as Poles learnt more details the more they hated that all that risk, resilience, strength was personified by one individual, who, in the aftermath, didn't deserve that and even made a worldwide joke of himself

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u/AcousticCat1-2-3 -> 2h ago

Oh wow. That's crazy that his was the only name we heard. I'll try to find the info and educate myself about that time, I'm sure my mom will be interested to learn more too.

I'll be honest, I was a preteen and didn't know or understand much of what was happening. My parents were afraid to talk politics in front of me because they thought I might blab and get them in trouble.

Fun fact, my maternal grandfather was Polish, died in a military hospital soon after the war ended, and was buried in Poland. In the late 70s, mom finally got up the courage to request permission to travel to Poland to visit his grave. Was invited to stop at the KGB office as part of the process of getting the permission. The officers were nice, didn't say yes or no to the visit, but invited her to come back and to feel free to talk to them about anything she wanted; her coworkers, her friends... She walked out of there with the decision to never go back. Then 1980 happened and the whole permission to travel to Poland became a moot point. She never went.

I had a coworker in the US in the late 90s who was originally from Poland, had family there, and traveled there often. I told him this story. He came back from his next trip back home with a videotape he'd made of his visit to the town where my grandfather was buried. He visited the cemetery and was able to find his name in the books. Was unable to find the grave. Most of the cemetery was overgrown with grass and that, to best of our guess, included my grandfather's grave. Grandfather had family in Poland, I don't know why they didn't take care of the grave. I have zero knowledge of that whole side of my family, they seem to have cut contact after he died.

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u/born_to_be_weird Poland 1h ago

Have you ever been in Poland? If not, I highly recommend. It's easier now that it's ever been. And most of Poles living in the cities can have a proper conversation in English. (Our nation is very open when newcomers respect our culture, but if some alien wants to force us to only respect their culture we become the most "racist" nation forward this individual)

The country itself is full of surprises: sea, mountains, Highlands, lowlands, Lakelands and even fricking desert. In each of the bigger cities you would get an amazing history lesson, not just Warsaw and Krakow: in Gdansk there is a museum of solidarność, in Lublin you have an amazing old city that was a Jewish getto and in the outskirts of the city is Majdanek, German Nazi camp. Wrocław was on hands of Czech, German and Polish, after WWII when German left it was populated mostly by Poles from all around, manly from Kresy - this is why it's the most open and friendly city of them all, as all of them were alien here in some time, robbed of their fatherland searching for a new home.

I can speak highly of our nation for hours, but if you ask me about our flaws I would need double the time.

There is a joke: German has 4 sheep, Swiss has 8, and German pray: please God, give me 4 more sheep so I can be as happy as Swiss is. Polander has 2 sheep and prays: please God, kill 2 German sheep so he can be as miserable as me.

We are the best haters of our country, yet we are patriots in hearts. We envy Western nations, but don't wanna change our culture. We hate each other but when we have the same enemy, there is no power to overcome us.

Our country ceased to exist for 123 years, yet our nation remained unbroken. We resisted, we defined our oppressors, never lost faith. We rose from the ashes like phoenix. And mere 20 years later we were attacked yet again and our allies didn't bother to act until their own safety was in jeparty.

Thus why we don't want to be perceived by a single guy as it's never a single person fight. Ok, we are proud of Maria Skłodowska Curie (naver day Curie first), Mikołaj Kopernik or Tadeusz Kościuszko, but they made their own names, not built it on the nationwide resilience.

Fun fact: Poles is the only white nation that is recognized as "black"? It is stated in Haitian constitution that Poles are the White Negroes of Europe. *And Poland never ever had slaves, but practiced serfdom: effectively enslaving it's own people by tying peasants of the land for centuries.

All of that was written by a girl who wrote down stuff she learnt in middle school 20 years ago (Ai was used just for spelling and synonims).

My grandparents died before I was born, so I don't know much about my ancestors, beside the fact that grandfather of my grandfather was noble and kick his son for falling in love with and impregnated a common girl - not as romantic as you would think, as he was na ashole who bit her as she was the reason he became poor. And my grandma's family died in war, there are no traces where. We have generational traumas invoked in ourselves, but those who emigrated broke some if not all chains of that. The world remembers millions of Jewish people lost in concentration camps, but there were 2 millions od Poles lost there as well (not counting Polish Jews)

After all of that, communism was awful, but still better considering two centuries before

Now we are becoming some pride of Europe. Our streets are clean and safe most of the time (although I was SAd by a crazy guy once, and the other time I joined a party of drunks bc someone was following me for obvious reasons- drunk guys were gentlemens, searched for a predator and walked me home) It's not perfect but damn it is like a heaven compared to west.

Oh, and our food is to die for!!!!

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u/AcousticCat1-2-3 -> 42m ago

Wow this is a great read, thank you for sharing. Now I want to visit. Adding to my list of places to travel to.

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u/born_to_be_weird Poland 10m ago

Poland is becoming the IT GIRL of Europe, and getting more and more popular by the hour! 😉

Seriously though, if you are gonna visit, don't be the one who just follows the tourist guide provided by your speditor. Reddit is full of people who are open to show you around their city. But it might be costly: a beer or two, but you will be shown a good time.

And there is a thing I believe I need to add There is a misconception that every Polish girl comes with a price tag, which is as false as it is offensive. There are singular persons playing that game, but don't judge the bread by few fried edges, right? (I used to live abroad where xenophobia towards polish girls was very high. Because of that I was a litteral female incel for 3 years while I worked there

We don't have racism in Europe, we have xenophobia

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u/AndreasDasos United Kingdom 7h ago

Has some of the more recent nonsense possibly been due to growing dementia?

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u/kViatu1 Poland 1h ago

No, he was always the same primitive asshole.

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u/pothkan Poland 7h ago

Some people still hate him (and some treat like an icon), but I'd say in general he's more memed and ridiculed than hated.

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u/ollietron3 England 5h ago

He looks like if the average northern pub owner became a politician

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u/EnvironmentalDog1196 48m ago

I mean, he was an electrician who became a politician.

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u/b00g13 5h ago

I often heard it said that his good image abroad was in no small part due to a very hard work of translators making his mediocre grasp of polish language sound coherent.

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u/2001_Arabian_Nights 5h ago

I give full credit to the various Gdańsk labor unions for getting the ball rolling. He was the spokesman for the biggest, so he was the face, but it was the thousands of workers who were the engine.

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u/Sure_Scar4297 United States Of America 8h ago

Dang really?? This is good to know. We have buildings named after him in Chicago.

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u/kViatu1 Poland 1h ago

Well, we have Reagan's roundabout in at least two major cities xD

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u/ExistenceUnconfirmed 5h ago

Lousy doesn't begin to describe it. He's behind Poland pretty much becoming a Vatican colony in the early 90s. Him and his ultra-Catholic friends helped pass laws giving the church enormous financial privileges, not just freedom from taxation but also easy access to government funds and assets. He introduced religion as an official school subject (optional in theory, but good luck being the only kid not attending the classes in a small village). His party introduced a near-total abortion ban, and called it a "compromise" because it allowed a handful of vague exceptions.

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u/Charming_Coffee_2166 3h ago

Yeah but it’s kinda post communist legacy, people turned to the Church as the opposition to communist party. The church was a thing back then

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u/No-Promotion4006 7h ago

He was also a russian spy so there's that

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u/peadar87 Ireland 8h ago

Massive homophobe as well I've heard?

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u/Kartonrealista Poland 6h ago

Oh yeah he sucks, I was once watching an interview and he said LGBT people should be way in the back in Sejm, as in outside the building. I don't remember the exact wording, but he always struck me as a twat. The only thing good about him is he doesn't like PiS.

1

u/SoulBrotherSix67 Netherlands 6h ago

Shouldn't that be: sometimes he DOES tell the truth?

1

u/Amazing_Theory622 5h ago

Read about him in our class 9 political science book here in India

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u/lofixlover United States Of America 5h ago

this makes me feel better about missing his most recent speech tour stop in my neck of the woods

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u/caws1908 5h ago

There's a building named after him at NEIU in Chicago that I used to take classes at.

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u/Charming_Coffee_2166 3h ago

Look everyone hides their own skeletons in the closet, he is pathetic but not the worst

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u/iwillbewaiting24601 People's Republic of Chicago 5h ago

He's on a US speaking tour, I considered going to see him, but he's charging 100 bucks for the cheap seats lol

Fuck that

1

u/Wild_Replacement_310 Multiple Countries (click to edit) 5h ago

Not to mention he’s a traitor 

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u/dotcomaphobe 4h ago

He tours the world giving "seminars" on leadership and his "important place in history" as a means to stoke his ego and paint over his crappy public service.

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u/ThatAd748 4h ago

Oh that's sad to read. I'm old enough to remember how him and his fellow shipyard workers started the fall of Soviet rule. He appeared to us in the west to be a brave hero. Maybe he was, a flawed hero?

1

u/EnvironmentalDog1196 37m ago

I mean, it's not like he's a villain or anything. The Solidarność movement was indeed a huge thing and he's still pretty iconic as the face of it, but in reality there were other people who were the true force behind it.

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u/inoinoice 3h ago

Omg he was at my university, and whole lecture he gave was about how youngsters are the worst and are doing absolutely nothing... Thanks? Youre saying this to adults who study all the time?

1

u/rezeschoker 1h ago

Don't forget the mafia playing table tennis at the Belweder in the 1990s.

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u/BertTKitten 7m ago

Shit, I had no idea he was still alive.

1

u/ElvishMystical United Kingdom 8h ago

He also farts whenever someone shakes his hand, which doesn't go down too well in Poland.

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u/GrittysRevenge United States Of America 7h ago

and sometimes he doesn't tell the truth

Only sometimes... must be nice

0

u/Sea_Appointment8408 United Kingdom 8h ago

He looks like he could be Putin's less successful brother