Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski made the remarks on Monday in Wrocław, southwestern Poland, during the Re_Mind Psychological Congress and Festival, where he spoke about war, fear and the fragility of social order.
Sikorski said that shortly before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, he had spoken to a Ukrainian delegation at the Munich Security Conference.
"A few days before the Russian invasion, I told the Ukrainian delegation that an attack was coming," Sikorski said.
He added: "Of course they did not want to believe it. Their political leaders did not want to believe it either. Ordinary people did not want to believe it, delaying evacuation until the end."
He said he did not find that reaction surprising because most people resist the idea that the rules and protections of ordinary life can collapse suddenly.
Sikorski said Russia's war against Ukraine had shown how quickly basic assumptions about personal safety, privacy, property and social trust can be destroyed.
He added that fighting is now taking place at times only kilometers from Poland’s border, while missiles, rockets and drones strike Lviv and surrounding areas in western Ukraine.
"Still, many people cannot imagine that this could also happen in Poland," he said.
Sikorski drew on William Golding’s 1954 novel Lord of the Flies, about British schoolboys stranded on an island after a plane crash, as an example of how fragile civilized behavior can be under pressure.
"The line between so-called high civilization and what we call savagery is in fact very thin," Sikorski said. "Members of even the wealthiest societies are not free from primitive instincts."
He argued that war can destroy social order, but the aftermath of war can also help build a new one.
He pointed to the European Coal and Steel Community, the forerunner of the European Union, as part of the postwar effort to place key war-making industries under common control. He also cited the United Nations and the UN Charter as attempts to create safeguards after World War II.
Sikorski said similar efforts after World War I had failed, with the League of Nations unable to play the role for which it was created.
He warned that more than eight decades after Nazi Germany’s surrender, the postwar order was again under strain. He said some estimates show that the number of armed conflicts is now at its highest level since 1946.
"It was the memory of war that pushed us to build peace," Sikorski said. "Unfortunately, with time, memory fades and its force weakens."
The Polish foreign minister said war brings out opposing human reactions. Some people conclude that all norms no longer apply and commit atrocities, while others show extraordinary courage and sacrifice.
He also reflected on his own experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s, where he spent time with mujahideen fighters resisting Soviet forces.
Sikorski said he understood their religious fervor after communist authorities tried to eradicate their faith through brutal methods, including executions of clerics, confiscation of mosque property and anti-religious propaganda.
"Fanaticism in the broad sense gives enormous strength," he said. "People are capable of miracles when they believe in something, or when they feel they have nothing to lose."
Sikorski said war often radicalizes people and teaches hatred, but he added that he had not always felt hatred toward Soviet soldiers who could have killed him.
"I saw in them ordinary boys sent by the undemocratic authorities of their country to a war they did not want to fight," he said.
He described fear and courage as states that can be difficult to separate. In Afghanistan, he said, fear sharpened his senses but also made him impulsive. He said what might have looked like courage was often "animal fear."
Sikorski told the gathering that war destroys international relations, but also forces people to search for ways to live together peacefully.
"Nothing can be predicted except one thing: death and suffering," he said. "We know what war brings. What remains unknown is how we will behave in those circumstances."
Sikorski also took part in a debate titled "War and Peace."
The Re_Mind Psychological Congress and Festival in Wrocław runs until Wednesday. Its organizers say more than 200 speakers are taking part, including American psychologist Robert B. Cialdini and Nobel Prize-winning Polish author Olga Tokarczuk.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP