The planet is changing - demographics is the cause - and it is not pretty. A few countries are stalwarts in opposition.

 

Poland’s policy for prosperity: Border walls and ‘not welcome’ prayer mats

By fiercely defending its borders, Christian culture, and love for God, Poland has become an economic powerhouse with surging growth and near-full employment, proving that national sovereignty and cultural preservation deliver both security and prosperity.

Alex Ashe | February 17, 2026 www.americanthinker.com

While much of Europe reels from an epidemic of sexual violence that authorities dare not fully name, Poland stands as a defiant beacon of common sense. By refusing the suicidal open-border experiment forced on its neighbors by Brussels bureaucrats and globalist elites, Poland has shielded its women, preserved its Christian culture, and built one of the continent’s most dynamic economies. The numbers don’t lie—even if the liberal media and EU apologists twist themselves into pretzels trying to explain them away.

Consider the stark reality. In 2023, Poland reported a rape rate of just 1.29 incidents per 100,000 population. That is not a typo. Compare that to the countries that flung open their doors to mass migration from Muslim-majority nations in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.

• Sweden, with an estimated 8% Muslim population in 2025, clocked in at 84.42 rapes per 100,000,
• France (~8–9% Muslim) sat at 62.69,
• United Kingdom (~6.5% Muslim) hovered around 60,
• Germany (~6-7%) at 15.50,
• Belgium (~7-8%) at 37.64,
• and the Netherlands (~6-7%) at 13.35.

These are not abstract statistics. They represent thousands of Polish daughters, sisters, and mothers who walk the streets of Warsaw, Kraków, and Gdańsk without the terror that has become routine in Malmö, the Parisian suburbs, Cologne, and Rotherham. Poland’s Muslim population remains a negligible 0.1%, consisting mostly of long-settled Tatar communities rather than the waves of military-age males shipped in under the guise of “asylum” by Angela Merkel and her successors. Poland said no to the EU’s migrant relocation quotas. It reinforced its borders—especially the one with Belarus—and maintained a selective immigration policy that puts Polish citizens first. The result? Polish women are measurably safer.

Leftist academics and EU commissars will trot out their tired excuses: “different legal definitions,” “underreporting,” “cultural differences in reporting.” Sweden broadened its rape definition to include acts without violence and aggressively encourages complaints, they say. Victim surveys supposedly show similar underlying rates across Europe. Correlation, they sniff, is not causation. Spare us. When one nation maintains barely noticeable 19th-century levels of sexual predation while its neighbors endure rates 50 times higher—precisely in proportion to the influx from cultures that treat women as second-class at best and property at worst—the pattern is impossible to ignore. Poland’s low rate isn’t a statistical quirk; it is the predictable fruit of refusing to import the very problems others invited.

Yet safety is only part of the story. Poland has protected something even more precious: its soul. This is a nation that still loves Boże—God—with a fervor that secular Europe has long abandoned. Corpus Christi processions wind through city streets under banners of the Virgin Mary. Churches are full. Christmas is celebrated nationwide with huge festivals, Christmas markets, and pageants celebrating the birth of Christ. The Polish people never forgot that their survival through partitions, Nazi occupation, and Soviet tyranny rested on faith, family, and fatherland. By keeping out the Islamist cultural invasion that has produced grooming gangs in Britain, no-go zones in France, and Sharia patrols in Sweden, Poland has preserved the Christian civilization that built the West. Its leaders understood that some cultures are incompatible with Western liberty, especially when it comes to the dignity and safety of women.

And the economic payoff has been spectacular. In 2025, Poland’s GDP surged 3.6%, pushing the country across the $1 trillion nominal GDP threshold and into the world’s top 20 economies. Unemployment sits near 3%, one of the lowest in Europe. Living standards have multiplied since the fall of communism; real per-capita income has soared more than 3.5 times since 1990. While Germany deindustrialized under green fantasies and energy crises, and France burns under migrant-fueled riots, Poland invests in infrastructure, attracts foreign capital, and grows. Why? Because investors and citizens alike see a stable, secure, culturally coherent nation that puts its own people first—not one paralyzed by political correctness and fear of being called “Islamophobic.”

Poland’s success is no accident. It is the direct result of courageous leadership that rejected the liberal suicide pact. Successive governments, whether under Law and Justice or the current administration, have maintained strict controls on migration from high-risk regions. They suspended asylum processing at vulnerable borders when necessary. They refused to become dumping grounds for the EU’s failed multiculturalism experiment. In doing so, they protected not just physical safety but the very foundations of Polish identity—faith in God, love of country, and the unapologetic defense of Western civilization.

The rest of Europe should take note before it is too late. The “enrichment” they celebrate has come at the cost of their daughters’ security and their societies’ cohesion. Poland chose borders, sovereignty, and Boże over virtue-signaling and demographic replacement. The result is a safer nation, a stronger culture, and a booming economy that proves nationalism works. In 2026, as Europe stumbles deeper into chaos, the Polish model shines brighter than ever: protect your people, guard your heritage, and watch prosperity follow. The choice is clear—fortress Poland or fractured Europe. History is already rendering its verdict.