When we analyzing historical evevts of different nations, there is a major gap between nation that thinks as a Victor perception rather than thinks as a Victim perception. A nation who thinks like a Victor takes accountability for its history events. It owns them and truthfully speaks about their meaning. Polish lawmakers voted last Friday for a bill that would fine or jail people who blame Poland or Poles for Nazi atrocities committed on its soil during World War II, including the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. A nation who thinks like a Victim blames everyone and everything but itself. It owns nothing, or too little of the events. It avoids looking at history's eyes to the degree that it needs to. It conveniently lies to itself to avoid feeling shame. Even if it is in a difficult situation because of someone else, it is still responsible to solve its own problem because it’s its problem, regardless of who historically caused it. A Victim nation doesn’t embrace and use the power and strength it already has, so it stays stuck. A Victor nation has the wisdom to ask for help if its strength and resources aren’t up to the task of overcoming whatever obstacle is in the way.
“It wasn’t our mothers, nor our fathers, who are responsible for the crimes of the Holocaust, which were committed by German and Nazi criminals on occupied Polish territory,” said Justice Minister Zbignew Ziobro on last Tuesday. “Our responsibility is to defend the truth and dignity of the Polish state and the Polish nation, as well as our fathers, our mothers and our grandparents". A Victor nation learns from its mistakes. This is part of the ownership process. It reviews what went wrong in history and becomes wiser by accurately evaluating what it did and didn’t do, but could have done differently. A Victim nation never seems to learn. It resists seeing itself as part of the problem because it feels too shameful to do so. It gets stuck in self-attacking shame. A Victim nation focuses on the past and its mistakes. A Victor nation learns from its past mistakes, it’s not stuck in the past, it’s not shackled by shame, it’s confident in its own resources and has its people to help when it needs it.
