Polska, Ameryka i Europa. Dowcipy o wojnie w Iraku
Poland, America and Europe. Jokes about the war in Iraq

Summary/Abstract: The article attempts to show in what way Polish and American jokes present the war in Iraq. The author is mainly interested in the sociopolitical and intercultural background of the jokes. The world presented in the jokes is analyzed in relation to the world created by the media and the research attempts to identify the contemporary stereotype of an American as well as the quality of Polish-American and Polish-EU relations. The attitude of joke-makers to the war is ambivalent. Some of the jokes ridicule George W. Bush and his politics, while others seem to support the American involvement in Iraq. Most condemn Saddam Hussein and criticize the French, but also Germans, for not joining the war.The considerations of those problems makes one wonder about the causes of the unrequited adoration of the Americans by the Poles and the justification for calling the latter a “Trojan horse of America”. An attempt is made to answer the question why there is a relatively small number of Polish jokes about Iraq and why the translated ones have not gained wide circulation. The possible causes include: a type of sensitivity different from American, a smaller emotional engagement of the Polish society in the war, and an ease of accepting the products of another cultural sphere, which hinders the need to create one’s own.

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