IT was not reported by mainstream media in the UK, but last month thousands of people marched in the city of Katowice in Poland demanding the right to determine the future of Upper Silesia.

Probably only followers of global self-determination movements and the European Free Alliance (EFA) will know that for some years now, many people in Upper Silesia – the second most prosperous region of Poland – have been calling for greater autonomy and even full independence.

The latter seems some distance away, but, thanks largely to the RAS – the Ruch Autonomii Slaska (Silesian Autonomy Movement) – the question of self-determination is very much on the agenda. Apart from a growing membership in Poland, RAS have volunteers as far apart as the UK and Florida, working to build the case for autonomy.

Within the last few weeks it has emerged that the two main pro-autonomy movements in Silesia, RAS and the ZG, are working towards the creation of a new party, the Regional Party of Silesia.

Sources in Upper Silesia say the aim is build a stronger party than the current movements have at the moment.

They have also held Silesian Flag Day, in which the pro-autonomy marchers openly used the historic yellow-blue flag of Upper Silesia – this is very much against the Polish Government’s decrees, as they refuse to recognise Upper Silesia’s autonomy in the slightest.

Silesia is complicated, thanks to a history that has seen the area fought over by empires down the ages. Silesia was originally a Polish province, which became a possession of the Bohemian kingdom in 1335, and passed with that crown to the Austrian Habsburgs in 1526, and then was taken by Prussia in 1742.

After the First World War, Lower Silesia remained as part of Germany while Upper Silesia was split into two duchies. Nazi Germany occupied the whole of Silesia in the late 1930s and inflicted countless horrors on the Polish population, but in 1945 the victorious Soviet Union gave Upper Silesia to Poland, and most ethnic Germans were expelled from the territory, usually by force. Lower Silesia is mostly in the Czech Republic where there are also growing demands for autonomy, but in Poland, Upper Silesia’s campaign for self-determination is much more advanced.

An RAS source confirmed to The National: “We will collect the signatures necessary to register the Silesian Regional Party.”

That could be a political game-changer for Upper Silesia where RAS only has four seats on the regional government.

Nevertheless, its growing success – the number of people registering as Silesian in the national census has quadrupled in 10 years – has seen RAS in open conflict with the Polish Government.

Jerzy Gorzelik, the current leader of the party, put it firmly: “I’m Silesian, not Polish. My fatherland is Upper Silesia.

“I did not pledge anything to Poland nor did I promise anything to it, so it means that I did not betray it. The state called the Republic of Poland, of which I’m a citizen, refused to give me and my friends a right to self-determination and so that’s why I do not feel obligated to loyalty towards this country.”

The EFA held its annual conference in Katowice this year and stated: “EFA denounces the evolution in Poland towards authoritarian rule. More persistently than ever, the government and parliamentary majority try to eradicate the Silesian and other minorities.

“The centralism of Warsaw is incompatible with the democratic wish of the Silesians to be respected and with the basic European laws and values. We would like to express our deepest hope that after this dark period Poland will emerge as a more democratic country.”