Marching Through Warsaw pt 2

Towering over me were the monumental light posts in Plac Konstytucji, built as a symbol of power for the communist regime, and inhabiting a square that was originally designed for the purpose of being the ending point of Labor Day parades. Nothing ends here today, and with Zbawiciela square within eyesight, I left both behind for the unofficial nationalist march down the street. As I walked down Marszałkowska street, which was closed to traffic for the day, I noticed that every side street was blocked by a line of SWAT even though the march would not go this way. A younger generation started to gather around me. The vibe had completely changed. These young people looked more hard-cut then the soft families I saw earlier in the day, as if they were chiseled by tough instruments. While I was walking a bang went off in the distance, towards the roundabout where the march was to begin. I started talking to myself, into my recorder, trying to pinpoint exactly what I saw.

“Their eyes are lively, but lively with some anticipation. Anticipation for action… violent action.” I said with a group of ruffians right next to me. More and more groups of young people were gathering around me.

I was about 200 meters from the roundabout when I was completely taken aback by the size of the demonstration. There were twice as many people gathered here than at the official ceremony. I couldn’t believe my eyes and felt a crushing awakening sweep through my body.  From this distance I could hear them chanting some slogans, sounding similar to the chanting you would hear at a football match. There was power-pop punk music playing on a loudspeaker. The closer I got to them the louder the noise became, and the more helpless I felt underneath the weight of their animosity. The people around me were young, almost all of them. There were a few starry eyed nostalgic looking seniors, but the vast majority of them were young adults. I did not feel like I belonged here. I made sure not to speak any English in fear that one of them would see that as a reason for conflict.

I climbed to a high point to get a better look. The roundabout was completely overrun by thousands of people waving Polish flags and green banners with seemingly fascist symbolism.  There was no organization, just a starting point, which was a large 18-wheeler hollowed out and filled with speakers playing gangster rap and an irate mc queuing his minions up to chant anti-communist slogans. I could see that the march involved many different factions. There was one banner that stuck out in English like a sore thumb proclaiming, “Wake up Poland and return to God.”

Intermittently a deafening bang would go off from some random part of the demonstration, stopping my heart and making me clench my entire body. It was a bang that mirrored the artillery fire at the official march, but ironically revealed the truth about the nationalist march, being that, they were not organized and this was not commemorative, on the contrary it symbolized their aggressive and uninviting intentions.

I looked around at the eyes of the people, and found no comfort or warmth. All the understanding had evaporated and their edgy Slavic features became more apparent. There were no intellectuals, no families, no businessmen, no cunning politicians, no well loved religious figures. At this moment I could not believe anymore than that they were all hooligans that lived in their parents basement and argued with their friends while drinking vodka about who the better player was, Lionel Messi or Christiano Ronaldo. I got the impression that these people were poor, and for a split second I could feel some sympathy, but then came to the conclusion quickly that it was due to their complete apathy that they were like this.

“They don’t work, they don’t try,” a friend of mine told me, who said he had personal experience with people who supported the ultra-nationalists. “They want the government to give them everything and they don’t want to make any effort.”

I could see it. Their demeanors were burning with false dignity, fast food, and laziness. Below me there were a few volunteer security guards in orange reflector jackets and every group of young men that walked by sized them up and then stomped off and whispered in a conspiratorial manner to each other. Most of these young men had shaved heads, and walked like they were carrying a knife. At least five groups walked by me, seemingly wandering aggressively to nowhere or more probably scouting the demonstration for an ill-perceived enemy.

The truck began moving, inching and jerking its way down the street. The young men in groups around the demonstration gathered steam and started pumping their fists in the air, and the cacophonous chants became more unified and numerous.

“On the trees, instead of leaves, there will be hanging communists,” unknowingly echoing their fascist counterparts from the previous century.

I walked along the edge towards the front, and tried recording some of the sounds of the march. The volume was too deafening and my recorder couldn’t pick up anything comprehensible, except the rhythm of the chant and the beat of the gangster rap at the front. And still every few minutes another firecracker would go off, shaking my body to the core, and itching me to find an exit.

I found a good spot and stopped at the Charles-de-Gaulle roundabout to watch the march go by. A young boy in a grey hoodie went running by me with one hand holding up the back of his jeans, and I saw that he dropped a lighter. When he bent down to pick it up I saw sticking out of the back of his jeans a giant red tubular firework, the size of two clenched fists put together. At this point I decided to go. I couldn’t see the point anymore. I feared that I might get caught up in a more dangerous situation, especially because I couldn’t speak to anybody, and I doubled back to Marszałkowska street. I went down a back street to distance myself in order not to run into any trouble. As flares were being ignited at the forefront I was walking in the opposite direction towards Zbawiciela square, the aggrandized symbol of tolerance in modern Poland, and as I was walking away I was comforted for the first time in my life by an army of SWAT hiding behind one of the buildings, waiting for the perceived hooligans to do what they came to do. I stood there, in an empty alley, watching as modern European nationalists waved thousands of flags on one side, and the sedating black SWAT patiently waited to do their job on the other.

Read part 1 here