Burning the rainbow

By L.N. | WARSAW

OVER 200 people, both gay and straight, turned up in Plac Zbawiciela, a vibrant square in central Warsaw on November 15th, to kiss and lay flowers under the charred remains of what had been, up until a few days ago, a pretty 25-metre wide art installation.

The rainbow, made from 23,000 artificial flowers, was seen by many in the Polish capital as a symbol of gay rights and tolerance. It was set alight by rioters during a march of the far right on Polish Independence Day on November 11th.

As the rainbow burned brightly, young men, clad in hoodies and balaclavas, waved Polish flags and chanted “God, Honour and Fatherland”. It was a stark reminder of the far-right’s antagonism towards any minority they regard as a threat to their vision of an ultra-nationalist Catholic Poland.

The far right’s march was one of 11 marches in the capital that day, which was another illustration of just how clannish and fragmented Independence Day has become in recent years. Far-right followers later burned a security hut outside the Russian embassy. According to TVP, the state broadcaster, 72 people were arrested and 19 injured in the course of the day.

Bookmakers would have given low odds on the colourful installation surviving the wrath of the hooded marchers. Designed by an award-winning artist named Julita Wojcik, and first installed in June 2012, the rainbow had been set alight four times so far this year until it became a charred shell of its former self, its once multi-coloured flowers reduced to a singed, crumpled mess. However, only days before the riots on Independence Day, Warsaw city council had re-stored the rainbow to its original, colourful state. It was not good timing.

Ms Wojcik has said that she never intended the rainbow to be a symbol for gay rights. Yet since its installation last year, some have taken umbrage at the installation and its proximity to the square’s church. A Facebook group dedicated to its removal was established, vulgar comments flooded onto web forums and a 41-year-old MP, Stanislaw Pieta from the opposition Law and Justice Party, said that the “hideous rainbow had hurt the feelings of believers”.

Back at Plac Zbawiciela, elderly mass-goers swell the large Church of the Holiest Saviour while others socialise in the square’s lively cafés. Irena, a pensioner in her late-seventies, says that the rainbow should never have been built opposite the church. “The rainbow is a gay symbol. Poland is Catholic and homosexuality is a sin”, she says within earshot of the students who had gathered to lay flowers on the charred remains of the metal arch. She adds that if the rainbow is to be rebuilt, it should be in Polish national colours of red and white.

Younger people around the square generally display more liberal attitudes. Marina, a student in her early twenties thought that the act of vandalism was “horrible”, adding that “Warsaw is quite a grey city, especially during the winter and it (the rainbow) looked nice”. A 23-year old law student named Marcin says “it was a senseless act”.

Another retired local resident, Krystyna, aged 80, says that the day before the attack on the art piece, members of the conservative Law and Justice Party, which according to a recent TNS Polska poll enjoys 30% of popular support, handed out small banners to the square’s church goers condemning the rainbow as a “symbol of evil”. A practising Catholic, Krystyna was saddened by the rainbow’s destruction. For her it was a symbol of togetherness; during Communism, she added, she had worked for a workers’ co-operative, which employed the rainbow as its emblem.

Gay rights remains an uneasy subject for many people in this devoutly Catholic country. Yet the election of Poland’s first openly gay MP, Robert Biedron, and a transgender MP, Anna Grodzka, in the parliamentary election in 2011 (they are both members of the liberal Palikot Movement) has shone greater media attention on LGBT rights. In January this year, a government-backed bill to introduce civil unions for gay couples was narrowly defeated in the Sejm, Poland’s parliament.

The organiser of the ‘happening’ in the square on November 15th, a university student named Natalia Dobber, told our correspondent that she and a friend had organised the event via Facebook to show those responsible for burning down the rainbow that “we are immune to their brutality”. Over 53,000 people (at the time of writing this blog post) have joined a Facebook group demanding that the far-right National Movement pay for the rainbow’s reconstruction.

Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, Warsaw’s mayor from the ruling centre-right Civic Platform party, says that the city authorities will rebuild the rainbow “many times” if necessary. Warsaw’s citizens meanwhile continue to attach flowers to the scorched installation.