Since I landed in Warsaw last Wednesday morning, I have been staying in the Oki Doki Hostel, a great place in the center of the city. Although I have an apartment for most of my stay here, I leave for Berlin Pride tomorrow morning and this was the most convenient way to live in the city for a week. I sleep in a dorm with five other people, most of whom are here for only a day or two. The hostel has lots of fun touches; all of the rooms are themed and it's extremely colorful. My room, appropriately enough, is Tecza, or rainbow.
I've met tons of nice people here, and keeping busy and social has made the transition much easier than it could have been, I think. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I got to know the city and walked around Old Town and the city centre, where the parade would take place. Warsaw is a fascinating city. It's beautiful and a strange mixture of new and old, although what seems old is probably not as much of Old Town was destroyed in WWII and rebuilt much later.
The Square at Old Town. This is King Sigismund's Tower and the Palace, both of which were rebuilt.
One of the two bears who live in Praski Park in the Praga District of Warsaw. The city is full of parks and trees.
Rebuilt after it was bombed in WWII. It is not even thirty years old.
Every day at 11:15, a trumpeter plays three times. This is time when the castle was destroyed and the time when it was reopened.
It had been great to get to know the city and walk around the district where I will be living next month and where the LGBT organizations have their headquarters, but I was really looking forward to Pride on Saturday. Unfortunately, my first contact at the KPH (Campaign to Prevent Homophobia) recently left the organization and although I had sent a few emails before leaving home asking about Pride and options for walking in the parade, I did not hear back before the event. Fortunately, there was a website for Pride and better yet, an English page so I was able to get information on where and when the parade began.
In what I am sure will not be my last lesson on language barriers, I learned soon after heading to the start of the parade site that the English version of the site turned 15:00 into 5:00pm. I missed the parade. Ironically, had I remained at the hostel, I would have seen it by accident as they marched right by, but I really wanted to go with the group from the beginning.
Of course, I was (and am to some extent still) extremely disappointed. This was why I left home so early and it was meant to be my first real experience with the gay community of Poland. I was frustrated and upset, but as I continued walking the path of the parade to get back to the hostel, I realized that although I did not participate in Pride proper, I still got to observe and better understand its importance for the gay community.
Part of the reason that I am so interested in the importance of public demonstrations of solidarity is their impact on the individual. Every time I leave a Pride event or an equality march, I feel so much less isolated. I feel more confident and better about myself and my place in the world.
Over the past week, I have spent most of my days walking through Warsaw, and while I have seen numerous heterosexual couples being openly affectionate, I have not seen any gay couples doing the same. Walking the parade route was the exception. There were so many same-sex couples. There were people waving Pride flags. Although I haven't felt uncomfortable in the city outside the normal feelings of being a visitor, I felt much more comfortable having seen these couples and watching the older woman happily waving her pride flag waiting on the light to change at a crosswalk. Based on the fact that I had not seen before and have not seen since the same kind of affection between same-sex couples, I would venture a guess that the feeling of comfort brought on by Pride was widespread for the queer community here. This despite the very real presence of homophobia and anti-gay violence. See more on that below.
In addition to the people who had been to Pride, walking the parade route also let me see the remnants of the march and to note the protests, the huge number of police officers (the more I saw, the closer I knew I was. There have been instances of confrontation in the recent past, so there was heavy police presence.), and the spots that marchers found particularly meaningful. I was able to observe the leftover spaces and tokens, and that in itself was a valuable experience as someone who has no idea what it is like to be gay in Warsaw outside of what I have read or heard from others.
The church where there were lots of protestors. I thought for a minute as I walked by that they were setting up for the parade, but they were taking down the protest signs. I took a picture on the way back.
Although nothing was thrown at marchers this year, the first and only openly MP in Poland was verbally and physically harassed during the parade. The incident is another example of the major tension that exists in Poland with regard to LGBT life. I was told by another person at the hostel that material on ethnic purity was distributed as well.
Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka was a long-term politician in Warsaw who was a feminist and ally to the community. She was killed in a plane crash in 2010. There were flowers and signs dedicated to her memory.
Freedom, Equality, Solidarity
There were several primary concerns listed by the organizers of Warsaw Pride.
Warsaw Pride Goals:
1. Removing architectural barriers that are limiting access to different public spaces for people with disabilities and parents with prams. Spatial exclustion is social isolation.
2. Enacting the acts regulating relationships that aren't marriags, especially in relation to the protection of mutual guardian-legal liabilities.
3. Introducing active antidiscrimination policy that concerns all minorities.
4. Introducing the legal regulations facilitating medical and legal process of affirmation for transsexual people.
5. Improving the regulation concerning the protection of the rights of animals.
6. Introducing schools to the brand new, reliable and ideologically neutral education concerning human sexuality.
7. Making urban spaces accessible for the population of the city.
These are interesting and varied goals that obviously extend beyond what might be considered the primary concerns of the LGBT community on its own. It was nice to see such diverse concerns, and it makes me even more eager to explore the community organizations here. As I begin to spend time with the major LGBT organizations in Warsaw after returning from Berlin on Monday, I am really interested to hear their thoughts on Pride and its importance. I want to know how they feel about the goals expressed by the organizers of Pride and what progress, if any, they feel they have made in the past few years as well as their strategies for this year and the future.
It has been a great week in Warsaw, and I'm looking forward to Berlin but also to being able to return to Poland and get to know as much as possible about the queer community, starting with its non-profit representatives.
This week I have been particularly thankful for:
1. The Oki Doki and the people here who have made this week so awesome.
2. The great friends and family from home who have checked in to make sure all is well.
3. My mom, who talked me down when I was particularly disappointed and overwhelmed about missing Pride.
4. Polish food
Also, happy birthday to Mimi Dunn, who is a fabulous person, friend, and roommate. Miss you and love you lots!
Thanks for reading, everybody! See y'all after Berlin.
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