Countries like the United States have gay pride marches. In Krakow, we have a Tolerance March every year, which is quite a different affair, because while pride marches proclaim “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it, etc.,” a tolerance march quietly mumbles, “We exist, please stop beating us up the other 364 days of the year.”
This year’s March for Tolerance doubled the traditional route, starting in Krakow’s old Jewish quarter and making its way to the Market Square. Though mostly students and other left-leaning young people take part, the march does draw the occasional celebrity or politician.
The tolerance marchers are surrounded and protected by a ring of policemen, nick-named the “stormtroopers.” At the end of the march, the crowd breaks into chants of “Thank you, police!”
The police protect the marchers from the counter-demonstrators, who generally outnumber the marchers and are mostly angry young men from nationalist parties.
The counter-demonstrators hold signs saying “gayness prohibited” and shout obscenities at the marchers. The ones who come prepared throw eggs, while some others throw chairs or potted plants or whatever else is handy, before they’re restrained by the police.
But it’s not just young neo-facists who are upset by the concept of tolerance. Older Poles, used to completely ignoring the issue under communism, see homosexuals and supporters of tolerance as social deviants, perverts no better than pedophiles, who are corrupting the future of the country.
…but still, every year the march gets bigger, and every year the opposition gets smaller, and every year there’s a little less violence and a little more public support. But this is not a pride march. This is a March for Tolerance.
