Rise of the Right: Marching in Europe's Largest Nationalist Event

so we are basically what is the meeting place for all the nationalist marchers i've seen a few anti-islam flags there's a couple of guys here who look quite tasty hopefully won't concentrate on me too much at any point during the day because i can't imagine that that would lend well for me i'm wearing a bib i gave us these kind of like make sure a bit safer and make sure no one like tries to batter us just because they think we're the left liberal media it doesn't make me feel like totally safe it doesn't make me feel like i've got a suit of armor on we're in warsaw to attend the largest nationalist march in europe for the past five years tens of thousands of people take to the streets once a year under the banner of patriotism it generally descends into mass violence hijacked by far-right football hooligans but poland has just elected a euro-skeptic right-wing government which has long endorsed the march and is openly anti-refugee i want to find out what effect this will have on a march that usually descends into anarchy foreign as with any large-scale event volunteers would be on hand tag to stewards of the march recruited by far-right youth organizations i went to meet them at their riverside training camp under a bridge as soon as we got here there were bangers going off there's people praying what looked like tear gas can't tell whether a smoke grenade or tear gas but there was a lot of guys crying afterwards as well f i think they're preparing for the worst but in the best way they're kind of like enjoying themselves they're having a bit of fun camaraderie having a laugh and a joke there is a bit of a dark undercurrent here as well they're marching for something that you know typically we see is quite unsavory you know anti-refugee sentiment anti-immigrant sentiment um so that's something that you always have to remember even even if it is just a bunch of lads having fun on a saturday we left the capital for poland's third biggest city wooch i was told a group of football hooligans who consider themselves to be on the front line of the fight for polish nationalism lived there lower league team vitsev have become notorious for their battles with the police at the march and i was interested to see how well behaved they'd be at a home game is after a fairly comprehensive win i managed to grab one of the ultras for a chat about the upcoming march why is the march on wednesday important for for football fans for poland interesting so far i hadn't seen any evidence of a caliphate being established in wooj but the fear of islam made more sense when i looked into what was coming out of the mouths of poland's government officials away from the terraces i wanted to get a feel for life in the town we're in a square in the center of wooj it's a horrible day it's freezing you can definitely feel a sense of painful poverty it's a place that's got charm and everything but it's not really surviving very well i don't think one of the ultras offered to take us on a tour of his area but for fear of being arrested didn't want his face to be shown while poland is generally considered to have weathered the global financial crisis quite well and woodr's unemployment rate is a pretty average 12 it was clear that the area was experiencing a desolate hardship nothing much going on to entice some of these young men away from violence and nationalism foreign why do you think it's important for ultras to have a sense of patriotism or nationalism historia right now we're in the basement of a kind of cul-de-sac of flats which is actually where one of the ultra guys grew up someone came downstairs a moment ago and said what you guys doing here at stinks and one of the guys said well we've been making a banner for the march he's like oh it's for the march that's cool that's all right so you get a sense that the march is a real it's a real big deal march is about national uni and everyone coming together for the you know the one idea of a of a powerful poland a unified parliament but it's still important for these guys to have their their local identity shown they still want it to be known that they are from which they are litter fans and they're not going to shy away from that the next day we headed back to warsaw i was apprehensive at the prospect of a hundred thousand irate football fans champing at the bit to fight the police last year chaos led to over 270 arrests maybe the vitsev fans would protect me if they could stay out of trouble for long enough so we've just arrived here these are the guys we saw train under the bridge this is the fruit of all the work that they've been putting in all the flashbangs going off giving them you know mild tinnitus for a day all the tear gas that they've probably been crying out this is the prize they get this is where it all it all starts to make sense for them i suppose it's like a school trip in a way it's a big day out at the nationalist march really and the heart of polish culture is the catholic church so we went to pay our respects to god for his contribution to polish independence and make sure he was on our side before the march just left the mass it's very very quiet out here there's a line of guys over there apparently they're like more hardcore nationalists so they're standing in a line of uh maybe even protection everyone in there has either a polish flag or a polish armband um i kind of feel like arm bands have been ruined by the nazis i don't think anyone can really wear an armband with any sort of nationalist connotation without it looking a bit dodgy in the beginning the priest was you know thanking the biker gangs for coming he was thanking like um all these nationalist organizations for attending this very pro-nationalist introduction this is not just a normal mass this is a mass dedicated for this march this show of nationalist pride this show of strength and unity in poland there's quite a few of them you can see behind me they're setting up for a group photo the banner that our contacts made in the basement of that flat is now being unfold that's pretty good and all the hats bags of so many the march has now started officially you know people are in high experience people throwing bangers everywhere got mild deafness from one of them speaking to some people in the crowd it didn't take long to gauge the predominant thrust of what they were marching for um yes now we've reached the end of the march we're in the shadow of the national stadium polish flags as far as i can see foreign every single year the nationalists have had bloody clashes with the police but this year it was different there wasn't even a whiff of a punch or a bottle being thrown but why not food in previous years has been a protest now looked like a victory parade for polish nationalists before the march i was apprehensive about the extreme violence of previous years but i came away with an all the more frightening vision of poland's now cemented lurch to the right you

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Keywords: documentary, documentaries, interview, interviews, culture, wild, lifestyle, world, exclusive, independent, underground, videos, funny, funny videos, journalism, vice guide, vice presents, vice news, vbs.tv, vice.com, vice, vice magazine, vice mag, vice videos, reports, VICE REPORTS, joe bishop, Poland, Far right, football, soccer, politics

Id: PnC-zSdMSRo

Length: 13min 51sec (831 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 29 2016