At first, I decided against writing anything about That Fucking Cross, but this morning, as I was racking my brain for new and shiny things to do while procrastinating, I thought to myself, oh well, self.
Alors, on to the news from the land of cold, drizzling and unholy:
The most unfortunate of you might have had heard about the fairly recent fundie meltdown in Poland. Directly connected to the plane crash in which the president and a bunch of officials died, it’s a bastard child of misbegotten spin doctors, power-hungry politicians eager to exploit the alienated, the mentally ill and the marginalised for their own political agenda, and a bunch of creepy and/or mentally ill hate-mongers who actually believe in the bullshit they’re spouting.
In short, after the crash the Catholic scouts(1) put a cross in front of the presidential palace. Nobody minded(2) then because people were leaving all sorts of things in front of the presidential palace then: flowers, votive candles, and journalists. However, after everything went back to normal(3), a certain feeling of WTFery began to set in the cold little hearts of the Polish people, as they watched their telly and thought:
What the fucking fuck is this fucking cross doing in front of the fucking presidential palace? For fuck’s sake(4).
Or even the dreaded:
What the fuck, I thought this was a fucking secular fucking country? Fuck(4).
As a result of various considerations of this and similar nature, the local authorities decided they have to remove the cross from where the scouts had so thoughtlessly left it(5), and mow it down with a steamroller, and stab it several times for good measure, and maybe even stake it so Jesus never rises from the dead again.
(Really, watch it. It has an old lady who tied herself to the cross. Seriously)
What happened is that the entire fucking state is apparently completely powerless when faced with the completely unmanageable rage of ~*a few dozen old ladies*~ (well, and maybe a couple of Neo-Nazis, too).
The cross is still standing, the completely crazy fundies cum Holocaust deniers cum NWO conspiracy theorists have been swarming around it day and night for several weeks.
This has caused several things:
1) on average, the Polish are crankier than usual; this is strongly correlated with the increased use of the word “fuck”, which is frequently triggered by the sight of crossroads, crosswords, cross-stitching and cross-examination,
2) on average, the Polish are more angry at the government than usual,
3) on average, internet memes are finding this environment to be very easy to flourish in.
On Monday, a crowd of reportedly 5000 anti-cross activists (sceptics, hipsters, anti-theists, pro separation of church and state, and trolls) who had been gathering on Facebook in the course of a few days went to make fun of the fundies. Photos!
signs: 1) Moscow pays me, 2) Demolish the presidential palace, it's blocking out the cross
They started at 23:00 AFAIR:
Lots of angry hipsters:
Hipster footage
They’re screaming:
– remove the presidential palace
– back to church
– take the cross back to church
– remove the cross
Another:
(The guy with the megaphone says that the law in Poland is being broken right in front of the presidential palace, which makes the whole country an international laughingstock(8). They are demonstrating, the guy says, to make fun of the fundies who are appropriating the public space. At roughly 1:53 a guy in a pope custume appears on a balcony FTW)
Hipster remix, apparently played in some clubs already (lyrics = “where’s the cross”)
One flash game parody, two flash game parodies.
You can put a cross on your website here.
And finally, today a random guy decided that he will sue the government because of the clear violation of the separation of church and state laws(9).
The thing is, this is not going to change anything at all. Not only the most conservative politicians, but usually even the self-proclaimed left-wing ones are coddling and accommodating the fundies no matter what crazy thing they decide to do, even though they’re an obvious (if loud and crazy) minority. The fundies are appropriating the public and symbolic space, bit after bit, and the public discourse, with the result that anybody who opposes them or criticizes them in any way is presented as a public enemy, traitor and possibly also a member of one (or more) of the many conspiracies the fundies believe in. The worst thing is that this sort of thinking has been slowly sneaking into mainstream media; most people will preface their criticisms of not even religion but religious fundamentalism with “I’M A CATHOLIC BUT” or “CATHOLIC VALUES ARE VERY IMPORTANT BUT”, and so on.
It’s cool that there’s a bit of rage, finally, instead of the usual apathy, and hopefully in ten-twenty years, this rage might actually accomplish something. Meanwhile, as ever, the fundies can do what they wanna.
(1) There are also the regular, non-Catholic scouts so.
(2) I would have, but I’m observing this stuff from a safe distance, you see.
(3) It would perhaps be useful to point out that the Polish “normal” might be vastly different from what you’ve grown accustomed to classify as “normal”, JSYK.
(4) The Polish people like to swear a lot to show the sincerity and depth of their feelings. Also, in Polish the above sentences would display much more variation of profanity, respectively:
Co do kurwy nędzy robi kurwa pierdolony krzyż przed jebany pałacem kurwa prezydenckim? Żesz kurwa jego pierdolona.
Do kurwy nędzy, świeckie kurwa państwo.
Guys, I turned the diacritics on just for you. This is serious stuff.
(5) I think the time has come to finally say it: fucking scouts.
(6) Fucking scouts.
(7) Fucking scouts.
(8) Fucking late to be self-conscious now.
(9) Constitutional lawyers say he will most likely lose, because Polish law sucks like that, so it’s mostly about making a gesture.
梅雨眠中 