SMAR SW Jarocin 93 - Jarocin: a necessary evil? - Tygodnik Powszechny

Jarocin: a necessary evil?

"I can smell matzo and garlic here. This party was organized for us by Jews! - shouts the vocalist of the band Piersi from the stage. - Let's welcome them with traditional Old Slavic sieg heil!"

One of the fans, a young boy whose back is covered by a white and red flag with a swastika painted on it, raises his right hand and, together with a crowd of several thousand, chants several times: sieg heil! sieg heil! sieg heil!

August 6, 11:00 p.m., the first day of the Jarocin '93 Rock Music Festival.

"As far as Breasts is concerned, there is really no great philosophy in what we do. It's simply a transposition, it's showing reality in a distorted mirror... in a laughing parlor" - explains Paweł Kukiz. In his earlier statements, he emphasizes that his band's convention is "cabaret-crazy", and the basic genre cultivated by the group is pastiche. However, watching the crowd of young people gathered under the stage chant fascist shouts, am I sure that all of them keep a distance consistent with the singer's intentions and treat his artistic provocation as a joke. Accusing Kukiz of spreading fascist ideology would certainly be a misunderstanding, but not necessarily absolving him of responsibility. The audience of the Jarocin festival is undoubtedly diverse, but a large part of it is made up of very young people, susceptible to influence and confused. For them, apart from the music, the words that come from the stage are important, and their often poor aesthetic development may make them not understand the conventions and take some of the phrases literally. I would prefer to be wrong, but such an eventuality should be taken into account. Perhaps an alternative to the "sense of humour" presented by Kukiz could be the reaction of the leader of the band Armia, who a few years ago, after the appearance of a banner with a swastika in the audience, immediately demanded that it be rolled up, threatening to interrupt the concert.

TO MATCH TASTES

Responsibility for words was not the strong point of the festival organizers this year. On the first day, the host of the concert, Jarosław Janiszewski, promoted jokes from the stage - as he himself called it - "fecal-genital". Attacked by journalists at a press conference, the organizer replied that "these are the tastes of the Jarocin audience, and my task is to hit them". We also learn from the host of Thursday's concert that another style of establishing a dialogue with the audience is basically out of the question, because most of it "does not generate brains".

This is a sentence that is at least distasteful in the mouth of a man who labels himself a friend of young people, organizing a musical feast for them.

However, the announcer gained real recognition as a crowd psychologist only with his famous call addressed to an aggressively behaving group of punks: "Spit on them, they do it for money" (it was an attack on working photojournalists). Its author described his statement as "the lesser evil": there was a concentration of negative energy in the air. It was a chance to discharge it."

OUR FESTIVAL

On Friday, August 7, during the morning auditions on the small stage, a group of aggressive punks threatens that if the band does not perform Smar SW they will "blow up the festival". The band has not been qualified for the review, but its members are in the audience. To implement their demands, the supporters of Smaru give the organizers until 4:30 p.m. "Fully in control of the situation" the organizers invite the stage to Smar SWstage, which gives a 30-minute concert (the time of the bands qualified for the competition is 10 minutes). The singer shouts to his fans that the concert is over, that he no longer has the strength. The host makes it clear that he cannot force the musicians to continue playing: "If you want them to play, you have to try to do it yourself." The rest is known. The most aggressive part of the audience takes matters into their own hands, which results in a regular battle over bottles, railings, boards and cassettes broken from benches. 18 taken to the hospital, 4 of which were hospitalized, can be considered a happily modest balance of Friday's events. The question, however, is whether the motto of concessions to the most aggressive brawlers, chosen by those responsible for the course of the concert, can be considered lucky? Why should the event be dictated by the youngsters looking for a brawl? Maybe, if they were not satisfied, maybe if it ceased to be "their festival" for this group - it would be good for the festival itself?

WHOSE FESTIVAL?

Is Jarocin just a party of aggressive, frustrated youth? The atmosphere of concerts on the big stage does not confirm such fears. The stadium is calm. To some extent, the control at the entrance (goalkeepers take away alcohol, knives, gas, etc.) contributes to this, but it is undoubtedly also due to the audience itself. A crowd wavours under the stage

Is Jarocin just a party of aggressive and frustrated youth? The atmosphere of concerts on the big stage does not confirm such fears. The stadium is calm. To some extent, the control at the entrance (goalkeepers take away alcohol, knives, gas, etc.) contributes to this, but it is undoubtedly also due to the audience itself. A crowd is waving under the stage. Pogo dancing in the back. Several bonfires are lit. A boy sitting at one of them explains to me:.. You can dance, lie down, sleep here, no one is surprised, no one is clinging. I come here for this relaxation, for music, for friends. It is known that I normally do not lie dressed like that. Old, during the year you would not even meet me drunk! I fly gliders, I have a license. But you have to have fun. It's just a pity that the crowbars are making fights. It's getting worse and worse here, there's no atmosphere. It's still a good deal at concerts, but when you think about the fact that a mohawk with a knife can come up to you in the park and clean you out of the money, you don't want to come here." In front of the barrier separating the audience from the stage, Jacek is playing. He has been in a wheelchair since birth. I don't have a job, only books and videos at home. You know, no one will be interested in me on the street, and here my hand hurts from introducing myself. There are nice people here, but sometimes they smell too much. At night in the park, sometimes you feel like you're in a paint shop." Jacek came to Jarocin alone. He sleeps like many others "in the open air", i.e. in the park. From the station viaduct, "such a nice crew" of punks took his stroller - "no one here was aggressive towards me". Unfortunately, even at a concert picnic, they are visible

SYMPTOMS OF PATHOLOGY

An unconscious boy is lying on the ground. Another, sitting next to him, semi-conscious after the "glue", extinguishes a cigarette on his head.

One of the musicians addresses the audience: "Watch out for heroin traffickers. Don't let yourself be fooled. There are people who have left here and have never been the same again."

According to Monaru's data, "people who left here and were never the same again" make up about 20 percent of the festival's participants, because that's how many young people reach for drugs here for the first time, according to Marek Kotański. However, the problem is not heroin, marijuana or amphetamines, which hardly anyone would be able to afford here, but "glue". A drug that is easily available, cheap, lethal to the body, quickly leads to brain degeneration. Many young participants, especially those who are having fun at the festival for the first time, make it a point of honor to "kiranie samara" (smelling glue). The pressure of the environment is very strong, and a few walks in the park where concerts take place are enough to convince themselves. that there is someone to intercept the addiction from. Few can afford to get out of it. Most often, it is equal to exclusion from the group: "I came with my friends, he tells me, we had a tent at the Bonzo market. They stayed at the campsite, I sleep on the lawn. The conversation was simple: "don't you cuddle with us? Won!".

Those who do not have glue treat themselves with water with dissolved toothpaste. Apple wine (on a melina for 25 thousand) is bought only by the "elite". Many do not even have money for bread.

CHAPLAIN OF THE PRESIDENT

"These, black one, if you gave me something to eat, I would love you," says a staggering boy to a priest passing through the square.

'No problem, old man. President, show him where we give food,' Fr. Kazimierz answers. 'The president is an equal guy', he says about the moving away point. 'He's from Gdańsk Oliwa. Four years ago he got such a nickname in Jarocin. I meet him here regularly. His and a few other regular customers. He's one of the few who have quit drugs. He has a girlfriend now, there will be a child soon.' We sit down on the pavement. 'Do you want to know why I'm coming to Jarocin? Not because it's fun here, because in my opinion it's not, but because there are a few people here who won't be asked all year round: how is it going? What's your girlfriend's doing? Was it fun at the concert? What band did you come to? etc. I'm the guy who wants to ask them about it. Besides, the wolf is drawn to the forest. Before I joined the Oblates, I was pretty good at nunchuck. I trained it and I could damage it. But there came a moment in my life when I understood that the other person is important. Many of them have never felt it before, but I'm sure they can understand a lot. I don't come here to convert anyone, I just want to talk to them. With anyone who wants to. It doesn't matter if they call me 'priest', 'gentleman' or 'black', whether they are believers or non-believers. They need to know that someone is interested in them, that someone treats them like people."

VALUATION THROUGH ABNEGATION

"I'm nothing, you see, punk is rubbish. There's no place for me, I don't mean anything.

- But do you have any honor of your own?

- I don't have it, I don't have honor.

- And do you like it when someone spits on you and says "dirty, lice scab"?

"No, but to people like you I'll always be dirty.

- You can... wash yourself! You can do something with yourself!

- No one needs people like me...

When I listen to this conversation, conducted by a young punk with a boy whom he asks for money, I wonder what the phenomenon of voluntarily putting oneself in a losing position is. A certain regularity is that a large percentage of young people who think this way cannot withstand the pressure of reality. Many of them come from pathological families, affected by alcoholism, poverty, unemployment. They do not see a chance for themselves to break out of the circle of people of a lower category, and they defend themselves from the feeling of defeat by abandoning all ambitions, escaping from freedom into abnegation. However, it is hard to believe that a 17-year-old boy will always want to be trash. One day, this tendency may take on a different character. Will it be some kind of rooting in reality, or rather a reaction to the humiliations they have suffered? It may depend on who will have an influence on the formation of these still immature people.

In many cases, they will not be parents or teachers, because their language is foreign to the desperate and full of resentment towards the world. However, the people they listen to in Jarocin have a chance to reach their minds.

Respect power, respect governments

Respect the military and offices

Respect the law and the police

Cultural Inquisition

Your values are nothing to me!

Your thinking makes me laugh!

(Smar SW)

Once, a drug addict broke into John Lennon's house and asked the legendary musician a question:

- "Do you know how much power you have over people?

- I'm not interested in that. I'm not a politician or a sociologist. I'm a musician.

"And I'm nobody, because I believed in what you sang. I believed that drugs would give me freedom, that this would be my way. It's too late for me, I'm finished, but I wanted you to know that for people like me, you bear part of the responsibility.

Musicians addressing young people from the stage should answer a similar question and realize that they also bear part of the responsibility for what the people for whom they are an authority do. The belief that their music has no impact on the consciousness of young audiences is an illusion. Jerzy Połomski may have such comfort, but Jarocin is not Opole.

ANNA GUZIK

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