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