The rainbow burns
In 2013, nationalists set fire to a rainbow in Warsaw. The artist had never meant it as an LGBT symbol.
On 11 November 2013, Poland celebrates its Independence Day. In Warsaw, the so-called Independence March moves through the city centre, organised by two far-right groups, the All-Polish Youth and the National Radical Camp. Around fifteen thousand people take part, mostly young men. They carry Celtic crosses, chant slogans and fill the streets with firecracker smoke.
Less than an hour after the start, a rainbow is burning on Plac Zbawiciela. The installation "Tęcza" by the artist Julita Wójcik, an arch of artificial flowers on a metal frame, has stood in front of the Church of the Holiest Saviour since the summer of 2012. Before that it had been on display in Brussels outside the European Parliament. Wójcik wanted to show hope, love and peace, an open Poland. The arch was expressly not meant to be a symbol of the LGBT movement.
But that is exactly how it was read. Nationalists and Catholic hardliners saw the rainbow flag in its six colours. A politician from the Law and Justice party mocked the installation with a homophobic slur, and the radio priest Tadeusz Rydzyk called it a symbol of deviance. The arch had been set alight before. But on the national holiday it happened in front of the cameras, and the images went around the world. Later, participants also attacked the Russian embassy, until the police demanded that the permit for the march be revoked.
Each time, the rainbow was restored. A work of art had become a gauge of how much diversity the country could tolerate. In August 2015, the temporary permit expired and the structure disappeared from the square. Three years later, a rainbow stood there again for a few hours, this time made of water vapour and light, set up for the Warsaw Equality Parade. It could not be set on fire.