In Pictures, Network 4 Debate

The March on Warsaw

The National-Radical Camp (Polish: Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny, ONR) is a far-right nationalist movement in Poland, associated with the Polish National Movement. On April 2017 members of ONR were authorised to march on Warsaw to celebrate the 83rd anniversary of its foundation.

The ONR considers itself an ideological descendant of the political movement, which existed before World War II, sharing the same name.

During the march, the ONR members crossed all the city center guarded by the Police, shouting anti-Europe, anti-immigrants, anti-semitic slogans. The march ended in the old town with a speech by the leaders and the exhibition of the different regional “battalions.”

I followed the ONR march facing a barrier of howls.

Young people shouting “God, Honour, Fatherland” and sporting on their black shirts scary symbols of hate.

Xenophobia.

These people abandon themselves to a mass, for which the foreigner, the stranger is a threat. In a pseudo-military parade they give form to their desire to eliminate the foreigner’s presence, to secure a presumed purity.

I set the camera on a slow shutter’s speed and tried to portray not the single person, but the agony of the obliteration of human personality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This article was created as part of the Network 4 Debate project, supported by the International Visegrad Fund.

Bio

Federico Caponi

Born in Tuscany, Italy in 1968, studied Philosophy at the University of Florence and got a degree in Aesthetics with an essay on Samuel Beckett. His first professional photo assignment was as stage photographer for the Teatro di Politeama di Cascina in 1998. Since then he has been working as stage photographer for Italian and foreigner theatres, still photographer for TV and movie production. He is the author of the pictures for two books written by Magdalena Stopa, recently published in Poland: “Chleb po warszawsku” (ed. VEDA), and ”My, rowerzyści z Warszawy” (ed. Stopa Studio). His pictures were published in Polish magazines like Rczeczpospolita, PrzeKroj, Gazeta Wyborcza. He lives between Florence, Italy and Warsaw, Poland where in 2008 his daughter was born.