The Orange Ones, The Street, and The Background

The Orange Ones, The Street, and The Background MiroslawPeczak "Long live the priests and secret agents, angels, cardinals, the opposition and militia, and madmen as well ! " (a flier announcement) "Citizens, please clear away! There is a limit to the happening! (announcementon loudspeaker) THE ORANGE ALTERNATIVE has attracted the attention of the press for over two years now. At first articles appeared in the local magazines in Wroclaw, but soon publications about the street actions of the "orange happeners" spread in the media throughout the whole country. However, journalists reacted to the phenomenon of The Orange Alternative most effectively when its activity was already in decline. My account of the phenomenon is far from an attempt at political analysis (this has been tried many times); I am concerned only with its cultural and social context because this is the best way to reveal its meaning. Contemporary life in Poland is defined by a specific type of experience which contains both fear of the elimination of traditional values and a hope for change. Sociologists report a passiveness and susceptibility to stress in people, but there are also initiatives which testify to activity and hope. For many years the majority of Poles had been hiding in the privacy of their families, seeking there an asylum from the disappointments of public life. But this phenomenon does not lead to a flourishing of family life, as one might expect. The popularity of daily television reflects the private 50 choice of people who have begun communicating in television jargon, instead of the vital language of genuine human relations. At the same time another tendency emerged, especially among the younger generations: a need for small communities based on relations established outside of the official circles of culture. People who abstain from television seek different forms of expression. A happening is one such form of communal and individual expression-a specific type of interaction and of communication . Above all, a happening becomes a special type of spectacle for people accidentally engaged in the role of onlookers. A need for spectacle has existed in cultures as long as a need for fables. The beginning of The Orange Alternative goes back to the stormy but hopeful year of 1980. Students of the University of Wroclaw, together with students of the School of Fine Arts, among them Waldemar Fydrych, who was called Major, created the Movement of New Culture. During the student strikes in the fall of 1981 the MNC started printing the magazine The OrangeAlternative.The following statement appeared in its first issue: Everything moves in the deep feelings of surrealistic imagination. Socialism is good for crippled people, who have reached a certain degree of perfection in the lack of integrity. The only thing which can explain it is the magic of official activity. Since then the concept of "socialist surrealism" conceived by Fydrych, has defined all actions of The Orange Alternative. The content of its fliers and banners and the slogans shouted on streets all reveal the attitude of The Orange Alternative toward itself, its actions, and the surrounding reality. The participants of the happenings do not pretend to be the only creators of the events, but the co-originators-almost equally with the militia reacting to the happening, and accidental passersby who express their interest in the action. They become the "actors," but rather in the meaning given to this term in the language of sociology. The actor is a young man in a Santa Claus disguise, the militiaman who wants to escort him to a radio car, and the elderly lady loudly protesting. The roles of actors are assumed also by children to whom people in costumes offer candies, and by a black man wearing a red beret who, unaware of the circumstances, walks by on Swidnicka Street during the happening The Eve of the GreatOctoberRevolution . The crowd on the street is also drawn into the happening simply because it gathers on the street. A happening attains the rank of an unusual event. The comparison with the "theatre of holiday" made by the hippies does not seem inappropriate. The big meeting organized in Golden Gate Park in 1967 and the festival 51 in Woodstock were both such...