In the distant 1990s, along with a large part of my generation (mainly people born in the mid 1970s, sometimes a small earlier, and exceptionally besides later) I sought to express opposition to the system.
There was a transformational storm outside the window, a known order was falling apart. Older generations abruptly fell and scattered into the dust their peaceful, unchangeable world. all day they lost their jobs in closed factories where they had worked for decades before. They took matters into their own hands, due to the fact that that's what they were told in advance – from tv and “Gazeta Wyborcza”, so influential at the time. And after a while, they were strangled by the celebrated Balcerovich debt loop and hopelessness. We, younger, rebelled against the fresh reality, seeing the defeat of our parents and grandparents.
How did we rebel? Very different. There was no Internet, so it frequently happened that we chose a rebellious formation somewhat by accident. He who first appeared with us teenagers, with any offer of a readable explanation of the planet – he was the top. individual became a nationalist, even a national socialist. individual else a Communist and his colleague an anarchist. inactive others went into the utmost metaphysical search – from nativeism to Satanism. Why? due to the fact that they rejected the strategy and all its superstructure. Unfortunately, this superstructure was besides the Church, or more specifically – a large part of its Polish hierarchy, which legitimized changes in the feeling of most Poles simply unfair, and frequently inhuman.
The music was the first to knock on the door of the youths of the time. Loud, loud, criticized by older generations. The lyrics of its creators, although frequently hard to realize and had to be read on cartridges for cassettes and records, carried a radical, insulting message. But – exactly! – they had any message. They talked about values and anti-values, about doctrine and religion, about utmost social phenomena and the resulting intellectual states. There were besides many references to history, especially this ancient, dark mystery. The message was sometimes simple, but inactive for young people who were educated. He gave her ideological prescriptions, but he besides educated her. erstwhile we heard in the texts of favourite performers about an event or a character, we immediately started searching for information about a given subject – most frequently in books, due to the fact that it was then the only available media. We have absorbed the thinkers and philosophers to whom the lyrics of the bands we perceive to refer. We read interviews with musicians in the semi-underground press, after which we carefully made up for our deficiency of knowledge.
At the time, membership of the subculture was besides an expression of longing for any form of group, collective identity. The nation has broken through the sutures unknown to us so far class divisions. The increasing wave of crime has made people suspicious even of their neighbors and friends. Meanwhile, we formed compact groups, guided by our unwritten, frequently very demanding, though sometimes full of curiosity rules, a code. After years of course everyone took care of his life – work, family. Many have left the country forever without seeing any prospects. In all, however, there was a note of criticism towards the surrounding reality. They inactive tend to question dogmas and various forms of protest, possibly a small more balanced present than in their youth.
What are they protesting today? As a large fan of the dense sounds of utmost metallic music today, I visited 1 of the best festivals of this genre – summertime Dying Loud in Aleksandrów Łódź. I spoke to respective twelve people – those I knew years ago, and those I first met. The fans of this extreme, devilish music are mostly conservatives today. Revolutionary Conservatives, due to the fact that they don't like the modern planet of misconstrued progress. They are not convinced by the propaganda transmission of mainstream media. They don't like ideas promoted by globalist ideology. This is not a subversive subculture against which self-proclaimed moral defenders can protest. As the vocalist of the Irish band Primordial sang from the phase of this year's Aleksandr festival, "we are against the modern world" ("we are against the modern world"). That's the kind of thing that fans are today, crushing like a metallic sound roller.
Mateusz Piskorski
Think Poland, No. 39-40 (22-29.09.2024)
