Poland: Behind the Black Protests

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2017

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A hundred thousand women and men took to the streets in Poland recently in protest against attempts to ban all abortions—and the issue seems to have crystallised a growing unease with the country’s move to the right and the power of the Catholic Church. ‘We are not putting our umbrellas away' went one of the slogans as women stood in the pouring rain to voice their concerns. The size of the protest surprised even the participants; organised by the feminist movement, it attracted women and men from many different backgrounds. Where did this surge of activism come from? Some argue that the revolution that began with Solidarnosc in the 1980s ignored the needs and voices of Polish women. Communism may have been defeated, they say, but it’s been replaced by a different kind of repression. Maria Margaronis investigates.

Mark Savage producing.

(Photo: Polish women take part in a nationwide strike and demonstration to protest against a legislative proposal for a total ban of abortion on October 3, 2016 in Warsaw. Credit to: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Maria Margaronis. I really like doing assignment because each program is a kind of adventure and a quest.
0:06.7	You start out with an idea or a hunch and then you just follow it on the road and you never know who you're going to meet and what you're going to learn.
0:14.4	I'd never been to Poland before I made this program, but I was intrigued by the pictures I kept seeing
0:19.6	of women protesting against a plan to ban all abortions. How is this possible in a a lot more. It's early on a
0:33.7	shooly you're a shi get my own
0:38.0	in a
0:41.3	it's early on a cold Thursday morning in December, but this Polish village church is packed with people, adults and children muffled in downats and woolly hats. Poland is one of Europe's most devoutly catholic countries.
0:58.0	The Virgin Mary has long been recognized as the nation's Queen, and last year
1:05.8	Jesus Christ was enthroned as King at a mass attended by the President and members of the ruling
1:11.0	party. The ceremony underlined the deepening bond between church and state.
1:16.0	But even though most polls identify as Catholic, not everyone here is in harmony. In October,
1:25.0	In October, a hundred thousand women and men took to the streets, protesting against a plan to ban all abortions,
1:38.0	except in cases where the woman's life was directly at risk.
1:42.0	Proposed by a Catholic campaign group and put before Parliament,
1:45.7	the law would have made abortion a crime for patients as well as doctors. The size and
1:50.8	spread of the black protests startled Poland and caught international attention.
1:57.0	It was pouring rain and the weather was horrible, but what I saw was the mass of people, women and men, with children as well,
2:07.0	dressed in black and chanting the slogans that got us together.
2:11.0	It was amazing film of union.
2:14.0	A sea of umbrellas filled the streets of Warsaw,
2:17.0	drumbeats echoed through Gudensk's historic Solidarnosh Platz,
2:20.0	and small towns across the country.
	...

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