Značka: Michal

On the 3^rd of Feb­ru­ary 2012, the so-​called Goril­la Pro­test took pla­ce in SNP Squ­are in Bra­ti­sla­va. It was, accor­ding to all indi­ca­ti­ons, the lar­gest pro­test of Slo­vak citi­zens against the sta­te of socie­ty and cor­rup­ti­on sin­ce 1989. It was a pho­tog­rap­hic event for me; as a citi­zen, I pro­bab­ly would not have par­ti­ci­pa­ted in such an acti­on. More­over, even if I did, I would like­ly have left short­ly after­ward becau­se I would have beco­me bored. I had and still have sig­ni­fi­cant ide­olo­gi­cal dif­fe­ren­ces with what the orga­ni­zers wan­ted or cons­tan­tly chan­ged. Also, with how they beha­ved. Desi­ring direct democ­ra­cy, making legis­la­ti­on through the Inter­net, dis­cus­sing eve­ryt­hing with eve­ry­o­ne, bar­ter, etc., are uto­pian and even cra­zy ide­as that defy rea­li­ty. The orga­ni­zers them­sel­ves had nice ide­als; they wan­ted to chan­ge and add­ress eve­ryt­hing. I had the fee­ling, and I dis­cus­sed it with seve­ral peop­le, that the lea­ders of the pro­tests pro­bab­ly had no idea how the sta­te func­ti­ons. More­over, when a lea­der talks about being just an ordi­na­ry per­son and does not feel like a lea­der, he rapid­ly loses cre­di­bi­li­ty. The­se were too seri­ous topics. It’s a pity that emo­ti­ons stron­gly pre­vai­led over rea­son, a pity that the orga­ni­zers did not con­nect with intel­li­gen­ce, the cul­tu­ral com­mu­ni­ty. The­re was a lack of con­nec­ti­on, coope­ra­ti­on. Ins­te­ad, I per­ce­i­ved divi­si­on. Today, almost a year later, they are pro­bab­ly fru­stra­ted that the­re is no will to chan­ge the sta­te of pub­lic affairs, as I heard on tele­vi­si­on. It is a gre­at pity that the poten­tial against cor­rup­ti­on was not uti­li­zed. That the for­ces bro­ke up due to enti­re­ly dif­fe­rent ambi­ti­ons. I would recom­mend looking for faults wit­hin one­self. The dec­li­ning inte­rest in par­ti­ci­pa­ting in the ​“Goril­la Pro­tests” ref­lects the reac­ti­on of all of us.

I have not expe­rien­ced such a cro­wd for­ce, as the­re was during the pho­tog­rap­hy, when the cro­wd moved from the squ­are. The ter­rain – SNP Squ­are and its sur­roun­dings – I know very well. I was for­tu­na­te when the cro­wd moved from the squ­are toward the Govern­ment Offi­ce; I was in one pla­ce for more than 10 minu­tes. The cro­wd was elect­ri­cal­ly buz­zing; it was magi­cal, uplif­ting. Des­pi­te the quite decent win­ter weat­her and the dark­ness that had alre­a­dy set in, my fin­gers were fre­e­zing. Below is the result of my efforts. A sig­ni­fi­cant por­ti­on of the pho­tog­raphs is pre­ci­se­ly from the time when the cro­wd was in motion.