Orange Alternative

Orange Alternative (Pomarańczowa Alternatywa) is a name for an underground protest movement which was started and led by Waldemar Fydrych (sometimes misspelled as Frydrych), then commonly known as Major (Commander of the Festung Breslau), in Wroclaw in 1983. Its main purpose was to protest peacefully by using absurd and nonsensical elements. By doing this, Orange Alternative participants could not be arrested by the police for opposition to the communist regime. It organized happenings and painted ridiculous graffiti on walls. It was the most picturesque element of Polish opposition against communism. Among other things they organized happenings which demanded "Freedom for Santa Claus" and painted big orange smiling dwarfs on buildings. It suspended activity in 1989, but reactivated in 2001 to organize the action Vote for dwarfs: Only dwarfs can save the country!. The movement carried on Avant-garde ideas, with roots going back to Dadaism. This can be seen through its use of child like tricks and pranks to oppose the national party.

Some utterances ascribed to Waldemar Fydrych:

In Poland there are only three places when you can feel free: In churches, but only for the meditations, in prisons, but not everyone can go to prison, and on the streets: they are the freest places.

The Western World will find out much more about the situation in Poland from hearing that I was put to jail for giving tampons to a woman, than from reading the books and articles written by other people from the opposition.

Can you treat a police officer seriously, when he is asking you the question: "Why did you participate in an illegal meeting of dwarfs?"

Orange Alternative movement may also have inspired and influenced the Pora and the so called Orange Revolution movement in Ukraine, which was in turn supported by Poland.

Major Fydrych and a group of students participated in the Orange Revolution through happenings in Poland and Ukraine.

References

• Juliusz Tyszka. "The Orange Alternative: Street happenings as social performance in Poland under Martial Law." NEW THEATRE QUARTERLY. vol. 14 (56), 1998. p. 00311
• Nicole Gourgaud. Doctoral thesis, Université de Lyon – November 1993