HWDP

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A two-meters-tall inscription on a wall in Poland

HWDP or ChWDP (read ha-voo-de-pe) is a frequently used acronym of a Polish vulgar phrase chuj w dupę policji, meaning fuck the police in the ass.^[1] The HWDP form is sometimes incorrectly rendered as hak w dupę policji, which literally means hook into the ass of police, in order to hide, what is commonly known to be a spelling mistake - the letter H instead of Ch, however, it was proven by the Polish PWN dictionary^[2], that both the forms chuj and huj are grammatically correct, thus, the form HWDP is grammatically correct as well, and stands for huj w dupę policji. It's the most famous Polish vulgar phrase, and it's very famous outside Poland as well.

This vulgar slogan, often written on walls, is used by a part of the youth as a form of provocation against the police, but also one of its "trademarks". Writing of the HWDP characters, visible from far, is a de facto form of aggressive vandalism, which reasonably lowers the value of the flats near the marked objects. The habit of using the HWDP slogan is particularly popular amongst aggressive football fans, called kibole (some kind of Polish hooligans, that are a part of the dres sub-culture) of the beginning of the 21st century. The acronym appeared for good in texts of the Hip-Hop music as well^[3]. It is a specific expression of protest against the authorities and the entire surrounding system, although it isn't an ideological rebellion, but instead, a characteristic sign of the additude to the surrounding reality.

1 Origins
2 Popularity
3 HWDP and the law
4 Trivia
5 See also
6 Notes

[edit] Origins

There are a few theories about the origins of this slogan. One of them has it that the slogan was invented by the rapper WWDZ (Wilku) on Molesta (the album was released at some time in 1999). Wilku is associated with the hip-hop/hooligan world (POLONIA WARSZAWA). So it would be from here, that the acronym was born to these two sub-cultures. However, it is not possible to prove that Wilku thought up the slogan by himself, or just took it into his song from the language of the street. Nonetheless, his is the first song with the HWDP slogan. There was once a program on the polish television TVP 3 about Hip-Hop, and one of its episodes was dedicated to this slogan. There was even a part about the aforementioned rapper, and the theory that the HWDP slogan was thought up by him was born there.

However, it's known,that somewhere around the year 1998 or 1999, an aggressive football fan perished in an encounter with the police. His friends came to the funeral in shirts with the very acronym HWDP on it. This was one of the very first appearances of this slogan. However, it is not known exactly, when it happened, who was that aggressive football fan, etc.

[edit] Popularity

The popularity of the acronym is also proven, that it got to its many alternative backronyms, such as, e.g. contrary (chwała wszystkim dobrym policjantom, meaning glory to all the good policemen; chcę wstąpić do policji, meaning I want to join the police; Hej, wy dobrzy policjanci, meaning Hey, you good policemen), linked to some actual affairs (Hannawald wreszcie dzisiaj piąty, meaning Hannawald is finally fifth today; chowaj Windows do piwnicy, meaning hide Windows in the basement). There also came into being hundreds of random expands, devoid of any sense (chyba wszyscy dziś pijemy, meaning we are all drinking today, probably; or chowaj wino do plecaka, meaning hide the wine to the backpack; chciałbym wszystkich dobrze poznać, meaning I would like to know everyone well), however, the basic meaning is generally known to all interested persons, but others are only plays on words, used sometimes to avoid awkward situation and to relieve the tension, e.g. when persons who propagate this abbreviation talk with the police or by the policemen who want to avoid embarrassment when they are asked about expanding the abbreviation in interviews.

However, the popularity of this acronym is not limited to it being spraypainted on the walls in Poland. In fact, the acronym has also spread among the Internet users, both Polish and foreign. There have been interesting findings regarding this acronym of the Internet. Among them, is a photo of a car in Poland with the letters CHWDP on its license plate (the entrie license plate reads WO CHWDP),^[4] and it was not the only vehicle with the letters of either form of this acronym in its license plate, either.

This acronym is also being increasingly mentioned on German-language websites, such as The 3-D Center German Forum, and there are even items with this acronym on the German eBay.^[5]

There are also some bogus web-sites around, that use this acronym as their domain name, but they, in themselves, have nothing to do with this slogan. One example of this is the Nidas pierdoli policję (Nidas fucks the police) web-site, which not only uses this acronym in its domain name, and refers to doing something illicit to the police, while having nothing else to do with that at all, but its owner and administrator, Nidas, even protested against an e-mail that asked him to take down the site, because the write of the e-mail thought it was teaching the youth, the police is bad, to which the administrator replied, that his site is in no way teaching that to anyone. In this way, he essentially admitted that his site has no affilitation whatsoever with this slogan, nor with the Polish hooligans, that use it.

[edit] HWDP and the law

The slogan is usually ignored by police. Once, the police used it^[6] even in their campaign against the crime, where the last four letters of the acronym meant Hamujmy Wszyscy Działania Przestępcze, meaning Let us stop, Everyone, the Criminal Actions.

Using the HWDP acronym this way, just like different vulgarisms, is regulated not only by social, but also by legal norms. In Poland, according to article 141 of the Code of Offences:

"Whoever puts obscene inscriptions, pictures in public places, or uses obscene words, is subject to a fine up to 1500 zlotys."

Accidents sometime happen, when police officers write out fines for people with the HWDP (or ChWDP) inscription on their sweatshirts, because sometimes, they're foreign sweatshirts, thus having the HWDP acronym there meaning something else, and not the expected Polish vulgar phrase.

Yet another well-known case was, when in Przasnysz, a military policeman shot an aggressive man with such an inscription on the T-shirt. According to the police, the shot man was known to have been problematic, though this is still being disputed. ^[7]

[edit] Trivia

HWDP is also an allele of a meme, which in memetics, is a variant feature related to the meme.
HWDP (ChWDP) is the Polish counterpart of ACAB (all cops are bastards), known in western English-language countries, painted on walls by aggressive football fans already in the '60's of the 20th century. It is also commonly used as a tattoo among some of the Latino prisoners in the United States of America, who also expand it as Always Carry A Bible, when asked to expand it by a member of the authorities.
Another English counterpart of this Polish vulgar phrase is FTP, an acronym of the phrase fuck the police (it has nothing do to with the official FTP acronym, which means File Transfer Protocol).