It is Time for ACTION!

by Łukasz Niparko, HIA Fellow

The days between June 16^th and June 18^th moved us into action! The output phase is now in
a full swing. There is surely exciting way in front of us to go and an unprecedented chance to stir the discussion about the hate speech concerning at the same time Roma, Jews, LGBTQ community, and migrants as well as refugees coming to Poland. Has anyone done it before in Poland? Here we are: “Humanity in Action”!

To make things possible we created eight groups of fellows. Each group became simultaneously
a think-tank, a design company, and the as agora of ideas producing such approaches to counter the hate speech as building a symbolic common house for migrants and refugees coming to Poland; culture jamming; outdoors campaign; and much more. It also seems that the film production became a very popular tool for our groups – that changed for instance some of our good fellows into “football hooligans”; yet only for couple of hours of filming.

During these days we had with us Faith Bosworth and Hannes Boettger from the Collective “Peng!” in Berlin. They, together with the HiA Poland staff, helped us to further our ideas and facilitated us in moving our “sketches” into professional graphics and web-design. After hours of brainstorming, and crossing out ideas, while polishing others, we have launched our campaigns – now you can find them online, like them, support them, and get inspired by them. Take a stand on it!

In our discussions we were wondering about the sustainability of them, and we truly hope that we can impact YOU! And expose YOU to something you might not think about before. And on the top of everything to encourage YOU to action. As the poet said: “although the words are not make from stone they can shake the bones!.”* We use the words every day (also in the online sphere), and since we do it, there is always the potential that some might be misused. The words of hate speech are as a matter of fact a crime and a serious violation of basic human rights – that is why, we are here to prevent such from happening. That is why it is very important to support our projects, especially in a reality in which most of the teenagers in Poland faces hate speech expressed towards minorities on a daily basis both on- and offline.

Although, the “input phase” facilitated the intake of information about the “hottest problems” regarding the phenomenon of the hate speech in the public sphere in Poland as well as the presentation of various data. It is the “output phase” that moves the words into action. Speaking of action, on Wednesday, we had also a chance to present our ideas for the “action projects” that we plan to do once the fellowship is over. Yet, it looks like this will not mean an end to our experiences from Warsaw, but rather a new beginning, especially taking into account the ideas presented by the fellows for local change in the communities back home, such as: striving for improvement of sanitation for women living in Nepal; revitalizing abandoned places in Detroit; and connecting the Polish youth living in Warsaw and the Israeli youth coming to Warsaw for tours.

To conclude, as once someone said “the peace [and a better world] we seek is not in some distant land, but within us and in our actions…” There is not one recipe for change, yet there are many paths that the change can be brought to reality. Surely, nothing happens without the acknowledgment of the problem as the hate speech is, and discussion on it. Our memes do that and even more than that – they invite to action. After all, we are “Humanity in Action”!

*“Słowo, choć nie z głazu, może rozbić kości, chociaż nie jest z głazu. Złego więc wyrazu chroń się, zwłaszcza w złości słowo, choć nie z głazu, może rozbić kości.”