"Memes! Really?” I questioned when I first learned that a big part of my HIA Poland fellowship would be dedicated to creating memes. “Creating memes for 2 weeks?” I doubted HIA’s public portrayal of itself as an intensive program held any water. Memes, as I knew them were the combination of funny pictures with satirical comments. My friends would share some popular memes on Facebook like the one below. These memes had no scholarly significance. I doubted the efficacy of memes in fighting a complicated and sensitive issue like hate speech.
What started as an uncertain journey has, after two weeks, turned into a very meaningful experience. My group, which included two amazingly talented Polish fellows Kasia Gerula and Joanna Socha, has created a lot of memes, and we are committed to fighting anti-Semitism prevalent in Polish society. A big accomplishment is my new understanding of memes. These are concepts or behaviors that spreads rapidly among people of a certain culture. Memes need not entail just pictures and funny statements; they can be presented in writings, speeches, gestures, etc. Memes could mean a lot of things, from popular fashionable jeans that many people wear, to a new novel that a huge part of the public reads; these are things people could mimic.
My experience creating memes to fight anti-Semitism brought to attention the enormity of the problem itself. According to the report published recently by the Batory Foundation at the Polish parliament, 19 percent of adults and 21 percent of young people consent to anti-Semitic statements like: "Jews must realize that they themselves made Poles to hate them because of their treachery and their crimes. And today, they try to hide their crimes and pass the buck". It is a sad realization that we still live in a hateful world, despite the knowledge that hatred is a slippery slope that could lead to mass extermination; the Holocaust is the most evident example. Despite efforts from the governments, civil societies, educational systems, etc., a huge part of the Polish society still possesses stereotypes and prejudices against the Jews.
Learning about the problem provided me an impetus to create a more deliberative social campaign against discrimination. My group chose to tackle the issue of hate speeches against Jews in football (soccer) stadiums. Cheers like "Move on, Jews!" and "Your home is at Auschwitz!" from passionate football fans are troubling. Our social campaign that included a documentary type video and a Facebook page tried to reach out to soccer fans that could be identified as bystanders or passive acceptors of these hate speeches. We created memes that are thought provoking, like the one below. We tried to enforce a perspective that we can all be friends, despite our religious, ethnic or sports backgrounds. We called our campaign “Cheer for Tolerance”, with the hope that it will inspire young people to cheer for acceptance and understanding, instead of hateful messages.
Created by Kasia Gerula, this informative meme mentions that 60% of the hate speech is delivered to young people through the Internet.
In terms of public visibility, our Facebook page has reached over 24,600 people;more than 50 people have “Liked” our page, and over 300 have viewed our video posted on Youtube. We have clearly exceeded our initial goal. But, this is not the end. In fact, it is just the beginning. We hope to continue our campaign of creating awareness and prompting people to fight against anti-Semitism in the future. I have come to become a strong advocate of social campaigns as not an end on themselves, but as an effective means to promote awareness.
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