Changing the Use of a ‘Jew’ in the Republic of Poland

by Oleksii Bondarev, Nina Gabryś, Elliot Mamet

On 15 June 2015 we started to work on our social campaign on the topic of counteracting anti-Semitic hate speech in Poland. The topic was especially broad, and we struggled to find a place to start. We spent two days trying to clarify the problem. Finally, with the help of our colleagues, we decided to focus on the misuse of the word ‘Jew’ in the Polish language, because it creates some stereotypes and leads to anti-Semitic hate speech. For example, consider how the infinitive ‘to Jew’ is often used as a substitute for ‘to cheat.’ Moreover, it was a feasible idea that can be addressed by work of a group of three people.

We understood from the very beginning that the name of our campaign should be provocative, because a provocative campaign would attract the most attention and thus most effectively expose our message to our target audience. After some reflections the title “Use ‘Jew’ Correctly” was proposed and received positive feedback from the Fellows and members of the Jewish community, as well as HIA Poland staff. 

Our challenges continued: Over the course of two days we tried to draft the concept of our campaign, but a consultant convinced us that we only had an emphatically boring idea and the only good thing we had was the name and slogan of the campaign. This feedback energized us to make our campaign more attractive. 

Working together in a group was really slow. We couldn’t agree on anything except the name of the campaign and were really frustrated. The American approach of putting everything in one document for further discussion didn’t work for us. And every discussion about how to use a ‘Jew’ was a mess. 

Finally we found a balance between all our ideas and decided how we were going to use a ‘Jew’. We launched our Facebook campaign “Use ‘Jew’ Correctly” on Friday, 19 June 2015. And due to Nina’s personal connections, we started to rapidly scale up our visibility. Amazingly, in only four days, we received over 600 likes, and our content was shared and commented on across platforms. We were especially pleased with the engagement with our campaign from the general public and from our target population.

But we still needed more content for our page. One of the problems was shooting a movie. We had one very good idea but due to lack of time and resources we changed our approach and drafted three other scripts. And, what is really cool, we got a professional film crew, again thanks to Nina. With professional it took us two and a half hours to shoot a movie. Elliot had an opportunity to show his acting talent and proficiency in Polish language. Nina was a director of the movies and did her job very well, as you can see on our Facebook page. 

Please feel free to join our campaign and Jew a Jew Jewly. Don’t understand? Go to our Facebook page and our dream team will explain you how to use this word.

           

The Enthusiasm To Be Frustrated

by Nora Lassahn

Looking out of the window: How to turn a complex issue into a single image

What makes a good human rights campaign? Should it be provocative? Surprising? Simple? While trying to come up with an answer to that question, I realized that it also always more difficult than you anticipated.

When I entered the conference room, where we hold our daily meetings during the HIA Fellowship, somebody was looking in from the outside, dangling right outside the second floor. Today, at the start of our picture and video-workshops, window-cleaners were clearing the massive glass facade of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Initially I was startled. But they could not have chosen a better day then the transition from our input phase to the planning of our actual campaigns. After acquiring knowledge about social and political issues in Poland, we are now trying to transform this knowledge into campaigns for social change - and to reach other people with our ideas. It's time to look out of the window!

But this turned out to be more difficult than I had expected. Putting your ideas into practice also shows you how your first enthusiasm is limited by technical restraints, and leads to the question of how to break down a complex issue into one single message. During the workshops with Mateusz Grabowski from Rochstar ("Graphic-design for Social Change") and Marcin Swystun from OP1 ("Short Introduction to Movie-Making") the other fellows and I got first insights into how this could be achieved. By looking at good examples of successful campaigns - one campaign showing posters of babies resembling dictators, another putting stickers of crouched prisoners into university lockers and finally, another illustrating how a condom can mark the difference between fun and funeral - I asked myself: What do these pictures have in common? Provocation? Sometimes. Creativity? Always. Surprise? Simplicity? Yes! Good campaign pictures have to be understood after once glance and carry a universal message. For me, provocation does not help as much as simplicity - life is so complicated; it is refreshing to feel that for once you can comprehend a matter just by briefly looking at it.

So, not only is a picture worth a thousand words. It also bridges language barriers because it can be internationally understood. Pictures can make communication easier and can unite people to tackle a common cause - whether they refer to this cause as the issue of "refugees", "uchodźca", "біженець" or of "Flüchtlinge".

Marcin Swystun from OP1 combined the message of the universality of images with very practical advice. Not only did he tell us that, "In hell there is a special place for people who shoot their videos horizontally" but also that, "the message is always the king". As a preparation for the first workshop we shot videos in public transport. This was an uncomfortable exercise: People turned away from me, didn't want to be filmed and reacted surprised. Or, even worse, they were doing something very interesting, but by the time I had found my camera in my big "Humanity in Action" bag and had waited for it to load, the person had already walked away.

It is very easy to be a successful human rights activist in your mind, to achieve great goals in theory, and to fantasize about what might happen, once you start campaigning for what you believe in. Real action is more difficult. You have to be at the right place at the right time, be fast and have a good idea. Plus, it can be frustrating and uncomfortable. Some people may not like your campaign; some might ignore or misunderstand it. But nonetheless, it is the only possibility to achieve change. Let's hope that still I'll always have the enthusiasm to be frustrated.

Rainbow Revolution
by Karolina Osiak

June is in full force and Warsaw is in a siesta state of mind on yet another Sunday evening. The enticing atmosphere of relaxing silence today strikes me as unnatural after the whirlwind of emotions of yesterday. From Al. Ujazdowskie, up to Plac Zbawiciela, the rainbow flags were unfurled, platforms were dusted off and filled with dancing. On June 13th the Equality Parade transformed the city into a safe bubble, where everyone was equal.

This was my first parade and I could not help but feel a trembling sense of excitement when I saw a gathering of people waiting for the event to begin. A big platform was in the center of attention with activists approaching it to share their views and mobilize the audience. “This is a majority parade, as equality is for everyone!” – a strong voice screamed and received a powerful round of applause. Among the revelry, the atmosphere was stirred by another voice supporting the currently elected government. He received instant backlash, and was replaced by a speaker who brought positive news to the crowd: the Palace of Culture would forward the powerful equality message of that day even further. The building would gleam with the seven colors of the rainbow.

After the first part, I quickly jumped on the platform, which became an open space for sharing smiles and small conversations with strangers, mastering the art of dancing as if no one was watching and waving at the observers videotaping us from their windows. There was a sense of innate freedom that filled my throat, triggered my body and untied my words. Never has anything been as simple and natural as the concept of equality. Appreciation of diversity was not an illusion anymore: it was shining brightly right in front of my eyes. I was longing for the utopia to be present every day and the celebration of equal rights to never end. Could this fabled dream ever become reality?

Photo credit: Alicja Szulc

I dare to say that we are still very far from reaching this goal. The first question that arises is: who are the people supporting this matter? Considering that we live in a society where our Equality Parade gets funded by Economic European Area Funds coming from Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein, it is painfully obvious that there are still not enough people on board to fight for this cause. This rings especially true for the higher circles. While the progress can be seen in Poland (the first openly gay city mayor of Słupsk, Robert Biedroń; the first transgender Parliament Member, Anna Grodzka), you might need a magnifying glass to spot any real changes. Poles are still nowhere near civic partnership, as we have still not managed to effectively implement this proposal into Polish law despite five recent attempts. The act that SLD (left wing) put on the agenda included shared taxes, hereditary amendments, and social protection after the death of the spouse for both heterosexual and homosexual couples. It was rejected, and the discussion will most likely go back to being a political tool used to win public support during elections.

Surprisingly, the right wing did not speak up too loudly either. During the parade I stayed constantly alert, fearing that extremists would sense the opportunity to inflame the conflict. Yet the only signs of their presence were difficult to notice: only some individuals were standing in a distance holding a Polish flag with insulting captions. Some others were trying to bribe the participants with candies to take leaflets describing in a detailed way their wrongdoings. The big group of policemen seemed startled as well, in the beginning spending the time with little to do.

After the parade I got tempted to ask my foreign friends about their impressions. They are more familiar with parades and pointed out the differences. While the parade of New York was deemed to be more flamboyant, glittery and courageous, ours still appealed to the crowd, bringing colors to the usually grey (as the Varsovians themselves would say) Warsaw. The relative conservatism is however making me think: is it an expression of our country’s background, the comparably short history of such events or the fact that the parade has been only legal (again) since 2012?

Photo credit: Alicja Szulc

Or maybe it’s just because we don’t have that much to be loud and proud about, when it comes to our social equality achievements? After all, hate speech towards LGBTQ people receives the highest amount of acceptance in Poland, and as we have also been learning, levels of physical violence are still very high towards the community.

Even though the problems are on the table and the LGBTQ community is well aware of them, this did not impede on the celebrations of equality. In the end, I loved the notion of us all being equal for a day. As one of my American friends said, “We can celebrate, but we still have a lot of work to do.” May this June day every year bring us closer to having a life-long equality celebration.

So... what's next?
by Magdalena Miśkowicz

Isn't it the question that some of us had raised almost from the beginning of our program? After an intense time of learning, discussing and reflecting, right now it's time for the next step in our Humanity in Action adventure. It's time to give a more material form to our ideas. It's time for action!

For almost two weeks, we've been focused on challenging moments in Polish history, such as the Holocaust and the transformation. We've been discovering the presence of the past in the streets of Warsaw and discussing the factors that were shaping Polish identity. We've been exploring how the past affects the presence and what lessons can we learn for the future. That journey through history led us to the contemporary Poland and the position of different minority groups in Polish society.  

The second part of HIA Warsaw Program is dedicated to creation and implementation of social media campaigns. To deal with that task, we've created 8 multinational teams. Each of them will create a social campaign focused on one of the group that suffers discrimination and is the target of hate speech nowadays in Poland, such as: Roma, Jews, LGBTQ, Refugees/Migrants, Muslims, People of Color or Women. From now on, we will be trying to apply in practice what we've learned so far.

The question we've been confronted with from the beginning of the output phase was: How to make an effective social campaign? Transferring ideas from our heads into catchy memes, graphics and short videos in a very limited time definitely is a challenging task. HIA Team Poland took care of our preparation and provided us with several workshops with professionals and activists who deal with advertising and social activism on a daily basis.

But... can a social campaign become viral? By presenting some good practices and examples, Marek Dorobisz, strategic copywriter and creative director, proved that it can. I was probably as much shocked as interested by Marek's commercial point of view. As Marek explained, if we want to be successful in advertisement, we should follow so called „3P” rule, a shortcut made from Polish words: „prosto, pomysłowo i precyzyjnie”, what means „simply, creatively and precisely”. As he emphasized, preparing a good creative brief, a document which clearly defines the message, audience and goal is crucial before creating a campaign.

According to Faith Bosworth, an activist from Peng! Collective from Berlin there are some effective tactics, such as spectacle, provocation, topical response and use of humor/ridicule (e.g. creating funny memes) that may help us reaching our goal. During the training with Faith we were faced with the question about how to find a middle way between the problem and the ideal solution, and how to think about a campaign in a realistic way. What I found really useful was a brainstorming on how to apply advertisement tactics to counteract hate speech in the Internet.

Successful campaign also plays with emotions. Curiosity, happiness or anger are the key elements which can help us reaching the attention of our audience, as Alexey Sidorenko, a Russian activist and social media expert stressed out. What's more, the effectiveness and the outreach of a social media campaigns can be measured and the analysis of the trends can helps us to improve it.

The lesson I hope to remember from the output phase training is that the capacity to think out of the box is the essential skill. Making our audience stop and reflect on our work is already a step closer to the issue we try to deal with. Secondly, as various speakers stressed, we can only really engage in the issue we care about. Therefore, the question: “What bothers me?” is the basic one on the way of the activist to be. Third, we should keep questioning ourselves and not sticking to the first idea we have.

Seems challenging? It is! But that's exactly what HIA is about: people and action. The second not less important part of the challenge is teamwork. We've been learning not only how to apply in practice our knowledge and skills, but we are continuously learning to listen to each other, discuss our ideas and work together for the common aim, despite all the personal and cultural differences between us. 

One sentence that served as an inspiration for me during this intense time was one expressed by Eugeniusz Smolar during the HIA Poland conference „Poland on the Move”. It's a quote of Samuel Beckett: „Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” It's time for action. Let's try without fear. We can always fail better.

No Hate Speech

by Ashley Blackwell and Aleksandra Zagłoba

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me"
"Haters gonna hate"
"The pen is mightier than the sword..."

These are all variations on the role language plays in shaping an individual. In the case of hate speech, it is difficult to simply accept the idea that hateful words, pictures, or expressions directed to certain individuals or groups should easily be dismissed. In fact, hate speech has been proven to be internalized by people, and in many cases, translated into hate crimes.

But first - what exactly is hate speech? The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation 97(20) on “hate speech” defined it as follows:
“The term “hate speech” shall be understood as covering all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of hatred based on intolerance, including: intolerance expressed by aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism, discrimination and hostility against minorities, migrants and people of immigrant origin.”
Even the most well-intentioned human rights activists have prejudices and biases that shape the work they do on a daily basis. So how do we combat these prejudices? During our workshops and Fellows’ Discussion we came up with some ideas how to combat these prejudices that can lead to hate speech:

1.    Know yourself. Understanding your social identity is key to learning where your position is in society, your privilege, and your grounds to discuss certain issues. Especially when considering developing campaigns, advocating for and alongside populations, it is important to understand the lens through which you perceive an issue you seek to address.

2.    Understand “the other”. One can be well-versed in history, research, and statistics that capture an issue or the experience of a population. However, there is a gap between knowledge and experience that limits one’s ability to understand “the other” or the populations one chooses to work with. Building one’s understanding of “the other” is key through learning from the population’s first-hand experiences. By not understanding one’s self or the population one seeks to help, one runs the risk of replicating the same violent structures that one seeks to address.

3.    Be an agent of change. Changing people’s language around certain groups and behaviors while in person or online is important. One has the power to transform the dialogue around certain groups with each conversation. There are also numerous campaigns to address hate speech on a broader level. For example, the No Hate Speech Movement works to instill a sense of online governance in youth to combat hate speech.  

As one considers one’s role as an agent of change across all spheres of life- home, work, school, church, etc.- it is important to have a critical consciousness regarding the methods one uses to address social issues, the biases/assumptions one holds, and one’s relationship with the community one exists within. As illustrated through previous examples of campaigns, social media is a tool used to address hate speech. In Poland specifically, research from the Centre for Research on Prejudice shows that the majority of teens encounter hate speech through the Internet. The issue of hate speech online is so prevalent that the Council of Europe has recognized the need for education on online governance and has dedicated a webpage detailing how to combat hate speech online. There is even a Liberal Agenda Against Online Hate Speech.

Throughout the week, Humanity in Action Fellows have learned about hate speech directed at specific groups- migrants, refugees, Roma, women, etc. However, many of these discussions have left a lot to be considered. To what extent can one truly internalize, reflect upon and comprehend the experience of these marginalized populations within the Polish context? Within this fellowship, we have various groups campaigning against hate speech directed at different minority populations in Poland. However, hardly any of us reflect the marginalized populations we are campaigning for. Given the advice to “know yourself”, it is becoming increasingly clear that it is not enough to simply know, but also transfer this knowledge into action and change our social interactions and choices we make on a daily basis.

Another question is whether enough information was provided to develop an effective campaign in little over a week? Not having lived the experiences of minorities in this context, or even minorities to speak to about their experiences, places fellows in a precarious ethical situation, which is only exacerbated by the lack of research related to these populations. Without lived experiences to rely upon, there is the concern that research and statistics fail to give a holistic view of the circumstances of minority groups. Given that “understanding the other” is another key aspect of counteracting hate speech, it is important to try to connect with organizations and people who can provide more insights about the populations we strive to raise awareness about. Nonetheless, the fact that we are all developing different competing campaigns to combat hate speech for multiple minority groups at the same time also may undermine the effectiveness of our efforts even if they were experts on the topics. However, it is also a situation that parallels the reality of countless organizations simultaneously running campaigns regarding different minority populations and inadvertently competing for attention.

One of the speakers encouraged fellows to be willing to stray from political correctness to have a more powerful impact and broader audience within our social campaigns. On the one hand, such methods have been proven to have more views, shares, and ultimately garner more attention to particular online social movements. In fact, creating campaigns that polarize and create debate about topics is presented as being better than sharing a campaign that makes a politically correct message but garners little attention.  But one must wonder: at what cost are these campaigns going viral? To what extent are values and ethics compromised in order to attract attention? Should one be willing to compromise one’s values and ethics at all in order to raise awareness about an issue, even if the means may reinforce stigmas/stereotypes?

Hundreds of campaigns have been made around hate speech, racism, sexism, homophobia, discrimination, etc. Despite thousands, and at times millions, of views and shares of these campaigns, there continues to be a seemingly stagnant, if not increasing, amount of hate speech towards various minority groups in Poland and broader Europe. As we endeavor to “be agents of change” by developing social campaigns, it is critical to question whether social media is the most effective tool to address hate speech and transform people’s biases and assumptions. Especially considering the need to condense content to a catchy slogan or racy campaign title, one has to recognize the limit of one’s reach and ability to translate such nuanced and complex social issues.

Above all of these questions, the one question that resounds in my mind is whether it causes more harm than good to fail to act at all in the face of hate speech? Of course, we are unable to change everyone’s perspectives, but as each campaign reaches an increasing number of people who internalize our message, we can only hope that incremental change begins to take place.  It is a herculean task to reverse the messages broadcasted daily for decades through national and international media regarding minorities. Carrying out this task to combat hate speech through our daily social interactions, advocacy work, and producing social campaigns is one that is undoubtedly worth fighting for.