2019 HUMANITY IN ACTION WARSAW FELLOWSHIP

The 2019 Humanity in Action Poland Fellowship in Warsaw has been financially supported by Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” ( EVZ ). The participation of Greek Fellows in Humanity in Action Programs internationally is generously supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).  This publication does not represent an expression of opinion by the  Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future"   (EVZ), nor by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.  The authors bear responsibility for the content. Honorary Patronage:  Project Partners:  Media Partners:  The 14th edition of the Warsaw Fellowship was dedicated to the memory of City of Gdansk’s Mayor Paweł Adamowicz who was stabbed in January 2019. The program was also dedicated to values which he promoted such as dialogue and cooperation. 

Let’s Meet at the Intersection of You and Me I have a question for you: Who are you? Can you describe yourself in a single word, a single sentence? Is it even possible to encapsulate who you are in words? In all likelihood, you have attempted to whittle yourself down to a digestible description. And, if we are honest, these descriptions never do us justice. Yet, we so often focus on our own and others’ singular identities, while missing the greater portrait of who we each are. So, what does that mean for those who are driven to bring about change—for example, we Humanity In Action Fellows? It means that we must abandon simplistic ideas of identity and expand our toolkits to include frameworks and theories that make space for the complex people and problems we seek to resolve. Today’s addition to the toolkit, then, is intersectionality. A concept developed by Kimberlè Crenshaw, intersectionality was intended to provide a framework for understanding overlapping identity discrimi...

What Solidarity Sounds Like I hear the word ‘solidarity’ and my brain immediately goes to the song ‘Solidarity Forever’, a hymn that played in the background of my childhood. Written by Ralph Chaplin in 1915, the song was a union anthem passed from generation to generation of organizers and activists. One line always jumps out to me: “...yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?” Said simply, there is power in numbers. Solidarity is a charged word, one that extends beyond the lines of a song or the picket lines of a protest. It came to describe the struggle for freedom against tyranny in Poland in 1989, permanently intertwining itself into the fabric of democracy-building. It’s important to remember that, until the latter half of the 1970s, Polish social groups that opposed the communist government were not united and their actions brought little long-term change. It took three decades of resistance—locally, regionally, and nationally—to form a broad co...

When Protest Counts: Poland's Struggle For reproductive Freedom The early 90s was a very promising period for changes in Central and Eastern Europe. The “virus of democratic revolution” spread through the countries in the form of the New Forum in the German Democratic Republic, the Civic Forum in Czechoslovakia and the Alliance of Free Democrats in Hungary. Even though a completely new post-communist civic society developed in Poland after Solidarity came to power, some human rights issues have remained unresolved, even today. A special concern should be raised around the status and protection of reproductive rights of women. A discriminatory law on abortion introduced in Poland in 1993 outlines only three circumstances under which women are able to access this procedure legally: when continuation of the pregnancy endangers the woman's life or health, when the fetus is irreparably damaged, or when the pregnancy is a result of a criminal act (rape/incest). In reality, 90%...

Do WE save migrants and refugees or do THEY save us? What do you think about when you hear the words “migrant” or “refugee”? Is it a beggar in the constant need for help? Rootless and helpless in the search of own well being. Or is it someone proud, breathing with liveliness and full of ambition? Just looking for a right aerodrome for the flight of their lifetime. Is it someone who has to fit in, accepted in your community if they meet set of particular conditions and hide certain parts of their own identity? Or someone embraced unconditionally? My thoughts and associations are versatile and complicated: my sister is the bright example of intellectual migration to the United States, while my father had lost his hometown indefinitely in the heart of war conflict between Russia and Ukraine back in 2014, and could be a refugee unless our family resided in the other hometown. I am myself on my third year of BA in Warsaw, Poland, and could be considered as an economic migrant. Out of 1...

LOVE IS MY RELIGION Barack Obama once said "We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn't a matter of political correctness. It's a matter of understanding what makes us strong. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith." This his quote illustrates what I thought about on the 19th of June when we had a chance to listen to the lectures of Dr. Mustafa Switat and Catholic theologist Zuzanna Radzik. It is common knowledge that religion mostly unites people. However, it is necessary to stress that it unites mostly people of the same faith. When it comes to different religions, it turns out that religion may be a flashpoint of conflict. People who are not Christian in Poland often faced discrimination and were subjected to hate speech. Our guest Mustafa Switat said that in the last years the number of situations when members of...

This Rainbow Is Complicated “I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth” said God to Noah, when the rainbow first appeared on the sky after the Deluge. If he had done that in today’s Poland, he would have probably been accused of “homopropaganda”, at least by some members of the Roman catholic hierarchy. Because of its similarities with the seven colours of LGBTI+ flag the rainbow has become a source of never-ending controversy, of which the burning of the rainbow installation at Zbawiciela Square and the scandal around Madonna of Częstochowa with the rainbow halo are just two examples. This symbolic war is also symptomatic for modern Polish society, where different values and points of view are constantly clashing with one another. In order to fully understand this complex problem the tenth day of our fellowship was devoted to the issues around the LGBTIAP community in Poland. In the first session we met with   Gosia Kot , a Board...

Advocating for Change, Not Inspiration “I am not here to inspire” states Katarzyna Bierzanowska as she concludes her presentation on disability advocacy and larger issues implicated by intersectionality. In addition to being a translator, social activist, and educator, Katarzyna is the founder of Pełnosprawna an initiative which advocates for equal treatment with people with disabilities. Rather than inspiring the public with stories of overcoming hardships, Pełnoprawna aims to counteract discrimination on the basis of disability and to truly impact the mentalities of audiences about the limitations faced by people with disabilities in our current society. Katarzyna speaks to our fellowship’s ongoing dialogue about and critiques of “defaultness” in our society, where people and governments operate under a default structure which privileges certain groups over others, usually lacking empathy for minority groups while doing so. Default social life has been constructed to benefit a...

I MISS YOU JEW! Even the most engaged advocate for reconciliation can never deny the past. There is the presumption that Polish-Jewish relations have to be difficult. But what is the point of having difficult relations with neighbors who have lived by our side for the more than 1000 years? It is the different perceptions of our narratives that continue to polarize Polish society. Thus, in order to further the discussion about Polish-Jewish relations, we must agree that both sides are allowed to have differing perspectives on a common narrative. Polin – the Museum of the History of Polish Jews is the place where narrative was transferred to the Jewish people. The museum represents a powerful retelling or rather reclaiming of the Jewish narrative by Jews themselves. The Jewish perspective is a valid one. The museum paints a holistic picture of Jewish history. It celebrates Jewish contributions to Polish history, showcases the historical development of the Jewish religion, and sho...

Political Correctness Is a Shot in One’s Foot ‘I’m a rich, influential, white, middle-aged, heterosexual man. If you can convince me to support your cause, you can convince anybody’ states Marek Dorobisz during a lecture for Humanity in Action Fellows. He is a Creative Director with over 20 years of experience in working on marketing campaigns for top companies both in Poland and abroad to his credit. ‘But first, we need to get one thing straight. All I care about is my family and Apple products. Whether you’re advocating for women, refugees or LGBT+ rights, I don’t give a damn, and neither do other people.’ As controversial as it may seem, there is a lot of truth in Dorobisz’s words. Being an activist deeply passionate about a certain social issue, you can sometimes forget that most people are simply caught up in their own lives. Juggling their own problems, aspirations, work and family, leaves them little time to think about human rights. What’s...

Is Winter Coming? In the book The end of history and the last man, Fukuyama argues that, following the ascendency of Western-style liberal democracy following the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, humanity was reaching "not just ... the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history. That is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government". But is this really the end of the history? The 2016 election made clear that the United States of America is a nation deeply divided along racial, cultural, gender and class lines, prone to populism. In Poland we are observing slow deterioration of liberal democracy that was established in the 1990s. The constitution is not respected, threefold power is undermined, the media is attacked, reproductive rights of women are at risk, marginalized communities are oppressed and immigran...