Breaking the Silence: Using Popular Culture to Engage Young People in Human Rights Reporting

Published as part of the New Tactics in Human Rights Tactical Notebook Series, this 20-page document explores the strategies used by the Poland-based volunteer organisation Nigdy Wiêcej (Never Again). Two of the tactics explained in this notebook are the use of cultural resources in the community to recruit activists and the organisation of activists into an information-gathering network. The experience highlighted here demonstrates how these tactics have been used to engage and involve young people in efforts to fight racism and neo-fascism.

An excerpt from the Editor's Preface, written by Notebook Series Editor Liam Mahony, follows:

"The tactics described in this notebook include how Never Again uses cultural events such as concerts and football games to recruit young people to this movement. Through this recruitment, they have organized an extensive network of volunteer correspondents throughout Poland to report on and challenge the tolerance of extreme-right and racist groups and ideas in their society. These correspondents are taught to carefully and regularly report any and all incidents of racism and xenophobia in their districts. Never Again's organizers then process and synthesize this information, publishing it in a magazine that is distributed to thousands of readers, including many mainstream journalists throughout Poland and Europe.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been introduced to the concepts of human rights and anti-racism at Never Again’s concerts. Thousands have signed up to join the organization. Of these, more than 150 have been trained to serve as volunteer correspondents, each producing monthly reports. The result is the most exhaustive source of information on hate crimes and racism in Poland. The publication serves not only for general education, it has also provided important investigative reporting that has prompted coverage of these issues in the mainstream Polish media. This strategic combination of cultural recruitment, maintenance of a broad volunteer network, careful documentation and public education is Never Again's unique contribution to our tactical notebook series.

This notebook provides an overview of the creation and functions of Never Again's volunteer correspondents network. It includes some basic background information, describes how cultural mobilization is used as a recruiting method, discusses the way the network functions, both in the field of gathering and of distributing information, and explains difficulties involved in sustaining a network on a voluntary basis. Finally, some attention is given to possible applications of Never Again's experience in human rights struggles in other countries."

An excerpt from the closing portion of the report (focused on applying these tactics elsewhere) follows:

"The tactics used by Never Again can certainly be used by other groups focusing on human rights issues, particularly unacknowledged violations of rights, like racism and nationalism in Poland. What Never Again has done is combine a set of tactics into a campaign: a) cultural mobilization to recruit activists; b) organizing of activists into an information-gathering network; and c) production and dissemination of analyses and publications based on this network's work. Clearly all three of these tactics are applicable to other settings and other countries. We will focus here on the first two, since publication and dissemination are methodologies that are already widely-understood and used in the grassroots human rights movement.

...The tactic of mobilizing cultural resources to create a national network of voluntary correspondents to break the silence around difficult social issues can be used in other settings. The national context will determine what the underreported social problem might be, and what cultural resources can be mobilized to highlight the issue and to build a national network....A similar effort might be recruiting young people to take action about other social problems, such as a war affecting their country, the AIDS epidemic or gender violence....On a small-scale, an organization might start by trying to set up information tables and recruitment tables at cultural events, concerts, etc. Never Again's example shows that such a movement may also be able to build alliances among the artists themselves, and thus organize concerts with specific political agendas, and invite artists who are also building these political messages into their art...

...[Y]ou also need to organize a process to channel the positive interest your 'culture' work sparks. You need to develop ways to recruit people who are inspired by your message into an organizational framework, and give them an ongoing role in the good work you are trying to promote. For Never Again this involved building a correspondents network. In another setting it might involve building local chapters for a movement or campaign to confront injustice, advocate or lobby. Once the function of the network is defined, the network itself must be built up through recruitment. Never Again had such success with its concerts and CDs that it was able to build a network with a relatively passive recruitment process after that stage....In another context this might not be sufficient, and the group might want to...produce materials about the problem being addressed and the objectives of the network, and take these out in a variety of settings, as well as presenting them at meetings of other similar minded organizations....It might hold assemblies or trainings to excite and empower people to take on this commitment. One thing that made this mobilization process effective for Never Again was that the organization's primary product - the Never Again magazine, was a regular effort and was a visible symbol and demonstration of the importance of the volunteers' work....[This] newsletter helped correspondents to see the political importance of their efforts as well as to keep them in touch with the activities of their colleagues in other parts of Poland. [Finally,] [a]ny organization involving volunteers in confronting violence and human rights abuse would do well to learn from Never Again’s careful concern for the security of its people. Training must go into detail on this aspect, ensuring that those who join the effort are willing to accept the risks, and assuring them of the full support of the organization if they are ever under attack..."