FAQ

We try to co-operate with all, which can help us in building the better world. We obviously do not agree in everything; sometimes differences are very big - however this does not disturb us in building partnerships and alliances in the matters which are important for our society. On different level we and with different frequency we have co-operated with, for example: the Green 2004 (Zieloni 2004), Fundacją Wielka Orkiestra Świątecznej Pomocy, Stowarzyszeniem Lokalnych Ośrodków Twórczych, Poznańską Koalicją Antywojenną, Pracowniczą Demokracją, Nową Lewicą, FARE, Inicjatywą Stop Wojnie, Stowarzyszeniem Niemieckim ATTAC, Związkiem Zawodowym Sierpień 80, Stowarzyszeniem Osób Trzeciego Wieku „Świerczewski krąg”, Polską Partią Pracy, Wydziałem Zdrowia i Spraw Społecznych oraz Wydziałem Kultury i Sztuki Urzędu Miasta Poznania, Miejskim Ośrodkiem Pomocy Rodzinie w Poznaniu, Fundacją im. S.Batorego, Federacją Anarchistyczną, Wspólnotą Europejską (program „Młodzież w działaniu”), Fundacją Polska Pomoc, Fundacją Barka, Centrum Kultury Zebra, Wyższą Szkołą Nauk Humanistycznych i Dziennikarstwa, Uniwersytetem im.A.Mickiewicza, Dębowskim Domem Kultury, poznańskimi szkołami średnimi, Fundacją Inna Przestrzeń.

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- Are you politicaly commited?
We should start with defining „political activity”. It seems that even educated people have a very stereotypical idea of what it is. “Political activity” is often understood as “party activity” aiming to gain state or local offices, gain power as such. We do not run such activity; however we’re building a social movement. In the future it will probably appoint political representatives, willing to change the world through legal changes.
Meanwhile, politics concerns everything that surrounds us – how much we earn, what kind of taxes do we pay, what is allowed to be said, do our children have to go to school in uniforms, do we have to pay for medicines, school etc. Every activity aiming to change status quo is a political activity. For example: collecting signatures to put pressure on housing cooperative to build a playground, to call of a corrupt clerk, to boycott dishonest corporation. In this meaning we act politically in deed, as every action to stimulate citizens or improve their conditions of living is a political action. We want to change political, social and economic system – so our activity is political in a sense.

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- Does association have any connections with political parties?
In the meaning of dependence or organizational connections – definitely no. However, there were political parties among many organizations we have worked with (e. g. Greens 2004, New Left, Polish Labor Party)

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- What do you have in common with the anarchists?
The founders of the association descend form the same environment – subcultural, youth, musical etc. We have the same “enemy” and we do agree on many critical remarks to reality – on this field we often cooperate (e.g. anti war campaign). And all the similarities come to an end at this point. We are different in methods, rhetoric, symbolism, and almost entire vision of future – changes we are pursuing. Our ideas concerning the future are, unlike the appearances, diametrically opposite. Very often we have different meanings for the same terms e.g. participating democracy. We do not agree at all when it comes to the vision of economic, scientific, social vision of our civilization or with the evaluation of the idea of an state.
On what conditions do you cooperate with the City Hall in Poznań?
On similar to those of any grantor – we execute tasks and projects, we account for the funds and the reached objectives.

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- Are you communists?
No:). We believe in justice and equality, but our ways to realize these ideas are significantly different from communistic ones. We acknowledge the necessity of market mechanisms in the economy (with the possibility of a government intervention in the economy to prevent monopolization of the market or to protect consumers and employees). We are absolutely set against state ownership of the means of production with the exception of strategic sectors. We believe that for majority of people their actions in economy result from selfishness (perhaps it is sad, but it’s surely true); and individual effort and commitment should be rewarded with higher quality of life comparing to the people who doesn’t have this commitment. Of course, all people should be given an equal start in life, which nowadays doesn’t happen anywhere in the world. We categorically reject all ideas like "dictatorship or the proletariat"; we are democrats. Of course, there are many kinds of communism and there are many differences between us. To summarize, we will answer briefly: "No, we aren’t":)

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- Why are you so radical?
First of all, we aren’t radical at all :). Media often call all alter-globalists by the name of extremists. The only reason is that the financial elites, who control the media, want to ridicule and marginalize our movement. This is not true at all – we regard ourselves as centrists with a common sense approach. It is social and political scene that is abnormal – it isn’t our fault that most of other organizations have neoliberalistic point of view. We promote central alter-globalization, drawing from many social and economic doctrines, including liberal and Christian – we are not "extremists":)

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- Don’t you think that your postulates are a utopia?
A utopia is something by definition impossible, unreasonable dream, fantasies about an ideal impossible to reach. Our opinions are CERTAINLY not utopian – quite the contrary – they are extremely real. We don’t imply that in the future humankind will consist of Jesuses, Martin Luther Kings or Ghandies, as anarchists and communists want (at least that is how their doctrines turn out in the end). We believe that egoism has been and will be the basic force, which rouses most people to action (although we acknowledge the fact that through cooperation or at least fair competition we can often gain more then trying to destroy our opponents). We accept that there have to be a state, rule of majority of people and compulsion to fulfill the will of the majority (but we want real democracy with the society as a sovereign not financial elites, just as it happens nowadays nearly all over the world).You can find more examples under “In our opinion... “ tab.
Our economic, social and political program mostly consists of postulates which either are being introduced (although usually not in the same time with other postulates and not exactly as we would like it) or result of achievements of economics and other social sciences.
It isn’t a utopia – we do not demand impossible :) although we don’t say that it will be easy ;P

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- -What are the principles of cooperation between the Association and Poznan City Hall?
Very similar to our cooperation with foundations organizing grant competitions: we realize tasks and projects, account for the money and proof achieving the goals of projects.

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- What is the reason for delays in updating your website?
The lack of time ☺ trivial but true – we often work till late at night, but we run so many projects and actions that sometimes we even lack this 15 minutes for updates. But we’re trying very hard to keep watch on that as well as on sending information on our mailing lists – recently there’s been a huge improvement in this matter.

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- What’s your point of view on consumer boycott?
We definitely support this idea. Moreover we agree that conscious consumption (with consumer boycott as one of it’s element) is one of the strongest methods of civil influence. However you cannot limit yourself only to consumer boycott, because it’s not enough to change social system generating pathologies that can be fought with this method., It’s consumer boycott that should be used instead of legal regulations (with the exception of child pornography) in the cases of commercial campaigns, insulting any social groups – you cannot limit the freedom of expression. Boycott (but rather social one) should be also used instead of penalty when it comes to racist, homophobic, Nazi or communist (in the Stalin-like meaning) statements.

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- Which hand raises the figure on your logo? Right or left?
This is an authentic question, really! More than that, we have been asked it several times :). The answer is: whichever you choose :). Generally speaking, what’s important for us it is the global symbol of the logo and a clenched fist which symbolize a thousand year old protest against injustice. It does not matter to us which fist is raised as long as it is raised. We want to integrate people both from left and from right. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish these to notions because rightists seem to be more “social” than leftists, and the leftists more “authoritarian” than the rightists. For us this is a secondary issue. We want to connect people by common fight for good, not to divide them with unimportant details. Our opinions are included in our ideological declaration – you can name and classify them as you want. If you want the figure to raise right hand, assume it has the globe behind. If you prefer left hand, the figure is looking at the globe.

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- What should one do in order to participate at the Bank of Time?
One personally needs to fill in a form at the one of Infocafe centers in
Poznan ( the identity card is required, and for people below 18years old – the agreement of parents). Everyone defines his needs and the offer of services /skills, acquaints with regulations and after a conversationwith one of co-ordinators - this all. We invite.

Na razie projekt ten prowadzimy tylko w Poznaniu, wraz z rozwojem struktur w innych miastach postaramy się rozszerzyć jego zasięg:)

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- Do activists combine their activity in the association with their political career? Do they want to become the Members of Parliament or senators?
In foreseeable future - surely not. We aim to create the mass social
movement which will have an influence on the ruling and the way they act. We hope obviously that some sympathisers and the activists of the association one day will create right – according to the aims of movement, more honestly and more loyally than the men from "outside". However the future of the association we exclusively see in social movement, which will control the work of ruling and will be take care about good of totality, and not only the particular businesses of elites, or the own political subsidiaries.

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- Who supports your Association and how? Where does your financial funds come from? How is it sponsored?
Mainly by people who sympathize with us. They offer their work and involvement. Small and medium enterprises give us material and financial help. So far grants are the basis of our operations. Unfortunately, they are connected with massive bureaucratic work and limited possibility to spend the funds. We hope that this situation will change thanks to generosity of people who sympathize with us. :)

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- Don’t you think that your structure is not democratic enough?
Definitely not :) In majority of NGOs volunteers and people who sympathize doesn’t have any influence on the administration of the organization, choosing its goals etc. In our organization we have consultations and we prize involvement and time devoted to our actions. We want to enable many people to take part in our actions: both these who want to get more involved and these who want to be involved just a little. These who share our vision of the world and these who don’t. Obviously, not everyone can have the same influence on ruling the organization – this would be explicitly unfair for these, who are most involved (and we encourage everyone to do so! ;) ).
Our basic rule is: the bigger involvement, the bigger influence on the decisions. Therefore, we encourage everyone to devote more energy and time into building a better, new world. Everybody can become a common member and have full rights according to the statute. It depends in every person individually and, unfortunately, people who don’t want to get more involved complain that we don’t act like other NGOs which actions are usually limited to the debates during meetings but they don’t do any real work. Administration means also taking responsibility for the decisions and necessity of introducing them in life. Therefore, we want people who are ready to devotion to be the core of our organization, not people who want to decide in such a way that other people will be responsible for their decisions.
Never has the management or the common members made a decision, which was conflicting with the opinion of majority of people from our circle. What’s more, for example, we have removed from our program two very important issues (about abortion and death penalty) because it was difficult to convince people other than ordinary members to agree on these issues. We try to combine democratic ideals and desire to avoid chaos in our decisions and responsibility for undertaken decisions. Our rules perhaps aren’t ideal but they are a step forward comparing to both over-hierarchical NGOs and over-democratic alternative groups. Our life is everyday work to develop our association, and it is not a general meeting twice a year (during our general meetings we make almost exclusively technical decisions). Everyone can get involved into development of our organization and into its administration proportionally to the effort he or she made. This is the best model of participation for us.

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- Do not you think that such a structure reduces your development?

Wręcz przeciwnie!:) Właśnie to połączenie nacisku na efektywność decyzyjną z motywacyjnym systemem dotyczącym kolejnych szczebli aktywizmu sprawia, że osiągamy tak wiele. Nie boimy się porównań ilości i jakości naszych akcji i projektów z jakąkolwiek inną organizacją alternatywną, czy podobną pod względem wysokości budżetu organizacją pozarządową w Polsce. Oczywiście wiele chcielibyśmy jeszcze osiągnąć i poprawić, jesteśmy dopiero na początku dłuuugiej drogi, ale efekty naszych dzialań niech mówią za nas już teraz:) Zaczynaliśmy bez żadnych środków, bez ludzi, znajomości, umocowania w subkulturach, czy nawet lokalu. Z programem kontrowersyjnym nawet dla ruchu alterglobalistycznego, ze strukturą przeczącą przyjętym w nim "standardom". Jedynym czynnikiem ograniczającym nasz rozwój jest obecnie brak środków i czarny PR ze strony niekórych "autentycznych" środowisk jedynie słusznej (dlaczego więc wciąż nie zwycięskiej?) alternatywy.

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- What do I have to make, to enter to your organization? What do you except from activists?

What do I have to make, to enter to your organization? What do you except from activists?
First of all - desires reforge on concrete temporary and energetic commitment:) It depends on you, how much of yourself you want to commit in helping to make the world a better place. We propose different "degrees” of commitment. According to which you can become:

- our sympathizer – we don’t expect from you to agree with our vision of world in 100%. Sympathizers feel simply, that we want well, they see, that we do useful things and they want to help us in our activities, which also for them seem to be just right/ correct. They often have diametrically and completely different point of view on many matters than we have, but there is something what does not disturb us at all :) You can be a USA government for Iraqis. You help as much as you want. We are not against being a member in other organizations, even if the opini9ons of those organizations are in conflict to ours/ differ from ours (maybe except neofascist organizations, though fortunately we haven’t had such a case yet ;)))

 our volunteer – as in the case of our sympathizers, we do not expect “ideological conformity” :) Volunteers differ from out sympathizers in that they are bound by contract with our association (according to the Law on Public Benefit Activities and on Voluntary Service) which states the obligations of both parties. It happens mainly in current projects, such as tutoring, helping in administrative affairs, giving out informational materials, hanging posters, preparing rooms for meetings etc. We expect volunteers to meet their obligations and to be loyal within a given project. As with sympathizers, we do not have anything against membership in other organizations. We carry out consultations with out volunteers and sympathizers concerning our activities, new projects and actions.

 supporting member – here, we expect you to familiarize yourself thoroughly with our views and the vision of the world that we dream of. It is not essential that you agree with it completely, but of course your views on basic matters shouldn't differ greatly from ours – it would be difficult for a neo-liberal or a neo-conservatist to be our supporting member ;). We also expect greater time involvement than sympathizers and volunteers (but not as big as regular members) – in current activities, organizational matters etc. We require from our supporting members not to publicly air views that could discredit our association, to be concerned with organization's reputation and to aid its development. Supporting members determine the level of financial aid for the association themselves, according to their financial capabilities. They can be members of other organizations, but not in case of gross discrepancies in world views. When it comes to involvement, supporting members help us as much as regular members in other organizations. We consult them in crucial matters (of course their voice is more important than that of sympathizers and volunteers). You can become a supporting member only after a minimum three-month activity period as a volunteer in our organization.

regular member – well... here, we are definitely more demanding than other organizations :D We require full engagement of both time and energy, and financial involvement, depending on the member's situation. We also demand unquestioned loyalty, mobility (excluding indispensable work or education) and treating the activity of building a better world based on our program as a one of the crucial priorities of your life. We won't change it by half-hearted actions, by choosing a sports game, party or movies instead of activity in our organization (there is time for those things, but only if they do not interfere with our current actions). Regular members must be completely devoted, so not many people can stand the pressure and stress, and so they choose the lesser extent of involvement. We do not forbid membership in other organizations, but regular members usually just don't have time for that, devoting it fully to activities in our association – we often work several hours per day. To be a regular member, you must help us first as a sympathizer or volunteer, and later, as a supporting member (of course after your declaration of willingness to become a regular member, we will expect more from you than from other supporting members or volunteers). Regular members democratically choose the Board and the Audit Committee of the Association, decide about the changes in the statute, program and the entirety of association's actions, being guided by the outcomes of consultations with the sympathizers, volunteers and supporting members. The organization strives to employ its regular members, so that they can have a chance to make a living and fully devote their time (apart from personal life of course, we are not a sect ;) to public work

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- Are you a religious organization?

No:) The Association - among the members and volunteers are people with different attitudes in this sphere - Christians, agnostics, atheists. We do not ask anyone about religion, it is important whether you want to work with us in the direction specified by the individual projects and programmatic statement. We accept various philosophical attitudes - with the possible exception of Satanism:)

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- Are pacifists?
It depends, what you understand by this. If you mean a resistance in the face of the policy of contemporary empires, conquest wars and the interception "fight about the man's right" and the "war with a terror" of genocide and the war concerning mineral materials, the power and the zone of influences - these are such state of things we are opposite to. We participate in world anti-war movement.

If however you understand by this ideology "presenting second cheek" - this deciding is not :) Sometimes, unfortunately, violence is the only solution, although it should used as necessity – both in individual men's case as in the matter of whole states. For example we want at the ONZ and in the next to the Global Federation of States, they would exist well prepared, effective mediation teams/ groups of specialists, who could intervene/mediate in such conflicts as domestic war in Rwanda or Yugoslavia. Similarly we would like to give to individuals a possibility of real self-defense, with an opportunity of crossing “funny” (especially as it is in Poland) borders. It should be a criminal who should be afraid of a victim's possible reaction. A victim shouldn’t have a fear from defending herself.... harm would not stand criminal by chance. The situation like this one is a pathology.

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