I want you to imagine something for a second.
Okay. Picture a grassroots youth group. It's
the early 90s, right? So there's no widespread
internet yet. Right, no social media campaigns.
Exactly, no smartphones, just a collection of
young people navigating this really rapidly changing
world. Now imagine this group was founded by
a poet. A poet and a songwriter, yeah. Right.
And then I want you to imagine this exact same
grassroots group growing so influential, so relentlessly
organized over the years that they managed to
help rewrite a nation's constitution. Which is
just staggering. It is. And years later, they
force major global tech giants to completely
change their e -commerce practices. Yeah, it
really does sound like the plot of an indie movie.
It totally does, right? But it is absolutely
real. Welcome to today's Deep Dive. I am so glad
you're here with us. Today we are looking at
the anatomy of a truly fascinating social movement.
It's a remarkable trajectory. It really is. We
are going to be diving into the history, the
methodology, and the widespread activities of
the Never Again Association, or in Polish, Starcy
Szyn Nigdziwych. Starcy Szyn Nigdziwych. Yes.
They are widely recognized as Poland's leading
anti -racist organization. And our mission today
is to trace how this group actually works from
the inside out. We've got a comprehensive history
of their operations here, basically tracing from
their informal beginnings to their massive modern
day campaigns. Yeah, we're going to look at how
they tackle systemic issues across some wildly
different battlegrounds. I mean, we're talking
culture, sports, the law and obviously the Internet.
But before we jump into the timeline, it's probably
important to establish the context of where they
operate and how they're structured. Absolutely.
So the Never Again Association is based in Warsaw,
Poland. OK. And their area of service covers
Poland, but also the broader central and eastern
European region. But I'd say perhaps the most
crucial foundational detail about them is their
status. They are a strictly independent organization,
meaning they are completely unlinked to any political
party, which. Which gives them a very unique
type of leverage. Precisely. It gives them credibility.
That independence really is the bedrock of what
they do. Now, just a quick note for you listening
out there. Our material today deals with some
pretty heavy and politically charged themes.
Yes, it does. We're going to be talking about
the organization's work combating far -right
extremism, fascism, racism, xenophobia, and anti
-Semitism. And as always on this show, our goal
here isn't to take political sides or endorse
specific viewpoints. Right. We're simply acting
as guides. Exactly. We are here to report the
facts, the history, and the ideas exactly as
they are documented in our sources. We're essentially
just here to understand the mechanics of this
movement, nothing more. We're looking at the
how and the why of their operations, analyzing
the actual strategies that took them from a local
collective to an internationally recognized non
-governmental organization. OK, let's unpack
this. Let's go all the way back to the beginning.
Because the origin story of Never Again, it doesn't
start in some corporate boardroom. No, it doesn't.
Or a polished political office either. It starts
with a man named Marcin Kornak. Yes, Marcin Kornak
is the architect here. And his background is
not at all what you might expect for the founder
of a major national NGO. Right. You'd expect
a lawyer, maybe. Or a traditional politician.
But no, he was a social activist and a public
life commentator. But at his core, he was a poet.
A poet. A poet and a songwriter who collaborated
really closely with independent rock bands in
Poland at the time. See, that leap from collaborating
with indie rock bands to building a massive organizational
structure, that is just fascinating to me. How
does a poet actually build that kind of operational
machinery? Well, I think it comes down to understanding
networks. In the early 90s, the independent music
scene was essentially a pre -internet social
network. Oh, that's a great way to put it. Right.
Kornak understood how to mobilize passionate
young people around a shared ethos. And it's
also really crucial to understand his personal
context here. Go on. From the age of 15, due
to an accident, Marcin Kornak lived with a physical
disability. Wow. So he navigated building this
massive dynamic social movement, one that...
obviously required immense logistical coordination
and a huge public presence while living with
a physical disability from his teenage years.
Exactly. It really speaks volumes about his personal
resilience and just his overall vision for a
more inclusive society. It does. And the organization
itself, it was a gradual evolution into a formal
entity. It didn't happen overnight. No. The group
first became active as an informal youth collective
in 1992. OK, so that's the early 90s content.
Right. And they spent a few years operating in
that grassroots community level capacity, essentially
figuring out what worked and what didn't before
they officially and formally founded the Never
Again Association in 1996. So 96 is the official
start date. Yes. And Marcin Kornak led the organization
with incredible drive for years until his passing
in 2014. Following his death, the leadership
transitioned to Rafa Pankowski. He's a Polish
sociologist, right? Yes, a sociologist and political
scientist, and he continues to head the organization
today. So they formalized the group in 1996,
and their big goal was breaking the silence on
xenophobia, which is a massive, somewhat abstract
goal. Did they have a specific... demographic
they targeted first to actually move the needle?
They were highly strategic about that. The overarching
mission was to promote multicultural understanding
and to contribute to the development of a democratic
civil society. Sure. But they recognized almost
immediately that to eliminate or marginalize
xenophobic tendencies, you have to engage the
next generation. You have to reach the kids.
Exactly. A primary concern for them has always
been education against racial and ethnic prejudices,
specifically aimed at young people. They weren't
just preaching to the choir. They were trying
to shape the foundational values of the youth.
And whatever framework they built clearly resonated
on a global scale. Because to understand the
gravity of their work, you just have to look
at who has officially endorsed them over the
years. We are talking about historical giants
here. We really are. People like Jan Karski,
Merrick Edelman, and Simon Wiesenthal. Holocaust
survivors who have a profound lived understanding
of what happens when prejudice goes unchecked
in a society. And receiving validation from figures
of that historical magnitude. I mean, that isn't
just a PR win. No, definitely not. It's a testament
to the rigor and the necessity of their methodology.
It signals that what Never Again is doing is
recognizing those early warning signs that these
historical figures knew all too well. But they
also bridge the gap into the modern era, which
is interesting. They've been endorsed by contemporary
global figures like Barack Obama and even Kate
Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge. That's quite
the range, right? Getting a nod from both Simon
Wiesenthal and the British royal family shows
just an incredible breadth of influence. It demonstrates
that their approach transcends localized political
squabbles. It resonates on a universal global
human rights level. Yeah. But to understand why
these figures endorse them, we have to look at
what actually gives them their power. And their
most potent tool isn't rhetoric. It's documentation.
Exactly. Right. They don't just talk about the
problem. They track it. Which brings us to a
massive pillar of their operations. The Brown
Book. Yes. The Brown Book. And we really shouldn't
think of this as just a metaphorical ledger or
some casual list of complaints. It's serious
data. It is the most extensive, rigorous register
of racist incidents and xenophobic crimes committed
in Poland. It is a strictly empirical database.
So they took hate, which is usually treated as
this vague social ill, and they turned it into
a trackable metric. Yes. And in the 1990s, building
a database like that meant... actual physical
legwork. It meant tracking local news clippings,
taking phone calls, and physically verifying
incidents without the luxury of just doing a
quick internet search. Right, it was labor intensive.
But once you have the most reliable data, you
become the definitive source. And that data pipeline
is exactly what gave them international reach.
never again has provided their expertise and
consulted for major television networks. Like
the BBC and CNN. The BBC, CNN, Euronews, RTE.
They've assisted in writing heavily researched
articles for The New York Times, Guardian, Le
Monde, Die Tage Zeitung, and major Polish outlets
like Gazeta Wyborcza. So when the international
press corps needs to understand the actual landscape
of extremism in Central and Eastern Europe. They
don't just ask for opinions. No, they ask for
the Brown Book. Exactly. Here's where it gets
really interesting. They didn't just use this
data to get quoted in The New York Times. They
used it to physically alter the foundational
law of their country. Yes. This is a huge turning
point. In 1996, the exact same year they formally
established the organization, never again initiated
a campaign that actually resulted in a constitutional
change. The leap from an informal youth group
to successfully lobbying for a constitutional
amendment in their first official year is just
staggering. It's almost unheard of. They successfully
pushed to have a ban on fascist and racist organizations
included directly into the Polish Constitution.
How did they actually pull off that kind of legal
maneuvering so early on? I mean, they were so
young. By weaponizing their data. They didn't
just stand outside government buildings with
protest signs. They provided undeniable empirical
evidence to institutions like the Parliamentary
Committee on Ethnic Minorities. They showed lawmakers
the Brown Book. Exactly. They proved that this
wasn't an abstract fear, but a documented statistical
reality that required a constitutional safeguard.
Wow. It is a textbook example of how localized,
ground -level data collection can scale up to
influence the highest levels of legislation.
It's an incredible aha moment. You change the
Constitution, you change the country. Yes. But
they didn't stop at courtrooms and parliaments.
They took the fight directly into the cultural
battlegrounds. Which circles perfectly back to
Marcin Kornak's origins in the independent music
scene. Right. They launched a high -profile educational
campaign in popular culture called Music Against
Racism. And they were also producing a regular
publication since 1994, The Never Again Magazine,
which eventually transitioned into an e -zine.
The music campaign is brilliant because they
didn't just hand out dry academic pamphlets to
teenagers. They embedded their message into the
actual culture the youth were consuming. What's
fascinating here is the underlying strategy of
territory. Territory. Yeah. They didn't just
pick music and sports because they were popular.
In the 1990s, far right and extremist groups
were actively using the punk, skinhead, and football
hooligan scenes as their primary recruitment
grounds. Oh, wow. I didn't realize that. Yes.
These subcultures were the literal front lines
of a culture war, so never again went into these
specific arenas to contest that exact ground.
They were fighting for the same territory, and
they didn't stop at music either. They targeted
the most volatile cultural arena in Europe, which
is football. Right. In 1996, they organized a
campaign with a very direct directive. Let's
kick racism out of the stadiums. That's a bold
move. Very bold. This was aimed squarely at imploring
the Polish Football Association to take definitive
action. They recognized that stadiums were highly
visible platforms where extremist behavior was
often normalized or just ignored entirely. And
they knew they needed backup to tackle something
as massive as European football, right? So they
became a founding member of the FAIR network.
Yes, the Football Against Racism in Europe network.
By co -founding FAIR, they helped institutionalize
this fight across the entire continent, sharing
tactics and resources with other organizations
in different countries. And this groundwork culminated
in a massive way in 2012 when Poland and Ukraine
co -hosted the UEFA Euro 2012 tournament. Which
is one of the largest sporting events on the
planet. Yeah, the eyes of the entire world were
on those stadiums. And ahead of that tournament,
Never Again, operating under the FAIR umbrella,
launched one of the most extensive anti -racist
campaigns. in the history of the sport. That's
huge. They utilized the massive platform of the
Euro tournament to force a conversation about
inclusivity that reached millions of fans globally.
You know, it's worth noting here that Emmanuel
Elissadebi... Poland's first black international
football player threw his weight behind this
and explicitly endorsed their work. Yes, he did.
That kind of validation from a player who actually
lived the reality of being a minority on those
very pitches, it carries so much weight. It proves
their campaigns weren't just administrative exercises.
They mattered to the people actually playing
the game. Exactly. By embedding themselves in
music and football, they integrated their message
into the daily passions of the youth. They made
anti -racism a part of the cultural fabric, a
lived experience, rather than just a legal obligation
mandated by the Constitution. But as we know,
the places where people gather, where they trade
ideas and culture, began to fundamentally shift.
We moved out of the physical stadiums and off
the physical streets, and we moved onto the Internet.
and never again had to completely evolve their
operational playbook to keep up with that shift.
The digital era presented an entirely new, highly
decentralized battleground. The organization
adapted by launching the Delete Racism Project,
which was aimed specifically at combating online
hate, racism, and anti -Semitism. But what is
crucial here is that they didn't just put up
educational websites. They went after the structural
infrastructure of online commerce. Yes. Let's
talk about the 2018 victory with Allegro, because
this is wild. For those who don't know, Allegro
is a massive e -commerce platform. It's huge
in Poland. For over a decade. Never again. actively
lobbied this company. I mean, you just have to
admire the sheer stubborn endurance of lobbying
a tech company for 10 years. Most people can't
get customer service on the phone for 10 minutes.
And these volunteers spent a decade meticulously
fighting this battle. It requires men's grinding
persistence. It really does. The core issue was
the widespread sale of items bearing Nazi symbols
on the platform. Now, legally speaking, these
items are illegal in Poland. Furthermore, they
were actually prohibited by Allegro's own terms
of use. But there is a massive difference between
having a rule and enforcing it, especially when
platforms hide behind the gray area of historical
memorabilia. So the rules were on the books,
but the platform's self -regulation was completely
failing. What does the never -again playbook
look like in that kind of scenario? They mobilize
their network. A dedicated team of volunteers
from the association meticulously tracked down,
documented, and reported sales of over 1 ,000
of these specific illegal auctions to Allegro.
Over 1 ,000. Yes. They didn't just complain about
a general trend. They provided an undeniable
itemized data set proving the platform's failure
to moderate its own space. They essentially built
a digital brown book just for Allegro. That's
a perfect way to describe it. And it worked.
After that massive influx of flag data and a
decade of relentless pressure, they finally forced
the platform's hand, halting the sales and taking
those thousands of auctions down. It is a massive,
tangible victory for accountability in the digital
space. It really is. Yeah. And they used that
momentum to evolve their strategy from reactive
to proactive. In 2021, they formed a partnership
with OLX, which is the largest classified ad
platform in Poland. Now, think about that. How
does an NGO actually partner with a massive tech
platform's algorithm? Yeah, how does that work?
Instead of just lobbying from the outside as
an external watchdog, they integrated their expertise
with the platform's internal moderation teams.
Oh, wow. They actively partnered together to
monitor, flag, and delete sales of racist, fascist,
and anti -Semitic propaganda. propaganda before
it could proliferate. So they were getting ahead
of it. Exactly. It marks a significant shift
from merely reporting on the internet's failings
to actively sanitizing the digital spaces where
millions of people conduct daily business. And
while cleaning up the digital space stops the
spread of propaganda, Never Again recognizes
that algorithms don't change hearts. No, they
don't. You still have to deal with the individuals
who are already radicalized. Which brings us
to a part of their work that is profoundly human
and deeply challenging. If we connect this to
the bigger picture, this might be one of their
most significant, yet least publicized contributions.
Yeah. The organization actively works within
the penitentiary system, engaging with prison
personnel and inmates to promote diversity and
respect in highly volatile environments. And
it goes beyond just educational seminars, too.
Since the mid -90s, the Never Again Association
was the very first organization in Poland to
offer non -material support to individuals who
actively desired to leave far -right circles.
Leaving an extremist group is psychologically
and socially devastating. It is akin to leaving
a cult. Because you're cutting off everyone you
know. Right. You are often abandoning your entire
social safety net, your friends, and your ingrained
worldview. Never again recognize that simply
telling these people they're wrong isn't a...
enough, you have to provide an off -ramp. What
does that non -material support actually look
like in practice? It looks like counseling, guidance,
and providing a safe, non -judgmental space to
ideologically transition. It is dangerous, tedious,
day -to -day work. I can imagine. It requires
an immense amount of empathy to sit down with
someone who has held abhorrent views and help
them rebuild their psychological foundation.
But it represents a profound commitment to true
de -radicalization and human rehabilitation.
It's treating the underlying disease, not just
treating the symptoms by deleting an online auction
or banning a chant in a stadium. Precisely. It
acknowledges that combating systemic intolerance
requires offering a path back to society for
those who have lost their way. So what does this
all mean? When you step back and look at the
entire scope of the Never Again Association.
You see a masterclass in how a social movement
actually achieves lasting change. You really
do. To you, the listener out there, if you take
away anything from this deep dive, let it be
this. Combating complex systemic issues requires
a fiercely multi -pronged approach. You cannot
just rely on one tactic. No single tactic is
enough. Right. You need the meticulous, irrefutable
data collection like the Brown Book to prove
the problem exists and change the laws. You need
the cultural presence, too. Yes, you have to
be in the football stadiums and the underground
rock clubs fighting for the same territory as
the extremists to reach the youth. You need the
relentless digital vigilance to hold global e
-commerce giants accountable. And perhaps most
importantly, you need the profound human empathy
to walk into a prison system or to reach out
to someone trapped in an extremist circle and
actually help them change their life. It is a
comprehensive, deeply integrated strategy that
spans the legal, the cultural, the digital, and
the deeply personal spheres of a society. It
really is. And we want to leave you with a final
thought today, something to chew on after you
finish listening. This raises an important question.
Consider the incredible evolution of the Never
Again Association that we've just unpacked. They
transitioned from manually recording physical
incidents in a physical ledger in the 90s to
utilizing teams of digital volunteers to hunt
down illegal e -commerce auctions and partnering
with complex algorithms today. It's a huge leap.
It is. As our lives continue to move increasingly
online, the nature of tracking and combating
hate has to continually evolve. When the stadiums
and streets of tomorrow are entirely virtual,
when communities gather in sprawling digital
metaverses rather than physical city squares,
how must the strategies of organizations like
Never Again adapt to ensure that the message
of inclusivity survives the leap into the virtual
world? That is a massive question, and it is
the exact challenge waiting for the next generation
of activists and digital citizens. Thank you
so much for joining us on this deep dive. We
loved unpacking this history with you, and we
hope you walk away today with a much deeper perspective
on how a social movement actually operates, scales,
and sustains itself across decades. Until next
time, keep learning and keep asking questions.