mission statement v1.0
We have participated in indymedia since the start of IMC Poland four years ago. We have met locally face-to-face in open, public meetings in Toruń nearly every week since then, during the first year there were usually just 2-3 people in each meeting, and during the last two years, we were usually between 8 and 20 people at nearly every meeting. We have published about 130 articles concerning Toruń on the web pages of IMC PL. Not every article is about an action, but most are, and this means that we have done and published for the benefit of Toruń and other polish-speaking activists an action about twice every month.
Now it’s time that we become a real local, autonomous collective so that we can prioritise local, physical life rather than virtual “imc pl” discussions where it can be hard to understand one another and effectively communicate. However, we are not disconnecting ourselves from the world. On the contrary, already during the last 4 months we have participated in irc meetings of central/east european indymedia, with the idea of overcoming patriotic/nationalistic thinking linked with the official language and continuous “national” propaganda in the mainstream media, by stimulating regional and not just “national” communication.
In developing independent media in Toruń, we want to avoid the five dependence filters of the mainstream media (according to the Herman/Chomsky model:): ownership, funding (advertising), sourcing, flak and anti-terrorism.
Among us there are people participating from the following groups
We have individuals participating at different levels from the following groups (these are not “official” declarations of support; a few of these groups are rather NGO-ish and have some dependence on commercial/corporate/government structures and so function in part as “greenwash”, but their participants are local, well-intentioned ordinary people):
- FA Toruń – Federacja Anarchistyczna Toruń – Anarchist Federation Torun
- Kolektyw Autonomistów – Autonomists’ Collective
- Empatia – (animal rights organisation in Poland)
- Fundacja Viva! Akcja dla zwierząt! – actions for animals
- KPH – Komitet Przeciwko Homofobii – Campaign Against Homophobia
- KWK – Komitet Wolnego Kaukazu – Free Caucasus Committee
- Amnesty International Toruń
- artists associated with the club NRD
- http://patriotism.wikidot.com/ artists’ creative response to nationalist ideology
- klub Pilon – http://www.pilon.pl/
- Stowarzyszenie Inicjatyw Niemożliwych “Motyka”
- Stowarzyszenie Ratujemy Fundusz Alimentacyjny
- Toruń Linux Users’ Group