The Wurzen issue

Suddenly there are multiple possible WuppHouses and various people favoring different approaches of how to tackle these opportunities, which led to the most in-depth discussion ever about the role of money in yunity, our own perceptions and expectations of what yunity actually is or should be and where we - as a project - want to go from here.

The fact that a group has formed in yunity, that wants to use considerable amounts of money to buy two houses in Wurzen, surfaced the severe unclarity apparent in yunity since the decision not to further the active development of a full-fledged multisharing platform for now. Even though some efforts were made to restore a common project identity, the one big goal, which was tangible for all, was suddenly gone. Since that time people unknowingly drifted into different directions: Some put more emphasis on living the lifestyle of sharing as consequently as possible themselves to inspire others, while others saw it more important to work on tools, that enable others to share more, instead of leading by example. (To make these two groups easier referenceable, the terms fundis and realos will be employed. They have been used for similar struggles in idealistic projects or parties before and carry no implicit judgement! This, of course, is a severe simplification and probably puts more emphasis on the differences, than on the common ground, and implies that people can be put in only one of these two boxes, even though most of us are in both of them once in a while... Still, there are some distinct arguments, which I want to point out and I find the simplification more justifiable than silence in this case.)

At first there were only some friendly disses by the fundis towards the realos about the use of proprietary software, buying the occasional beer or peanut butter and encouraging hierarchy through preset meeting structures, and similar jokes about a chaotic work-flow, slow or no progress and seemingly useless debates the other way around, but over time the gap between the groups grew and frustration, sadness and anger developed. When some realos decided to buy the houses in Wurzen, this whole issue finally surfaced. Paul Free had wanted to go into a deeper dreaming process since months, but there hadn't been much interest before the escalation, since most people have had the feeling that peace and harmony were still intact and that it was clear what we wanted to do anyways. Well they were wrong.

The Wurzen project was pushed, also because there was some time pressure, and the resistance voiced by some fundis got more and more severe. Suddenly words like hypocrisy were employed and the general tone was not so friendly anymore. The main arguments exchanged are the following:

• Fundi: yunity is about sharing. Using money is exchange and thus the exact opposite of sharing.
• Realo: yunity is about encouraging sharing. Nobody ever said that we have to be moneyfree ourselves.
  
  
• Fundi: A WuppHouse is meant to be a template for other social housing projects, but not everyone can simply buy a house.
• Realo: What we do inside the house can still be exemplary, even if the way we got it is not.
  
  
• Fundi: How can we call ourselves a sharing community, when we just go out buying stuff when it's easier?
• Realo: yunity is not a community, it is a network. And it's more important to be dogma free than money free.
  
  
• Fundi: We could have tried much harder to find a house someone is willing to share, why buy it now?
• Realo: The need just grew, the price is low, the money is there. Why not buy it? It will be gifted to the movement anyways!

As you can imagine, these reasonings easily create a circle that can be repeated over and over again without getting to a point. So the real question must lie somewhere else, somewhere deeper. It is "What is yunity" and apparently there are multiple answers to it now. We all seem to still identify with the vision and mission, but those are so vague that multiple concrete interpretations are possible. There is no common primary objective anymore. The one we decided upon via syscon in April 2016 clearly is outdated: "To create then launch the yunity platform which will first bring the foodsharing movement world-wide". Nobody is creating the yunity platform right now. Tilmann is working on the foodsaving tool, and the plan to spread foodsharing is still important for some yuniteers, but most are currently busy with housing projects and other aspects of everyday sharing culture. The amount of people populating yunity grows and so do the associated ideas. That's beautiful! But also confusing. During the discussions sparked by the Wurzen issue many yuniteers articulated statements and tried to figure out their personal primary objectives, their take on using money and what the name yunity signifies for them. Some statements:

• Lara Earthling: yunity is a vision for me, which we are living and slowly implement, and thus inspire other people. We have a responsibility how we act with yunity and how the future is created from that.
• Philip Engelbutzeder: It is actually about the way we face every single moment, every relationship that is present. 
• Bodhi Neiser: I would rather concentrate on fewer things and not on so much at once. 
• Paul Free: I need to say that it makes a difference for me if a network is using money or some individuals. If the network starts doing it, it looses my interest.
• Matthias Larisch: One thing was always clear for me: yunity has always been open. Very open.
• Tilmann: yunity is what people make of it... I think yunity has been a focused developer meeting, a housing project, a rainbow gathering and a rampant party in the past...
• Arno Döpper: I am very curious how the different approaches - with and (almost) without money - will develop over a longer period of time. 

In the last week the mood was very tense and even thoughts of leaving yunity were announced, if no consensus would be reached. Now, after a lot of personal statements in #wupphouse_planning - the Slack channel, where most of the discussion about the specific Wurzen issue took place - the tone got friendlier again and the biggest question right now seems to be one of names: Will the community housing project in Wurzen be called a yunity project or not? Nobody actually has strong resistances against it happening in general, it just is about the name. Not even the strictest fundis try to make anybody stop using money in their personal life and no realo looks down on the mostly money free fundis.

We still value diversity, all of us, and nobody wants to see their personal yunity vision diluted by other, less consequent or strict interpretations, so it basically is a dispute about the scope of the yunity brand. This is something we can figure out, especially when working together!