Reflections on the Berlin Solidarity Hub

By Graham Philpott, Church Land Programme

Welcome to the ACT Ubumbano Solidarity Hub in Berlin 2024!” These were simple and mundane words at the start of a two-day event, but they masked the unusual nature of this particular gathering.

This was a gathering of development actors attempting to question and go beyond the dominant patterns of development discourse – how we externalise the problem and name target groups; how we become dependent on technical expert knowledge, usually racialised, to provide the current critical framing; how we prioritise the developing of mechanisms of monitoring, compliance, accountability to structure our relations. It was an attempt to provide and hold a space for the questioning and deepening of our practices that will expose and disrupt the coloniality of our development practices, and explore practices of authentic solidarity. These are not comfortable conversations as we ‘interrogate’ our own practices and assumptions, but I noted some practices in the conversations that could be a resource for examining our own practices.

The holding of space for our humanity

The invitation in Berlin was to a space – a space to encounter, to engage, to be present. It was not an invitation to a programme of presentations and discussions of ideas, and agreement on a way forward for organisations. By the holding of a space, and not just managing an agenda of a programme, it allowed for people to be present, to speak and be heard, with all the richness of their vulnerability and uncertainties, their passion and questions. Holding such a space allowed the possibility of power dynamics within the room to be named (gender, race, organisational hierarchy) and – where people were willing – to engage those power dynamics and test different articulations. An invitation to a space seemed to enable participants to bring themselves and what mattered to them into the engagements, and on occasion risk naming and re-presenting the principles and values that make them who they are. It reminded me of the oft repeated phrase: the personal is political, and the political is personal – by making a space for the foregrounding of our humanity we are able to explore practices of dignity.

Connections and solidarity

It may be stating the obvious, but I was struck by the connections that were made between participants in the spaces that were available. It seemed as though there was a longing to find others with whom we could (tentatively) share our questions, our frustrations and grief from the journey within the single story of the ‘development as progress’ world. The connections were between countries; between, but not necessarily on behalf of, organisations; crossing different levels and departments of organisations. Yes, there was the usual ‘networking’.  But there were also expressions of our common deeply embeddedness within the systems of ‘progress’; a deepening awareness of how our practices, knowledges, imaginations are deeply shaped by coloniality and the push for the solution; and how our attempts to ‘do good’ and manage perfect systems is part of the problem itself. Questions were asked about what authentic solidarity could look like in our contexts, and how our practices are and could be creating cracks within the dehumanising development world – cracks offering inspiration and new imaginations of how to be human together.

Grow up and show up

This might seem a bit of a harsh phrasing, but I think it offers the potential for a real shift in our development practice. This phrase was used in the Berlin gathering in response to requests for more challenging input to provide further critical insights for the discussion. However, it was observed how this was shifting the responsibility for learning to the other, and not sufficiently acknowledging our own complicity. The solidarity hub in Berlin was a space for engagement, critique and learning – yet participants were waiting for the ‘othered’ expert to provide the insight. Vanessa Andreotti (in her book Hospicing Modernity) describes how modernity and colonialism infantilises us, leaving us feeling uncertain and helpless in the face of hegemonic discourse and articulations, looking to experts to string it together for us. She names the necessity for us to ‘grow up, show up’ – acknowledge our complicity and take responsibility for our own learning and practice, disrupting the dominance of the expert. As the challenge and opportunity for critique and learning is placed back with the group as a whole and all participants, it shifts what is at stake and draws on the capacities, passion and commitment of the diverse group to generate insights, knowledge and new possibilities of practice.

Silence and stillness

It may seem strange in the midst of development practitioners and activists to point to the value and importance of silence – not our default setting! At the gathering in Berlin there were a couple of experiences of silence and stillness, led by both facilitators and participants on different occasions. The silence was an equalising process allowing space and time for us all to be present (not just the dominant voice and knowledge) and providing a moment for us all to check what lived within us and how we were making that known. Somehow the stillness embodied our discussions within each of us and allowed us to connect to our humanity being present in our more than human world.

In the context of deafening violence and assaults on our humanity, maybe foregrounding our brutalised and gifted humanity and our experiments of solidarity will disrupt these patterns of dehumanisation and open those cracks where life surprises us and inspires our practice.