DE-COLONISING SOLIDARITY, Fernanda Carvajal
An excerpt from the presentation at the Non-aligned contemporaneity conference, Moderna galerija, Ljubljana, 27- 28 May 2019
In relation to solidarity, if vertical forms of solidarity—as a unilateral kind of North-South, Center-Periphery, developed-underdeveloped country assistance—implies establishing a hierarchy between a self-sufficient donor and a needy recipient; I understand de-colonizing solidarity involves symbolically and materially reversing, the place of those who give and those who receive, in order to expose the power differential operating in the paternalist forms of assistance, (just like for example, did Fanon, in The Wretched of the Earth, when he argues that the “help” given by Europe to the newly emancipated African countries shouldn’t be received as a “gift”, because that what was called “help” was actually the cashing of a historical debt that the First World powers were obliged to pay for the plundering of their former colonies. an image re-adopted today by the Caribbean Community (Caricom) claims asking Europe for economic and moral compensation as a reparation for the slavery and exploitation that part of the globe suffered). Decolonizing solidarity would also imply proposing, instead, a new form of solidarity as a tool for promoting mutual relationships between peoples.
I want to mention here briefly just two examples. The Non-Aligned Movement set a precedent for alternative modes of alliance and solidarity between peoples by granting legitimate diplomatic representation in their member countries to liberation movements of different nations, even if they were not established as governments-in-exile or in possession of their occupied territories. Such is the case, for instance, of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Thus, by equating liberation movements with states, the Non-aligned Movement put asymmetrical actors on an equal footing. Another example of solidarity between peoples linked to de NAM, is the Museum of Solidarity, known to you thanks to the exhibition that calls us here today. It was created with the works that artists from all over the world donated to the Chilean people as a political action in support of Salvador Allende’s socialist government (building up in less than two years a collection of seven hundred pieces, unique for its value and variety). Far from being a compensatory or reparatory action in favor of someone regarded as a defenseless, backward victim of some calamity or injustice, the act of → solidarity in this case represented a conjunction of forces that sought to increase the strength of a project the donors (at least most of them) identified with and which filled them with optimism.
This two examples may help us inquire into the conditions of possibility of horizontal forms of solidarity, an important trait that the word still preserves. In fact, in its etymology Solidarity originally conveyed the idea of an obligation in solidum, and referred to a joint liability or common debt in which any of the partners involved assumed responsibility for any of the other co-debtors who couldn’t pay. In other words, it was a one for all, all for one scenario, where reciprocity and equality in the obligation excluded any trace of subordination of any of the parties to the other bounded by the same agreement. All this would imply entering collaborative and mutual support relationships, assuming everybody’s vulnerability and incompleteness, even if one happens to be the donor.
So, the questions that organized this talk are: What dis- or re-alignments should the claims for an anti-colonialist, anti-racist and anti-interventionist politics produce in a cultural work that would like to think of itself as still being today on the left? How can we put into practice non-colonial forms of solidarity, when our decision to establish links with one another necessarily implies having to encroach—national, economic, racial, sex-gender—borders of what we codify as known and secure?
