The Road to Recognition
Who or what has most triggered change in the humanitarian sector over the past five years? Arguably, the answer to that question is either Harvey Weinstein or the ancient humans who invented cash. If we ask ourselves that same question in 2025, the answer may prove similarly disturbing. It may be Derek Chauvin and George Floyd. Of course, such a disturbance is to be applauded even as our dependence on such external triggers should raise searching questions. Phenomena like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter spotlight a moral and operational indolence and an active hypocrisy at the heart of our humanitarian action. A humanitarian sector should not require being pressed into these discussions (this evolution!) by threats to our income and image.
Like sexism, the racism and abusive power dynamics in the sector constitute in large part a category even Donald Rumsfeld failed to see – the “unknown known”. This is a set of assumptions, beliefs and ideologies that remain invisible or inert within the central cultural power block of the sector, and yet perfectly obvious to those who suffer it every day. It takes powerful lenses to filter out such tragic disempowerment. We see it and even denounce it elsewhere, but somehow not when we look at our organizations. I see it, but somehow not when I look in the mirror. Or even more accurately: somehow I do not see it enough to act.
[Digression warning] I am reminded of plastic-coated coffee cups. For decades now I certainly understood the environmental cost of throwing out hundreds of cups each year. Shazam! One day I suddenly saw it in a way that mattered. I bought a reusable cup, along with tens of millions of other people. A miraculously swift change. No campaign, no acronymed initiative, no tax incentive. Can we bottle that? Deploy it elsewhere? How do we understand that change of perspective; that noticing? And how do we avoid the infinitesimal sacrifice (the self-satisfaction?) of buying a reusable cup not later rationalizing, say, the decision to fly off on a weekend break? [Digression over]
Given the ‘revelations’ of the past months, humanitarians no longer have the option of avoiding the mirror, for historical and institutional racism is now visibly central to the humanitarian project and elemental to outing our deeply internalized paternalism (read: colonialism). And shazam!, there now seems to be an internal momentum. The issues at stake – staying with them over time and not launching ourselves into the next crisis or exciting initiative – will test the sector and test humanitarians. In a sector with a pronounced short-term gaze, endurance must be questioned. Prolonged discomfort does not fit well with a sector designed in part to help its inhabitants feel good. White privilege is bad enough. White savior privilege might be its most toxic strain.
As many have said, the sector needs to listen (and here). Further, we within the sector need to recognize. Listening will help us recognize the pain as well as the opportunities. But we also need to recognize the thing itself. What do white privilege, discriminatory decisions, rasicst structures and interwoven coloniality actually look like in policy and practice (and let’s not forget the power dynamics of inequality or sexism)? Some instances are shockingly easy to spot. Some not. We need to build awareness of the telltale signs, an Audubon catalogue of ‘invisible’ visibility and subterranean workings. How has racism so successfully ‘hidden’ in plain sight, overlooked in our echo-chamberous institutions or casually justified by appeal to our ‘exceptional’ objectives? Should we test sectoral decision-makers for this ability/sensitivity, just as we already test to ensure key qualities or certify expertise in other areas? And should we as individuals test ourselves, to see if our awareness of (e.g.,) racism is improving?
A Simple Test
Talking on a news program about the COVID pandemic, a French doctor opined, “If I can be provocative, shouldn’t we be doing this study in Africa, where there are no masks, no treatments, no resuscitation?” What do you think? Did this off-handed idea sound reasonable, a way of testing a potential vaccine in real-world conditions, and self-aware to being ‘provocative’? Or did you find it revolting? WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was swift and blunt in his denunciation: “Africa can’t and won’t be a testing ground for any vaccine.” The story spread. Ivoirian footballer Didier Drogba called it ‘absolutely disgusting’. In today’s world, that’s actually a denunciation a billion or so people might hear about.
Contrast the French doctor’s provocation to the declaration of the “Inclusive Vaccine Alliance”, formed by the governments of France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. By working together as an alliance, they hope to reach a successful vaccine quicker, and then allow other EU members an opportunity to use it. In addition the Alliance “is also working to make a portion of vaccines available to low-income countries, including in Africa.” [Add three clapping hands emojis here].
I now need to apologize for conducting an experiment of sorts. Did you spot the problem with the statement of the four governments? I am indebted to the Open Society’s A. Kayum Ahmed for this example, and I would encourage all readers to go to his dissection of the Alliance’s statement, which he labels an act of “vaccine sovereignty” that portrays Africa as a “site of redemption.”.
Well, how did you fare? Did you recognize the flaws in the Alliance’s statement? Or did it slide by because it so resembles the dozens of ‘innocuous’ statements we read every day? My score? Maybe a D+. I thought the word “portion” sounded measly, prompting an image of Oliver Twist begging for more porridge, and I sensed though did not identify the deeper issue raised by Ahmed.
What is the Target?
Which statement exemplifies the bigger problem for the sector, the necessary objective of our calls to address systemic racism? Is it the doctor’s statement, because of the overt denigration and the hurt it caused millions of viewers? Easier to spot. Easier to reach agreement against. Easier to address. Easier to make progress. But is it also easier to demonize, and does it thereby help mask the insidious, incremental ‘invisibility’ of the Alliance’s statement?
Like many have said, this is not going to be easy.
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[Final Note: Even if you disagree with Ahmed or me about the racism in the Alliance’s statement, you still need to spot it as a potential issue. Think security management. The only way to identify signs of insecurity is to spot and then investigate potential signs of insecurity. The requirement, hence, is a quantum leap in our sensitivity to racism.]
Thanks for this reflection. However, to me the question is, somehow, structural to how the system is set up. As of now, humanitarian aid works, largely, as a transfer of resources from the global north to the global south. MSF raises its funds in richer countries, and spends them in poorer, conflict affected ones. (And yes, there are exceptions). Same with the Inclusive Vaccine Alliance: it uses money from taxpayers from those countries. This is the original colonial nature of the enterprise. Until this happens, the organisations, even if they were really committed to ‘decolonisation’, have to wrestle with the dilemma of how to speak to their base of funders in a way that make them happy to contribute. The Vaccine Alliance must be ‘sold’ to the voting public in the countries that fund it, many of whom are ‘Make Italy/Netherlands/x great again’ nationalist type. The challenge, then, becomes one of long term – and more uncertain- educational goals (phrase messaging in a decolonialised way in hope of shifting the discourse and the perceptions of the public) vs short term – and somewhat more certain – funding/approval/buy in. I am not sure where this takes us. It may be that it leads us to pessimistic conclusions- humanitarian aid is inherently colonial, and while marginal improvements are possible, it cannot be decolonialised -, or perhaps to a radical place: it cannot be decolonialised as it is, hence we need to dare imagine a different word entirely, one that gets past the nation state, immigration control, and thus lays the foundation for a more interconnected and solidaristic place. Dunno
Thanks for the thoughtful comment Prisca. You’re right of course — there’s a way in which colonialism is in the humanitarian DNA, as a result of history and as a result of its finances being reliant upon the paternalism of Western publics.
FYI, I’ve touched on the colonialism in the sector before, and in particular have been pushing for humanitarians to ‘operationalize’ the core principle of humanity in such a way that it is perceived as being transgressed by this colonialism (See The New Humanitarian Basics and The Triple Nexus… papers under the tab “Professional Writing”, above.