“Solidarity Among the Unequal” or: Where Does the Strength to Speak Out Come From?

I would like to use the conference acronym as a starting point for my proposal: Radically Connected. We have experienced this once again as a global reality during the pandemic: not only are we inextricably linked worldwide (cf. Goffrin 2025) and cannot withdraw from this connection without isolating ourselves, but we also cannot isolate or disconnect ourselves without suffering psychologically and physically (cf. Bowlby 2010). This stems from the fact that human beings are, from the very beginning, radically social beings: from the outset, our becoming as subjects unfolds within social space – a space of the Other(s) – into which we enter as strangers, as guests and newcomers, dependent on a responsive world, on curiosity and interest. Only in this way can we find a sense of belonging, experience a sense of belonging and encounter difference – both of which are necessary for a sense of self and of the world that is experienced as fulfilling. This also includes the experience that my actions have meaning and my voice carries weight; it includes the experience of my responsibility towards others and towards the shared social space itself. Finding a sense of belonging in the world remains a process, an open-ended one; it is always conflictual and unfolds within ultimately irresolvable tensions between identity and difference, between arriving and departing (cf. Fromm 1989a). Social space is the arena in which our struggles for recognition and against disregard and exclusion play out. It demands and teaches the ability to handle conflict and to change in the course of encounters. This brings joy, but also loss (Gast 2006); it means leaving and, with a bit of luck, returning too, but as a different person. The ‘experience of the pandemic’ remains, at the same time, an experience of global impulses towards solidarity, drawing on previous experiences (such as the Summer of Migration, ‘Mi una menos’, Black Lives Matter) – as well as their abrupt halt. Having said that, I would like to propose two shifts in perspective. Firstly, it seems necessary to gently shift the focus away from the subject, which appears to have come to dominate the discourse all too much. This would mean viewing solidarity not so much as an intersubjective relationship, but as a social one that always aims at a third party: if becoming a subject does not mean identity formation, but rather a complicated, pleasurable and also painful process of becoming, which entails not only recognition but always also misrecognition and, nevertheless, mutual responsibility – then solidarity means defending the space for this. Solidarity would then, first and foremost, be a movement of negation that grants a place to the rejected, the non-identical, rather than siding with the assertion of identity – which would, in fact, amount to a breakdown of solidarity, mistakenly perceived as an act of solidarity. For solidarity is precisely not to be derived from close relationships, nor is it akin to self-interest or loyalty; rather, its emergence even in the most hostile of places demonstrates that it follows a primal ethical impulse which can apply to everyone and is ultimately directed towards the world itself, remaining true to the conviction that this one world can be for all. The second shift in perspective therefore focuses on the question of what prevents solidarity: what thwarts that impulse towards brotherhood and sisterhood amongst strangers, which has been inherent in humanity from the very beginning. With this question in mind, we must examine the source of the massive hatred we hear being hurled all over the world, and the reason for the lack of solidarity in the face of such massive human rights violations on our own doorsteps and on our screens. From a critical perspective on power structures, we can examine the extent to which those bonds of solidarity—which emerge precisely in moments of crisis—are being shattered; and argue that these attacks, as well as the hijacking of the very concept of solidarity itself (‘solidarity among EU states at the external borders’ , amongst other things) strikes precisely where it poses the greatest threat to the ruling order. On an emotional level, envy and resentment are fuelled by forced competition and the threat of social exclusion and deprivation. Shame and guilt, as social emotions, play a role particularly for those who feel powerless and act as followers, silent bystanders or accomplices (Rothberg 2025). The hypothesis this paper seeks to discuss is that these dynamics can be broken where concrete social practices emerge that make a utopian surplus tangible and contradict the coldness of current conditions (cf. Loick 2024): The neighbourhood mutual aid that, in the USA, has in a very short space of time brought to light the networks within local communities, where those not directly affected are using their own bodies to try to protect the most vulnerable; the sea rescue operations that disprove the cynical claim that there is no other way; the City Plaza Hotel in Athens, which demonstrated for some time that refugees can also be accommodated in a hotel; etc. ... Proposed format: I’d like to start with a specific real-life example and work together to develop the steps I’ve outlined above. I could envisage this, for example, as a ‘fishbowl’ discussion and/or by preparing an ‘intro’ that illustrates the three steps I consider important using a concise example, and then opening it up for discussion. Please do let me know what you think would work best. It is important to me that the experiences of the pandemic period – which are still rarely discussed – are not forgotten. At the same time, it would make sense to talk about the Iranian Revolution, where the points mentioned above can also be clearly illustrated, or indeed about the current mobilisations in the USA. As a point of reference, we can draw on the experiences from the strike and solidarity movements surrounding the crisis from 2009 onwards; in particular, the mobilisations in Greece form part of my own experience, which subsequently also included transnational organising along the refugee routes – a movement that can be understood as a ‘sisterhood movement’, which is also a unifying experience for our Viennese-German context.

Sources:

Bowlby, J. (2010), Early Attachment and Child Development, Munich: Reinhardt. Fromm, E. (1989). Psychoanalysis and Ethics. (1947a). Complete Works (II, 1–157). Munich: dtv.
Gast, L. (2006). ‘A human being is one who loses without limit …’: On the (psycho-)logic of loss. Yearbook of Psychoanalysis, 52, 169–186.
Goffrin, J. (2025), Practices of Solidarity-Based Care and Egalitarian Body Politics, in: Neuhaus, M., Mielke, L., Perinelli, M., Solidarity – A Real Utopia, Berlin: Verbrecher. Karakayalı, Serhat, Solidarity with the Others. Society and the Regime of Alterity, in: Broden, A. and Mecheril, P. (eds.), Solidarity in a Migration Society. Questioning a Normative Foundation, Bielefeld 2014, pp. 111–126.
Loick, D. (2024). The Superiority of the Underprivileged. Berlin: Suhrkamp.
Rothberg, M. (2025) Differentiated Solidarity and the Implied Subject, in: Neuhaus, M., Mielke, L., Perinelli, M., Solidarity – A Real Utopia, Berlin: Verbrecher.