SOLIDARITY

Solidarity is one of the most valuable principles for human communities, and at the same time, it is very much contradictory. It can be understood as a universal ambition to care for anything that lives, but it can also evolve into a force of exclusion or a call to arms. The protagonists of this film are professional carers and helpers, not first responders, but workers in the depths of the humanitarian systems of “global solidarity“. They operate on very different levels, from national grassroots to the highest echelons of the United Nations.

A human rights activist and a refugee aid worker in Poland, the heads of the UNHCR (UN refugee commissioner) based in Geneva, and a philosopher in Beirut allow us to share in their daily lives. The author engages in dialogue with them when migrants are being turned away at the Belarus-Polish border, when the borders open for refugees from Ukraine, and when the Middle East erupts, risking the political support for even international institutions and human rights.

Is global solidarity a complicated and delicate human project that needs a new foundation, a new narrative we all understand?

David Bernet © Markus Stein photos © INDI FILM