The language of New Power

What is New Power?

I recently spoke to the CEO of a major international organization which is trying to use less jargon in its communication and documents. “We want to speak the language of New Power,” she told me, meaning the language of activist movements, climate action groups, women’s empowerment syndicates, and the like.

A lot of Western organizations are beginning to think in this way, and I see this as a welcome development. They see New Power as credible, and they see their own being challenged in a changing world. But the shift the CEO wants to see can’t be done just by changing the language alone. The language we use is a symptom of the model on which we have built our business. To change the way they speak, large international humanitarian and developmental organizations (iNGOs) need to change the foundations of their work and their relationships with partners.

The language of Old Power

The language of humanitarian action is the language of what can be called “Old Power.” You know the caricature: the Western (post)colonialist organizations going to poor countries (euphemistically, “the Global South”) and implementing ready-made solutions to pull those wretched, smiling-in-the-face-of-perpetual-adversity souls out of their self-inflicted suffering. Old Power language, outside of the strained marketing campaign trying to give a voice to the voiceless, is cold and patronising. It speaks of “stakeholders,” “beneficiaries,” “affected populations,” “situations of violence,” “accountability frameworks,” and such matters.

Old Power language is jargon designed to be spoken with, and understood by, the donors and by other iNGO workers, and that’s it. All other opinions are irrelevant.

The opinion of the person in the street in Western countries is not important since they are not the ones taking decisions on the funding of iNGOs – their governments are (most iNGOs still depend heavily on government funding), and bureaucrats love the important-sounding jargon, the slick PowerPoint demo, the meaningless metrics (“people reached,” “projects undertaken”).

The opinions of the local organizations and the people in the countries where iNGOs operate isn’t important to Old Power language either, because they are not essential to the mission; in fact, they are often treated as a risk. The “affected populations” are to accept the help and otherwise be out of the way. The local organizations, if they are lucky, are to do what they’ve been subcontracted to do, at a minimum or no cost. In both cases, a bit of gratitude wouldn’t hurt.

New Power and its language

The language of New Power is direct. “Black lives matter!” “Climate justice now!” “We will not be silent!” It is designed to inspire supporters to join and take action. It is designed to be succinct and move people, because New Power doesn’t exist without people. And it is being adopted by grassroots organizations around the world. Now these voices are asking questions, often very eloquently and bluntly. Treat us as equals. Listen to our opinions. Respect our local expertise. Speak our language.

This amounts to an existential crisis for the maladapted iNGO. It turns out that “beneficiaries” no longer need our messianic, neocolonial pasting of obsolete models. They need us to do less, be more systemic in our approach, to do better, or just to leave, since decades of our presence haven’t made a difference. The growth-at-all costs story we’ve been selling to our Board and our donors is all of a sudden in jeopardy.

Now, this isn’t an article about how to reform iNGOs. That would require a book-length text. It is a reminder that language is but a symptom of how we see the world, and changing the language requires changing our approach to our work. When our audiences begin to matter to us our language will begin to make sense to average humans.