Ended
đź“… Join the next one.On December 2, 2025, the Impact Trust convened its sixteenth and final dialogue of the year. Three voices, spanning generations and geographies yet united by a commitment to justice, gathered to examine the raw emotions driving contemporary activism: anger, rage, and the elusive path toward agency. You can watch the recording here.
This dialogue emerged from a previous conversation where Naila Farouky’s words moved Albie Sachs to respond – not with easy answers, but with the hard-won experience of someone who helped transform one of the world’s most entrenched systems of oppression. What followed was not a meeting of minds converging on consensus, but something rarer: an honest encounter where profound disagreement could coexist with deep mutual respect.
The conversation unfolded against the backdrop of Gaza, Sudan, Congo -a world where, as one participant noted in the chat, “the plethora of misery” has become so geographically dispersed that the very act of paying attention requires a kind of impossible triage. Yet this was precisely the ground these speakers chose to stand on, refusing the comfort of looking away.
To understand what unfolded in December, we must return to August 2025, when the Senterej Series convened “Confronting Contradictions in Philanthropy” – a dialogue that would prove catalytic. It was there that Naila Farouky issued a challenge that reverberated far beyond the session itself:
“If the whole thing is burning down, we might as well get as honest as humanly possible and then try to see how we can save the parts of it that are worth saving and change the parts of it that need to be changed.” — Naila Farouky, August 2025
That August conversation had mapped the crisis with unflinching clarity: traditional Western philanthropy facing an existential reckoning; the genocide in Gaza exposing systemic failures; grassroots movements demonstrating that transformation was not only possible but already underway. The speakers had named the “gross disparity between the distribution of wealth versus the accumulation of wealth,” questioned whether voluntary generosity and democratic accountability could coexist, and challenged the professional enclave that philanthropy had become.
But it was Farouky’s intervention on solidarity that would echo most powerfully into the December dialogue:
“[Solidarity] is not just a word that you say. It’s a question of reflection: what have you actually done that is in solidarity?” — Naila Farouky, August 2025
In August, Farouky had provided an example of how crisis was already transforming giving patterns. Approximately 300,000 Palestinians had entered Egypt as undocumented persons, ineligible for formal refugee support. Their survival was funded entirely through grassroots crowdfunding – over $2 billion raised through platforms like GoFundMe and LaunchGood while traditional philanthropic institutions “entirely ignored this crisis.”
This was not resilience in the passive sense that philanthropy typically celebrates. This was resistance – collective action that bypassed failing institutions entirely. When Halima Mahomed spoke in December of the “ability to survive” being mistaken for “resilience,” she was extending an argument that had been building since August: that the language itself had become a site of colonisation, putting “the onus of change on the people who are being oppressed, rather than on the system that’s oppressing them.”
When Albie Sachs watched the recording of the August dialogue he was moved by the willingness to name harm without apology, to challenge institutions from within while building alternatives without permission, to hold grief and fierce commitment simultaneously. As he would later reflect in the December call, “It’s wonderful to be working with people who are so committed, so sincere, so not doing it for fame or power or whatever, but because it’s something they truly, truly believe in”.
The August dialogue had the decision by Naila and Halima to step down from the editorial board of Alliance magazine in a public resignation because, as the synthesis noted, “editorial choices reinforce Western-centric information environments.” This act of principled refusal, and the solidarity it embodied, would become one of the December dialogue’s most tender moments.
Albie Sachs arrived in December with what he called a recent discovery—a distinction between anger and rage that has become, for him, a crucial framework for understanding both the promise and peril of liberation movements.
“Anger, to my mind, is an exceptionally important emotion that people are not silent. Don’t suppress themselves, don’t bow down to injustice and wrongdoing. To be neutral in the face of wrongdoing is to allow the wrongdoing to continue. So, anger is a source of transformation and change, and it is needed.” — Albie Sachs
But rage, Sachs argued, is qualitatively different—a consuming emotion so total that it admits only one resolution: the elimination of the source of pain.
“Rage is something that’s a feeling and emotion that’s so intense, that’s so powerful, it’s a feeling of hurt and injury that the only way to assuage the rage is to exterminate, to eliminate the source of the pain… In an individual with that kind of rage, you become blind in your opposition, and the rage eats you up yourself because you can’t achieve the outcome that you want.” — Albie Sachs
For Sachs, this distinction carries strategic consequences. It shaped the anti-apartheid movement’s approach: “The enemy is not a race. The enemy is a system.” This framing prevented white South Africans from consolidating into a hegemonic bloc convinced that survival required military force and racial purity. Instead, it opened space for them to discover that security could come through shared interests and a Bill of Rights rather than through racial enclaves.
In the planning call before December’s dialogue, Halima Mahomed had pressed on precisely this question: “Can rage be productive? Is it necessarily destructive?” She observed that anger alone often isn’t enough – people get angry, then “just go on with their normal lives.” Perhaps what’s needed is something more consuming. The question remained productively unresolved.
Naila Farouky began not with theory but with memory—three generations of Palestinian experience embodied in her grandparents, her father, and herself. Her grandmother, a 1948 Nakba survivor who was “feisty” and “really owned her rage.” Her grandfather, who seemed “more accepting.” Her father, who “didn’t own his Palestinian identity at all.” And then Naila herself, at twelve years old, running past the Israeli ambassador’s residence in Cairo shouting words of resistance.
“I remember very, very clearly, I think this might have been the first time that resistance was validated for me or allowed and kind of given agency… where my dad didn’t say, you know, you need to stop. He was just like, ‘That’s my girl.’ And then he said, ‘But maybe not in front of the residence of the Israeli ambassador.'” — Naila Farouky
This personal history shaped her response to Sachs’ framework. While not rejecting his distinction between anger and rage, she offered a different vantage point—one shaped by the lived experience of the last two years, and by the generational weight of 78 years before that.
“Particularly after the last two years, I would find it exceptionally difficult to be asked in any way to accept coexistence with what we’ve seen. It seems impossible to me to ask people who have gone through what Palestinians have gone through in the last 78 years, but then, more explicitly, in the last two years, to accept any kind of coexistence with this kind of monstrosity.” — Naila Farouky
Yet Farouky’s ultimate position defied easy categorisation. Neither pacifist nor genocidal, she articulated a simple bottom line: “Whatever Palestine becomes, it needs to be safe for everyone who lives in it. That’s the bottom line. That’s the end of it.”
Halima Mahomed brought the conversation to perhaps its sharpest edge – a challenge to the very language through which these struggles are often framed. Her critique extended directly from August’s discussion of grassroots funding and institutional failure. When traditional philanthropy “entirely ignored” the crisis of 300,000 undocumented Palestinians, it was communities themselves who responded—not through resilience, but through resistance.
“It’s a red button for me… because it means putting the onus of change on the people who are being oppressed, rather than on the system that’s oppressing them. The way in which we have used resilience in our philanthropy sector, in our development sector, as this great thing, without examining the contradictions… What does it mean to talk about resistance rather than resilience? And what does it mean to talk about resistance against the system—so it’s not individualised, but collectivised?” — Halima Mahomed
This linguistic intervention carried profound implications. When we celebrate resilience, we may inadvertently celebrate mere survival under conditions that should not be survived. We may mistake stoicism for strength, and in doing so, let systems of oppression off the hook. As Walter Wehrmeyer noted in the chat: “Really important point that ‘ability to survive’ should not ever be mistaken for ‘resilience.'”
Halima extended this critique to the contemporary discourse of “radicalisation”:
“There’s this theme I keep seeing on social media which says, ‘What radicalised you?’… It’s so problematic because it makes standing for equality, truth and justice seem radical when that should be the norm. And when we make the norm seem radical, then true radical transformation becomes far beyond our imagination.” — Halima Mahomed
Nicola Robins offered a nuanced counterpoint in the chat: “In many ways, I think resistance requires resilience. This is not the ‘resilience’ promoted by philanthropists, but resilience born of finding a way in a context of extraordinary oppression.” The distinction mattered: there is a resilience that serves liberation, and a “resilience” that serves those who would rather not be troubled by the need for transformation.
Susi Moser’s question in the chat opened a crucial line of inquiry. When Gerry Salole asked the speakers to define agency, their responses illuminated different facets of a concept often invoked but rarely examined.
For Mahomed, agency came down to something deceptively simple:
“It’s the ability to make the decisions that affect your own lives. I don’t think that we give people agency. I don’t think it’s ours to give. But I do think that we hinder people from expressing their agency, from realising their agency, and we have to sometimes just get out of the way.” — Halima Mahomed
This echoed August’s call for philanthropy to “complement” rather than lead—for those with resources to stop hindering and start supporting agency that already exists. As Bhekinkosi Moyo had argued then: “Maybe it’s time for big philanthropies to be complementary, as opposed to them leading the way.”
Farouky located agency in the freedom to disagree without being cast as extremist, and crucially, in the right to choose one’s allies:
“Agency for me is being allowed to say, ‘No, I don’t have to beg for just anybody’s solidarity. I don’t have to beg for just anybody’s support.’ That support has to come in a way that’s meaningful, that’s intentional, and that actually is empowering.” — Naila Farouky
She extended this to a sharp observation about false allies: when Tucker Carlson says something that sounds pro-Palestinian, “these people are not on your side. You need to think a little bit more; you need to have a bit more of a nuanced understanding of what allyship looks like and what solidarity really means.”
In August, Farouky had challenged the sector: solidarity “is not just a word that you say.” In December, she offered a powerful example of what it looks like when solidarity is lived – and it came through her relationship with Halima Mahomed.
Her and Halima’s public resignation from Alliance magazine had been building for months. But the moment that crystallised its meaning came when Farouky found herself unable to face another difficult conversation with Alliance.
“I kind of got a little bit teary. And at one point I was like, ‘Yeah, Halima, I know I need to have this conversation, but I honestly just can’t.’ And at one point, Halima just said, ‘Oh my God, you know what? Actually, no stop. Of course, not you. You don’t have to have this conversation. I’ll have that conversation.’ She, in real time, said that solidarity is like ‘I need to take this from you, I will carry this from you.'” — Naila Farouky
This small act illuminated something larger about authentic solidarity—it is not merely the grand gesture but the willingness to carry another’s burden when they cannot. It answered Farouky’s August challenge: “What have you actually done that is in solidarity?”
Throughout both dialogues—August and December—speakers returned to the importance of naming harm without apology. In August, Farouky had insisted on moving past “buzzwords” to honest confrontation: “There’s no way we’re going to have this discussion bring anything to fruition that’s positive, if we’re not willing to say, by the way, the way you’re doing this really sucks.”
In December, she traced the personal journey required to claim that right:
“In my 20s, I moved to New York… and I was apologetic. I would whisper my Palestinianness in many ways… I’ve learned that piece of it, which is really to be able to name the harm without any kind of apology. And you know, there’s power in calling things what they are.” — Naila Farouky
This extends to narrative sovereignty—the recognition that those who define the problem ultimately define the solution. August’s dialogue had emphasised the “reclamation of narrative” as central to transformation. December deepened this:
“Narratives are shaped mostly by those who control the resources and who are able to control the outcomes. Whoever defines the problem is ultimately who gets to define the solution. And so narrative sovereignty can translate into political sovereignty, and it can translate eventually into agency.” — Naila Farouky
The August dialogue had also surfaced how language itself becomes “a site of colonisation.” Alan Fowler had noted that “one reason for ignorance of indigenous gifting is, like now, a narrative reliance on the Anglo-language of philanthropy.” Farouky had reminded participants that “the first ever recorded act of philanthropy in history was recorded in Morocco in 859 AD. This is not nascency.” The December dialogue built on this foundation, insisting that naming must come in one’s own voice, on one’s own terms.
Gerry Salole named something that haunted both dialogues: the human capacity to look away from suffering. In August, the conversation had been marked by what was described as “overwhelming collective grief”—participants navigating profound emotional weight while maintaining fierce commitment to change. In December, Mahomed offered a searing observation:
“It’s been heartbreaking. It’s been absolutely heartbreaking to see colleagues I know, I love, I have stood with—look away. Be indifferent. Be neutral… I don’t understand the ability to look away…. We’re living in this dystopia. We’re watching people being murdered in front of our eyes, and then we do the little that we can, knowing it won’t make any substantial impact in the short term, and then we mentally have to switch off. School runs, birthdays, holidays. And then you suddenly remember that they can’t do the same… and you go back full circle. — Halima Mahomed
Walter Wehrmeyer offered a counterpoint in the chat that named the cost of sustained attention: “I don’t think it has become easy at all. I find myself looking away sometimes as staring at the abyss is so comprehensively depressing, so profoundly soul-crushing that sometimes switching off the empathy is all I have left.”
Dana Kuperman cut to the core: “Looking away comes at the price of our humanity.”
This exchange captured the dialectic at the heart of engagement with catastrophe: how to remain present to suffering without being destroyed by it, how to look without looking away, how to act when action seems futile. In August, Shahla Raza had given voice to this impossible burden: “It’s crisis after crisis. Every single day, it’s exhausting, having to live through a genocide.”
Near the December dialogue’s end, Mahomed offered a crucial reframing that extended August’s analysis:
“Theo Sowa, a colleague on the Adoye Steering Committee that Naila and I both sit on, keeps reminding us: This rupture, what is being called ‘this moment,’ is not new in the Global South. We in the global south have been on the back end of these ruptures over and over and over again. That this rupture and the implication of this rupture is now being felt in the Global North, is what is new. And we have weathered this before, and we will figure out how to weather it again.” — Halima Mahomed
She extended this further, connecting to August’s insistence that transformation requires addressing root causes:
“We focus so much on Palestine as a lens through which to see what are the inequalities that are driving what we see globally—what we’re seeing in Congo, what we’re seeing in Sudan, what we’re seeing in Haiti. I don’t think we will get a solution to Israel and Palestine without addressing the very deep-seated problematics of how the world works – around how colonialism, imperialism… is still shaping our world.” — Halima Mahomed
This echoed August’s Godelieve Van Heteren, who had asked why the sector wasn’t better prepared for institutional assault, concluding: “This is probably the last chance we have to do something right, because it’s all to the surface now.” Both dialogues insisted that Palestine is not an exception but a revelation—making visible structures that have long operated in shadows.
Sachs arrived bearing hope- what he called “a hopefulness inside I haven’t felt for Israel-Palestine for a long, long time.” He pointed to the tectonic shift in international opinion, to possibilities for reconstruction, to the potential for Arab investment in a strong Palestinian state.
“Situations that seem hopeless and intractable, made by human beings can be resolved by human beings… We found strategies with very, very brilliant, wonderful leadership. Not just by Nelson Mandela, but Oliver Tambo and the whole generation.” — Albie Sachs
Farouky’s response was measured but clear: she did not share the same hopefulness about outcomes, though she held hope of a different kind. When Sachs spoke of Arab states supporting reconstruction, she offered a reality check:
“That’s not happening. The reality is that’s not happening. If anything, we’ve seen the strong and economically powerful Arab States be more Zionist than the Zionists… They’re not coming to save us.” — Naila Farouky
Yet even here, the generational wisdom met the present reality with a kind of respect. Sachs, rather than dismissing the critique, absorbed it: “You’ve actually pushed me into a very important dimension I hadn’t thought of before.”
Halima named the paradox directly:
“What does it mean to hold hope despite despair? It’s a hard balance sometimes to walk. But I think it’s really important that we keep that, because what else do we do? If you just give into the space, it’s a downward spiral.”
This was not naive optimism but strategic endurance – hope as practice rather than feeling.
Both August and December dialogues had ended with this defiant commitment. In August, Farouky had declared: “We are not giving up though… Never!” In December, Sachs reminded participants of Northern Ireland and South Africa – seemingly intractable conflicts that found resolution. The point was not prediction but possibility: that human beings have transformed what seemed unchangeable before.
The chat stream during the December dialogue revealed a community of participants deeply engaged with the questions at hand. Their contributions deserve recognition:
Nicola Robins connected anger to indigenous knowledge systems: “Anger has long been used to transform. In Southern African Nguni cultures, anger is still used to train diviners (traditional sense-makers). Embodied anger can intensify trance states and increase access to what Albie calls ‘soft knowledge’—insight that lies ‘between the cracks’. Perhaps where the tendrils of hope lie?”
Remie Abi-Farrage insisted on the racial dimensions: “The acceptability of anger and rage needs to be discussed through race… that’s why righteous rage is what at least myself I am reclaiming—we have a right to be angry and the form that is rooted in justice.”
Dina Venes challenged the two-sides framing: “Settler colonialism requires us to centre the indigenous and their liberation with full rights. We cannot keep identifying the state of Israel as a moral partner.”
W’qaas Ali Khan noted the geography of solidarity: “Some of the biggest allies of the Palestinian cause are found in faraway places which have been destroyed by colonialism.”
Abigail Salole from Canada connected to Indigenous struggles: “The role of truth jumped out from the speakers today. It seems to hold an important relationship to anger and to rage… Indigenous Peoples have long fought for the public acknowledgement of the genocide and of stolen land here.”
Karen Rivoire invoked Debra Meyerson’s work on “Tempered Radicals”—those who work for change from within systems while maintaining their values.
An unexplored but touched on thread was Albie Sachs’ concept of “soft vengeance” from his book The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter. In that work, Sachs describes his response to the car bomb that took his arm and nearly his life: rather than seeking retribution, he found vengeance in living fully, in the new South Africa’s constitution, in art and music and relationships.
This concept hovers at the edges of December’s conversation, raising questions that remain productively unresolved: What would “soft vengeance” look like for Palestinians? Is it available to those still in the midst of catastrophe, or only to those who have reached the other side? Can transformation be imagined while survival remains uncertain?
These questions may form the basis for future dialogues. For now, they stand as markers of work yet to be done.
This dialogue did not resolve the tensions it surfaced -between hope and despair, between strategic calculation and moral clarity, between the elder’s long view and the lived experience of ongoing catastrophe. What it did was something perhaps more valuable: it created space where these tensions could be held together, where disagreement could coexist with deep respect, where the unbearable could be borne collectively, if only for ninety minutes.
As Nicola Robins observed in the chat: “This is a place of ‘warm knowledge.'” That phrase, borrowed from Sachs himself, captures something essential about what these conversations offer – not the cold knowledge of policy prescriptions and strategic frameworks, but the warm knowledge born of shared struggle and authentic encounter.
From August’s “catharsis” to December’s examination of rage and agency, these dialogues have traced an arc that refuses easy resolution. They have insisted that solidarity must be lived, not merely proclaimed; that resilience must not become an alibi for systems that create the need to survive; that agency cannot be given but can be hindered; that naming harm is itself a form of power; and that hope, properly understood, is not a feeling but a practice.
When participants were asked whether these dialogues should continue, the response was clear. The chat filled with ones. “We need this space” and that. “There aren’t many spaces like this”.
The conversation will continue -not because answers are in sight, but because the questions themselves are too important to abandon. As Gerry Salole reminded participants, invoking Bob Dylan: “The darkest hour is just before the dawn.”
“Aluta Continua. This is what it is. It’s a long-term thing. It’s not going to be solved in five minutes.” – Gerry Salole
The phrase carries particular resonance in this company. “Aluta Continua”—the struggle continues—was the rallying cry of FRELIMO’s liberation movement in Mozambique, where Albie Sachs lived in exile before the apartheid regime’s car bomb found him in Maputo. It is a phrase born of African liberation, paired always with “VitĂłria Ă© Certa”—victory is certain. In invoking it here, the conversation placed itself within a longer arc of struggle that has known both devastation and transformation.