The Altona Declaration: Making Inclusion and Tolerance Loud and Clear

Hamburg consists of seven districts and the district of Hamburg-Altona is the westernmost urban borough of Hamburg with a population of 270, 263 (Dec. 2016) with an area of 77.4 km2. The District of Altona is therefore part of the greater City of Hamburg, a major trading crossroads on the North- as well as Baltic Sea with both a long history of immigration and a growing, diverse population. Around 14% of the city’s residents are from first or second generation immigrant backgrounds, a statistic of foreign population growing in the district of Altona.   Between 2015-16, 60,000 refugees arrived in the city requiring the provision of extra accommodation and services and Hamburg employed some innovative processes to do this such the “Work and Integration Centre for Refugees – WIR-Centre” the Finding Places scheme- URBACT recognised Good Practice. A large proportion of refugees have been accommodated in Hamburg-Altona.   However, in recent years, the city has witnessed a disturbing rise in xenophobic populism and hate speech in both traditional and social media. Preoccupied for the phenomena, and for the attack of public opinion towards a pro-refugees agenda of the city of Hambourg,  the District of Altona in 2018 analysed  the situation in paper on integration and social inclusion. This paper led to a revision and updating of the local strategy from integration of minority groups (Integrationskonzept), towards comprehensive policies of inclusion and diversity targeting the whole population. While politicians were generally committed to this approach, they soon perceived the limits of issuing a top-down agenda in favour of tolerance and diversity., which would have been perceived by locals as imposed.   The solution evolved by joining the URBACT Transfer Network of Rumorless cities towards co-designing with inhabitants a formal declaration of inclusion and a campaign in public space about the principles exposed in the declaration.     At first, public events and workshops have been organised across the district and via digital communications, inviting residents from different backgrounds to share their opinions on concepts such as social cohesion, community, democracy and equality and what sort of society they want to live in.   In the second phase, the content collected during phase one was collated and edited into seventeen statements. These were promoted at summer festivals across the district and people were encouraged to vote, to which 1 000 people responded. Subsequently, the declaration was launched at a press conference by the city mayor and by Marcell Jansen a famous local sportsperson. This was closely followed by a public democracy conference with the goal of supporting citizens to make the declaration their own and to develop ideas for spreading it’s messages and values. The declaration turned then into a campaign with printed and digital media in public spaces. Unfortunately, Covid-19 was tough for a campaign so strongly reliant on face-to-face activities. The work with schools was stopped, and Altona’s biggest cultural festival — potentially a powerful catalyst for promotion — was cancelled. This forced a creative rethink and a shift towards digital communications, including a campaign kit for civil society organisations.   Thankfully, the Mayor of Altona was personally committed, speaking at the launch event and referring back to the declaration in a public statement condemning discrimination after hate mail was sent to the Altona mosque.