"Has humanitarianism in its current form become part of the problem, rather than the solution?"

Source: "Human rights and wrongs," by Michael Williams, guardian.co.uk, Sunday October 26

This is a review of Conor Foley's book titled The Thin Blue Line: How Humanitarianism Went to War. It cites some of the dangerous aspects embraced by some of the individuals and organizations currently promoting humanitarian assistance:

• exagerating the severity of humanitarian problems to generate political support for their humanitarian relief,
• promoting other values (such as women's rights, literacy for children, and sex education that derive from liberal Western tradition) in programs intended to deal specifically with hunger or disease,
• directing humanitarian assistance where it might produce political advantage rather than where it would be likely to help the most people and/or people most in need.

Most serious is the effort to gain public support citing humanitarian concerns for interventions in foreign countries that are motivated by less palatable political goals (justifying an invasion in the name of "democratization" when it is more motivated by support for an ally, economic advantage, and/or modification of the balance of power in a geographic region.

Comment: Williams and (apparently) Foley have belled a cat that definitely needed belling. As "the road to hell is paved with good intentions," and as "patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels," so to I might say that "the road to the imperialistic exercise of power is covered with protestations of humanitarian motives." Few seem willing to come out publicly and challenge claims based on declared humanitarian goals.

The problem is perhaps exacerbated by the reality that many, probably the majority of people who are actually on the ground providing humanitarian assistance are very well and highly motivated, and that they do a lot of good. The lengthening of lifespan in developing nations, the reduction of the threat of famine, and the reduction of the portion of the world's population that live in abject poverty speak for themselves. When good people are exploited for cynical purposes I get angry.

A related problem is that people and organizations with true humanitarian motives can be wrong, especially when they advocate based on ideology rather than knowledge. I have found that to be a problem with new technologies, where "do gooders" with little understanding of the technology have slowed applications due to poorly founded fears triggered by the novelty (e.g. biotechnology for crop improvement, nanotechnology for industrial development). There are also environmentalists who fail to properly recognize the needs for poverty alleviation, and people focusing on economic development who fail to properly recognize the needs for a sustainable environment.

The donor agencies appear to run scared of the NGO's, and I think there are good projects and programs that have been delayed or canceled due to fear of the fuss that would be raised by NGO advocates, where those advocates had largely unjustified fears.

Donor assistance with humanitarian motives is important. The question is how do we protect against errors caused by cynical or well intentioned arguments based on humanitarian ideas and misuse of humanitarian programs themselves. A first step is being aware that such problems can and do occur, and having achieved that recognition to examine claims and programs and act to correct abuses. JAD

From The Urban Dictionary:

cheneyism

a figure of speech expressing a fantasy, generally used to manipulate

(ie. "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." --March 16, 2003, or
"I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." -- June 20, 2005)

He used many forms of cheneyism is his relationships with women, most commonly, "Of course I'll still respect you."