An Imperfect Offering

'Humanitarian action in the twentieth century'
Author: Dr. James Orbinski, M.D.
Topic: politics, humanitarian action, current affairs, NGOs
My rating: 5*

Awards: Nominee 2008 - Governor General's Literary Award - Nonfiction
Winner 2009 - Shaughnessy Cohen Award for Political Writing;
Nobel Peace Prize 1999 on behalf of MSF
About the author:
Dr. Orbinski is the past international President of Médecins sans Frontières (MSF). He is a Research Scientist and Associate Professor of Family and Community Medicine and Political Science at St. Michael’s Hospital and the University of Toronto. More: click here

From the book:
“As Albert Camus wrote, the doctor’s role is as a witness–to witness authentically the reality of humanity, and to speak out against the horrors of political inaction. . . . The only crime equaling inhumanity is the crime of indifference, silence, and forgetting.”

"[about the atrocities in Rwanda] At that moment I felt despair and rage [...]. Animals could never do this. Animals can be brutal, but only humans can be rationally cruel. We can choose anything, we can be anything, we can get used to anything, I thought. Only humans can be evil. Only humans can make this choice..."

"[...] humanitarianism was not about ending or justifying war; it was the struggle to create human spaces in the midst of what is profoundly abnormal. In that moment I understood that to allow that space to exist, we had to be willing to confront political power. It's an imperfect struggle, and it never ends..."

"Since the end of Cold War, humanitarianism and human rights have become a justification for military intervention by the world's strongest economic and military powers when their national interests are at stake. [Humanitarianism] has become part of the spectacle of 'shock and awe', a mere means to an end and a tool of war, a type of war fought by states that use torture in its conduct while they profess to champion human rights and humanitarian values."

Links:
http://www.dignitasinternational.org
http://www.msf.ca
http://www.dndi.org