A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis

by David Rieff

Timely and controversial, A Bed for the Night reveals how humanitarian organizations trying to bring relief in an ever more violent and dangerous world are often betrayed and misused, and have increasingly lost sight of their purpose.

Humanitarian relief workers, writes David Rieff, are the last of the just. And in the Bosnias, the Rwandas, and the Afghanistans of this world, humanitarianism remains the vocation of helping people when they most desperately need help, when they have lost or stand at risk of losing everything they have, including their lives.

Although humanitarianism's accomplishments have been tremendous, including saving countless lives, the lesson of the past ten years of civil wars and ethnic cleansing is that it can do only so much to alleviate suffering. Aid workers have discovered that while trying to do good, their efforts may also cause harm.

Drawing on firsthand reporting from hot war zones around the world -- Bosnia, Rwanda, Congo, Kosovo, Sudan, and most recently Afghanistan -- Rieff describes how the International Committee of the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, the International Rescue Committee, CARE, Oxfam, and other humanitarian organizations have moved from their founding principle of political neutrality, which gave them access to victims of wars, to encouraging the international community to take action to stop civil wars and ethnic cleansing.

This advocacy has come at a high price. By calling for intervention -- whether by the United Nations or by "coalitions of the willing" -- humanitarian organizations risk being seen as taking sides in a conflict and thus jeopardizing their access to victims. And by overreaching, the humanitarian movement has allowed itself to be hijacked by the major powers, at times becoming a fig leaf for actions those powers wish to take for their own interests, or for the major powers' inaction. Rieff concludes that if humanitarian organizations are to do what they do best -- alleviate suffering -- they must reclaim their independence.

Except for relief workers themselves, no one has looked at humanitarian action as seriously or as unflinchingly, or has had such unparalleled access to its inner workings, as Rieff, who has traveled and lived with aid workers over many years and four continents.

A cogent, hard-hitting report from the front lines, A Bed for the Night shows what international aid organizations must do if they are to continue to care for the victims of humanitarian disasters.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Africa, International Relations, Economics, Society, International Development

394 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2002

About the author

David Rieff is an American polemicist and pundit. His books have focused on issues of immigration, international conflict, and humanitarianism.

Reviews

[Paltia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book to open one’s eyes, wide.

[Alisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, so I did not give this book four stars because I thought it was much fun to read. Had it also been fun to read I would have given it five stars no question. But, as much as it hurts, I think it's important for starry-eyed save-the-world types (like me, haha) to get acid dumped on their heads once in a while. Of course the problem with this book is that it essentially lists all the problems with humanitarianism in this century (its ineffectiveness, its essential lack of clarity and purpose) and then walks away leaving you just feeling like your eyes are burned out. But in the optimisic words of the author, "Given the choice between liberal imperialism and barbarism, I would take liberal imperialism every time," and this book is for those who want to see international humanitarianism's faults as a credo and keep going.

[DoctorM · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sombre assessment of the state of humanitarian aid in the new century. The great humanitarian disasters of recent times, Rieff, argues, have largely been human rights crises as well (Bosnia, Aceh, Rwanda, Kosovo, Afghanistan)--- caused by war and tyranny, and humanitarian groups, by trying to do more than just provide immediate aid to the victims, by trying to get at root causes, have become absorbed into the politics of the great powers and the agendas of donors. The tragedy, Rieff argues, is that humanitarianism and human rights can (and do) conflict. The efforts in Sarajevo to feed and house Bosnians saved lives, but took pressure off Europe and the US to take action to stop the Serb siege. Feeding Rwandan refugees and staving off a cholera epidemic in refugee camps in the Congo allowed genocidal Hutu militias time and resources to regroup in the camps. Acts by states to do necessary things to stop human rights disasters--- e.g., military intervention in Kosovo ---worsen humanitarian conditions in the short run. Rieff faults humanitarian groups for not seeing the contradictions and tragedy in such things, and for too readily becoming subcontractors of states and their militaries in a rush to Do Good. Rieff admires the field work of humanitarian agencies--- always dangerous, often volunteer work, brutally difficult, heartbreaking. But he calls for a sense of what the limits of aid are, and, more importantly, for a consideration of what the costs of humanitarian intervention can be, even in the most necessary cases. Rieff tries hard not to be a cynic or an utter pessimist, but he does argue forcefully for a sense of limits, and for a clear understanding that a human-rights based foreign policy and humanitarianism are not always the same thing.

[Josie Seto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cynical and depressing. Humanitarianism will always disappoint if we expect it to end all evil and suffering.

It’s really good, and unpacks so much 20th history of suffering and aids. But I feel terrible after finishing and just wanted one positive thing

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth reading for his throuogh work, and above all because he is critical of the state of humanitarianism without being leftist about it, thankyouverymuch.

Above all, the book is a discussion on how to carry out relief/ development work in a changing world, with more and more NGOs, and the problems and benefits from NGO-UN-military-cooperation.

"You don't reply to fascism with relief supplies, and you don't counter ethnic cleansing with reception centers for the displaced."

Food for thought for my paper!

[Tinea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading all these book by aid workers is teaching me that while aid workers are fantastic at being self-critical, they are horrible at writing coherent arguments. Basically, I think I agree with Rieff's thesis. Humanitarian agencies should intentionally limit their mandates. Stay neutral, bring direct material relief to anyone who needs it, negotiate with who you gotta negotiate in order to get food/medical aid where it's gotta go. Keep humanitarianism separate from human rights and politics and acknowledge how very limited the problem-solving scope of relief is. It is just that: relief. A bed for the night. The world's problems are political. They need political answers. But if you mix politics with relief you'll undermine both of them.

"Let humanitarianism be humanitarianism. Let it save some lives, whatever the compromises it has to make along the way, and let it tend to the victims and remind that corner of the world that is lucky enough not to be in agony of the incalculable suffering, misery, and grief that literally billions of people feel every day of their lives. Is that really so little? ... There is nothing small or insufficient about what [humanitarians] do, except, that is, in the tragic human sense that all effort is insufficient, all glory transient, all solutions inadequate to the challenge, all aid insufficient to the need. ... but the things [humanitarianism] is nor being called upon to do,such as helping advance the cause of human rights, contributing to stoppign wars, and furthering social justice, are beyond its competence however one might wish it otherwise." (p.333)

Basically, in this reviewers opinion, leave "development" to the social movements and politics to the social justice/human rights activists & community organizers/organized communtities. Or at least, that's the thinking I got from his book, but it was really all over the place. I don't know if this was what Rieff meant to say. I felt like he lacked a lot of critical theoretical background for a lot of his criticism, too. Overall, interesting, added something-- including a scathing takedown of the calls to war that emanate from humanitarian NGOs (Somalia, Bosnia, ...Libya?) and the ways those who want to wage war will often co-opt humanitarian emergencies (shout out to the ladies of Afghanistan!). Very pertinent but no lucid argument for any one thing in particular, no real summation of the vast amount of history he tries to cover and synthesize. Why did you write this book?

[Note a lot of other Goodreads reviewers got more out of this book than I did, and their reviews are worth reading just for the neat summaries of conclusions they drew.]

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strident and indignant, strident and indignant, strident and indignant... for 350 pages!!!! It just goes on and on and on... I like the four case studies (Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Afghanistan) because they show the evolution of his point through example. But it's the (strident and indignant) introductory and concluding chapters (four introductory, three concluding!) that just completely tired me out. More importantly, it wasn't until the very last few pages of the last chapter that I finally figured out what he was so strident and indignant about... because you just can't win in humanitarianism... he shows the flaws of autonomous humaniatiranism and the flaws of state-coopted humanitarianism, so for a couple hundred pages I just couldn't figure out where Rieff stands on the issues because he meanders through them and then always concludes that it's lose-lose... but it turns out that he is sad about the death of autonomous humanitarianism, because he finally said so at the very end of the book. I think this book is a great contribution, so well researched, with a totally cogent discourse analysis, but yet also delivered right from the front lines... I just think he could have been far more forceful and eloquent (and less repetitive) if the book was about 35% or 40% shorter and didn't use so many tedious double-negatives as a rhetorical device in his already long-winded sentences.

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

A BED FOR THE NIGHT

I hear that in New York
At the corner of 26th Street and Broadway
A man stands every evening during the winter months
And gets beds for the homeless there
By appealing to passers-by.

It won’t change the world
It won’t improve relations among men
It will not shorten the age of exploitation
But a few men have a bed for the night
For a night the wind is kept from them
The snow meant for them falls on the roadway

Don’t put down the book on reading this, man

A few people have a bed for the night
For a night the wind is kept from them
The snow meant for them falls on the roadway
But it won’t change the world
It won’t improve relations among men
It will not short the age of exploitation
- Bertolt Brecht
- Translated by George Rapp

This book is a bit old now (published 2002), however given everything that is happening in the world right now I picked it up, as it deals with humanitarian relief provided in a war zone.

David Rieff traces the origins of the major humanitarian organizations such as the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross), IRC (International Rescue Committee) MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres) Oxfam, CARE and others to describe how many of them have moved away from their founding principle of neutrality to pushing a more political line as they depend on government and major donor funding to continue to operate. He looks at how the boundaries are being blurred between humanitarian relief, where aid workers often have to work in a grey area, accepting help from those committing the atrocities so they can provide relief to those suffering and International Human Rights which has very clearly defined laws.

Reiff then takes us through four of the major conflicts since the end of the Cold War; Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo and Afghanistan and how the humanitarian efforts by the organisations fared in each of them.

[Jared · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The humanitarian enterprise is an effort to bring a measure of humanity, always insufficient, into situations that should not exist.” - Philippe Gaillard, ICRC

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT?
- Riff describes how relief organizations have moved from their founding principle of political neutrality, which gave them access to victims of wars, to encouraging the international community to take action to stop civil wars and ethnic cleansing. This advocacy comes at a high price. By calling for intervention, humanitarian organizations risk being seen as taking sides in a conflict and thus jeopardizing their access to victims.

ORIGIN OF BOOK TITLE
- https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2...

HUMANITARIAN PROBLEMS
- As Sadako Ogata, the former UN high commissioner for refugees, put it, “There are no humanitarian solutions to humanitarian problems.” The recognition of this has caused many humanitarian groups to look for something else to do besides giving relief. They are trying to incorporate human rights analyses into their programs, training their people in the laws of war, and generally coming to view their own enterprise as part of a larger process of “peace-building,”…Otherwise, most relief workers eventually come to feel that they have been wasting their time.

PART OF THE PROBLEM?
- As one senior UN official in eastern Congo put it to me, “Some of us think we’re part of the problem, not part of the solution, and that at best we’re becoming a containment system for the rich world, its operational arm in the regions of the world where there are no big economic interests or strategic concerns.”

- “We have lost our innocence about the impacts of aid,” writes Mary B. Anderson, probably the most influential American thinker on the subject of how to deliver relief with as few negative effects as possible. “We know that aid provided in conflict settings can feed into and exacerbate the conflicts that cause the suffering it is meant to alleviate. And we know that aid too often does nothing to alter—and very often reinforces—the fundamental circumstances that produced the needs it temporarily meets.”

THERE ARE OFTEN NO INNOCENTS, EXCEPT CHILDREN
- They are victims; that should go without saying. But too often we need to think of them as innocent victims. And many of them are not. Only children are innocent.

- This became starkly evident in the case of the Rwandan Hutu refugees who fled their country after the genocide in 1994. Many of them had participated willingly in the slaughter of the Tutsis. In the camps, at least in the beginning, they said so openly. Which made them killers, but did not mean that as they sat in those camps, with the cholera and dysentery raging, they were not victims as well.

- Victims can be victims and not be innocent.

NOW, HUMANITARIANS HAVE BECOME TARGETS
- Where twenty years ago humanitarians operated in the reasonable expectation that they would not themselves be attacked, today they are at times the favorite targets of fighters in the zones in which they operate.

HUMANITARIANISM INCREASES TOLERANCE FOR CASUALTIES
- Only when humanitarianism is melded with national interest, as has been the case for most Americans with regard to the war in Afghanistan, is there likely to be any tolerance for casualties. It is for this reason that humanitarians’ reliance on the power of images, and on the utopian fantasy of a global village of moral concern, is such a trap.

IT IS HARD TO GET PEOPLE TO CARE IF THEY ARE UNAFFECTED
- Is it even possible for people who live in comfort to care deeply enough for people who do not to act to alleviate those sufferings?

SYMPATHY IS NOT THE SAME AS UNDERSTANDING
- Where those who trumpet the revolution of moral concern go wrong is in assuming that sympathy somehow can be turned into understanding.

THE HUMANITARIAN TRAP
- Many writers have talked about the humanitarian trap. By this they usually mean the problem of aid prolonging wars, or giving great powers an excuse either for intervention or nonintervention. But the first and greatest humanitarian trap is this need to simplify, if not actually lie about, the way things are in the crisis zones, in order to make the story more morally and psychologically palatable—in short, to sugarcoat the horror of the world, which includes the horror of the cost of a good deed.

HUMANITARIANISM USED AS A PRETENSE BY STATES
- When King Leopold II of Belgium was searching for a way to acquire a colony in Africa, he seized upon the issue of slavery in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a moral cover for demanding that he be granted personal ownership of what came to be called the Congo Independent State.

- As Cecil Rhodes, a central figure in British colonialism in southern Africa, put it, “Colonialism is philanthropy plus five percent.”

- The American military doctors who attempted to stamp out yellow fever in Panama are another example of the colonialist as successful humanitarian.

HUMANITARIANISM USED FOR GOVERNMENT ACTION, INACTION
- Western European governments did not want to take the Bosnians in if they could possibly avoid it. For both reasons, policymakers swiftly concluded that a method needed to be devised to get them to stay where they were. That method was humanitarian action.

- Instead of political action backed by the credible threat of military force, the Western powers would substitute a massive humanitarian effort to alleviate the worst consequences of a conflict they wanted to contain. “Containment through charity” was the way one UN official put it.

- Fundamentally, the better the job UNHCR and the NGOs that worked with it did in Bosnia…the more cover they provided for the great powers to avoid doing anything to stop the slaughter.

- By giving much-needed aid to Bosnia, UNHCR was also in effect contributing to successfully carrying out one of the major donor countries’ chief priorities—to prevent more Bosnians from trying to leave. Rather than supporting its traditional role of guardian of refugee rights, UNHCR’s activities were designed to prevent people from becoming refugees in the first place…UNHCR did the work of the Western countries that wanted no more asylum seekers.

UN PRESENCE CAN BE AN INDICATOR TO BAD ACTORS
- the Bosnian Serbs had realized that as long as the international response was fundamentally humanitarian, and UN peacekeepers in Bosnia would act only to assist in the relief effort, not to impose peace, let alone protect Bosnian civilians, they were free to do as they pleased.

“UN SYNDROME”
- “UN syndrome”—a “refusal to see themselves as being in charge or having any real autonomy” and a “veritable petri dish for moral amnesia and the distortion of ethical principles”—that we sometimes lost sight of the deeper culpability of the great powers whose agendas UN bureaucrats carried out.

PUBLIC OPINION
- The necessity of securing public consent for the imperial enterprise is one of the fundamental differences between nineteenth-century imperialism and all the variants of conquest that had been undertaken previously.

THE “INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY”
- they imagined what the Abbé de Saint-Pierre and later Kant called an international community that, if it could be realized, would lead to a world of perpetual peace.

- From the beginning it was a project that was easily misused by governments as a pretext for their own political agendas.

- “Humanitarian agencies know perfectly well that the international community doesn’t really care.”

THE POWER OF MEDIA
- “In the 1960s, the spread of TV brought the emotional impact of humanitarian disaster directly into people’s homes. Oxfam rose to national prominence during the Biafra war, which was the first humanitarian disaster to be seen by millions

- Although he insists that Oxfam drew appropriate conclusions from this “bitter lesson,” the logic of Vaux’s argument suggests that it is more important that people care about humanitarian disasters than that they be given the correct information about a particular disaster.

- “In Biafra,” Finucane writes, “the many NGOs involved learned the usefulness of the media, a lesson that has stood them in good stead in winning support for their work ever since. The response to Biafra demonstrated that people do care; obtaining support is a question of getting the message to them.”

- The media abetted this confusion of genocide and humanitarian crisis.

THE RISE OF NGOs
- By the early 1980s, development aid came under attack both from conservatives and from liberals. The former saw it as statism run amok, while the latter simply could no longer defend a system that was not accomplishing much.

- Instead, aid began to be channeled through nongovernmental organizations. The 1980s saw the start of the privatization of development aid specifically, and aid more generally.

A COST TO BEING CLOSE TO THE GOVERNMENT
- there have been tremendous moral costs to the closeness between U.S. relief agencies and the American government.

- In many cases, a relief organization’s funding comes either from the UN or from national governments working through the UN…NGOs in turn are dependent on their national governments, either directly or through the various UN institutions.

- In this sense, no matter how independent humanitarian organizations try to be, both institutional and funding realities often make them effectively subcontractors of donor governments and of the United Nations system.

BOSNIA WAS A BOOST FOR HUMANITARIANS
- It was also a defining moment for the private relief agencies. For in an important sense, it was in the interaction in Bosnia between donor governments, the UN relief and refugee agencies, and the NGOs that a new humanitarianism was born. It was better funded (and as a result more dependent on donors), more efficient, more political, and more admired by the public at large,

HUMANITARIANISM CAN BE THE WRONG TOOL
- “You don’t reply to fascism with relief supplies,” he would say, “and you don’t counter ethnic cleansing with reception centers for the displaced.”

RWANDA EXPOSED POWERLESSNESS OF AID ORGANIZATIONS
- “How were organizations dedicated to the relief of suffering to deal with a government whose raison d’etre was the infliction of suffering?” Rwanda exposed the powerlessness of aid agencies. For many aid workers, it offered definitive proof that, at least in the most extreme situations, humanitarianism makes sense only as part of a larger international response.

MANY HUMANITARIANS LACK AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE SITUATION
- But it was only later, when I finally went to Rwanda on a break, that I found out about the genocide, and realized, ‘Hey, I’ve been busting my butt for a bunch of ax murderers!’ ” Schmaltz’s ignorance of the context of the calamity into which he had volunteered to throw himself was all too typical, and not just of Rwanda or of American aid agencies like the IRC where new staff are rarely briefed properly.

NGO AND MILITARY LINES BEGIN TO BLUR
- Secretary of State Colin Powell all but admitted as much in a speech on October 26, 2001. “The NGOs,” he said, “are such a force multiplier for us, such an important part of our combat team.”

- At the same time that attacks on UN and NGO installations were taking place, the U.S. government was reiterating that humanitarian relief was an integral part of its war effort…most were unable to establish any distance from this official embrace.

- Iraq was the worst of all worlds. “The humanitarians played politics,” he wrote, while “governments played at humanitarianism.”

IS THE MILITARY A MEANS TO AN END?
- The only way to square the circle—to allow the humanitarian agencies to work according to the broad new norms they had pledged themselves to—was for an outside event to change the conditions under which the agencies worked. That deus ex machina was the American attack on Afghanistan.

- But, as Rony Brauman observed, “modern humanitarianism had come into being by emancipating itself from its thralldom to the political.” Brauman added that to subordinate it to reasons of state—even good and justifiable reasons—was nothing other than “a dangerous regression.”

- And, in fairness, there is plenty of evidence that state humanitarianism can get things done that independent humanitarianism cannot.

SIGNIFICANCE OF AFGHANISTAN
- For most NGOs, as for the Western public at large, what Afghanistan demonstrated was that humanitarianism was too important a matter to be left to humanitarians alone.

HUMANITARIANS NOW WANT TO DO MORE
- For many humanitarian practitioners, humanitarianism was no longer enough.

- The growing consensus among aid workers was that they did not want simply to give relief to people in need; they wanted to build new societies. And for that, force would be necessary.

- “Classic humanitarianism,” Kouchner repeated time and time again, “protects the victims and accepts [massacres] as a reality. Modern humanitarianism accepts no such thing. Its ambition is to prevent the massacres.”

- Aid workers have been drawn to the idea of human rights first and foremost because of their frustrations over the limitations of what humanitarianism can accomplish on its own, in a political vacuum.

IS IT BETTER TO DO AT LEAST SOME GOOD?
- majority of aid groups do not believe they should withdraw in the name of some radiant future. To the contrary, most are persuaded—usually rightly, despite what some critics of aid often claim—that if they are doing at least some good, they should remain.

FUTURE OUTLOOK NOT PRETTY
- George Orwell wrote, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.”

- Alberto Navarro, formerly the director of the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office. In late 1999, Navarro said simply, “Mankind is slowly, but in a very determined way, going back to barbarism.”

SILVER LINING
- The tragedy of humanitarianism may be that for all its failings and all the limitations of its viewpoint, it represents what is decent in an indecent world.

HUMANITARIANISM ALONE ISN’T ENOUGH
- Independent humanitarianism does many things well and some things badly, but the things it is now being called upon to do, such as helping to advance the cause of human rights, contributing to stopping wars, and furthering social justice, are beyond its competence, however much one might wish it otherwise.

***** ***** *****

GOOD QUOTES
- Every document of civilization is also a document of barbarism. —Walter Benjamin

- La Rochefoucauld says somewhere that no man can stare for long at death or the sun.

- The old saying “Save me from what I wish for most”

- “If the UN had been around in 1939,” he liked to say, “we’d all be speaking German.”

- Asked by a reporter whether his faith in God had been shaken by the experience of living through the genocide, a foreign priest replied: “No, my faith in God is intact. But my faith in human beings has been shattered forever.”

- even at its best, humanitarian action is always an emblem of failure.

- Robert E. Lee, observed: “It is good that war is so terrible. Otherwise, we would come to love it too much.”

- And there is always that great phrase of Galileo’s, E pur si muove, “And yet it moves,” to fall back on when all else fails.

FACTOIDS
- The ICRC is the oldest of the humanitarian organizations.

- It is also committed to an austere and sometimes morally troubling conception of neutrality that, during World War II, allowed its senior leadership to decide not to make public what it knew—and it knew a lot—about the Nazi concentration camps. The anti-Semitism of upper-class Swiss society from which the ICRC leadership mostly came (and still comes) doubtless played a role.

- Not by accident, the flag of this Swiss organization [Red Cross] was a red cross on a white background, the Swiss flag reversed.

- Médecins Sans Frontières was founded in 1971 by young French doctors who had rebelled at the ICRC’s insistence on absolute public discretion even when faced with the worst atrocities,

- what Isaiah Berlin called “negative freedoms,” that is, the freedom not to be tortured, killed, or deprived of the vote or of the freedom to practice one’s religion…“positive liberties,” such as the right to work, the right to education,

BONUS
- The mother of the author, David Rieff, is Susan Sontag: https://youtu.be/yiRYzpnAZKY

- “Brahimi Report”: https://www.un.org/en/events/pasteven...

- After publishing two reports in 1999 which highlighted the United Nations failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and to protect the inhabitants of Srebrenica (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in 1995, Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations. He asked the Panel to assess the shortcomings of the then existing peace operations system and to make specific and realistic recommendations for change. The panel was composed of individuals experienced in conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peacebuilding.

- The result, known as the “Brahimi Report” after Lakhdar Brahimi, the Chair of the Panel, called for renewed political commitment on the part of Member States, significant institutional change, and increased financial support.

[Armineh Nouri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rieff's earlier book on Bosnia was my first introduction to the complexities and complicities of international humanitarianism. This is his second attempt in analyzing the topic, with the insight he gained thereafter, especially since the post-9/11 debacle of Afghanistan.

He analyzes the descent of humanitarianism from a modern liberal ideal epitomized by ICRC's 'Together for Humanity' to the oxymoronic 'humanitarian intervention' of 21st century. Throughout the book, he inspects four historic case studies ('milestones,' if you will) through which humanitarianism came to find itself inextricably intertwined with major political forces of the post-Cold War Western world: Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.

Rieff has a way with language, which, despite being convoluted at times, is rich with critical insights derived from a decade of covering several humanitarian crises between 1990 and 2001. His approach isn't exactly methodological and his politics occasionally slide into the typical American cynicism of policy analysts, but that doesn't take away from the book's insightfulness. Highly recommend this to anyone interested in humanitarianism as a concept, subject or practice.

[Jake]

This book is confused throughout. I thought I would agree with Reiff's hypothesis more than I did, however I often struggled to understand who he was saying was in the wrong or what he was criticising. One second he is pointing to the humanitarian ideology (an interesting concept i have seen elucidated best by him), then the globalists, then the business model of NGOs and the list goes on. This leads to a confusing indictment of almost every actor in the conflicts of the 1990s who experienced the aid caravan of the 'international community' (a concept he rightly criticises).

I agree with Reiff's complaint that describing political crises such as Rwanda or Sarajevo as humanitarian emergencies simplifies them into perpetrator and victim narratives which are not helpful in understanding the complex dynamics of conflict. I think this is a useful take away. A book more clearly structured around this concept would be enlightening and useful, but these interesting ideas are buried in waffle.

The confusion that runs through this book extends to his conclusion. IN discussing neo-colonial relationships in humanitarian military intervention he castigates Chomsky and DeBray for their view of Western powers desire to colonize. This seems like a gross simplification of the arguments made by Chomsky (I have not read DeBray). While Chomsky is not to my taste it seems that his arguments that humanitarian intervention is often in line with geo-political objectives of Western powers is not contradicted by anything Reiff says. Reiff even argues that the coming together of humanitarian intervention and US military aims in Afghanistan was of great benefit to the US. While many Wester states have been very reluctant to intervene in conflicts, when they have they have often done so with strategic objectives alongside their humanitarian objectives. Often these strategic objectives move to the forefront as humanitarian objectives become harder to achieve. To cite two of the case studies in his book French intervention in Rwanda and US intervention in Afghnaistan were not purely humanitarian interventions but also part of these countries geo-political strategies. He even makes comparisons between imperial motivations and western aid throughout the book.

While there are interesting ideas and concepts in this book it has not aged well and is not easy to read. I wouldn't recommend it to any apart from the most specialist readers.

[Diego · Rating 5 out of 5]

Junto con los derechos humanos, los ideales del humanitarismo se han vuelto una de las agendas más exitosas en el mundo. El libro hace una crítica aguda al rol que los distintos actores juegan en el desarrollo emergencias complejas (guerras civiles, conflictos armados, etc) y sus consecuencias. El autor hace uso de su experiencia en lugares como la ex Yugoslavia, Rwanda y el medio oriente para narrar como muchas veces el derecho internacional humanitario no funciona a plenitud, como las organizaciónes humanitarias (Oxfam, MSF, IRC y las distintas agencias de Naciones Unidas) a pesar de tener las mejores intenciones suelen terminar siendo parte o incluso colaborando en grandes catastrofes.

Al dejarse capturar por los intereses de las grandes potencias y las realidades políticas, la agenda humanitaria puede volverse un tanto como el comunismo en el pasado, con una divergencia enorme entre el ideal útopico y la cruda realidad.

Es una lectura muy buena, pero no fácil, muy útil para reflexionar sobre las causas y soluciones a los conflictos armados.

[Susan Grantham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read although probably requires a deeper understanding of the field of humanitarianism than I have. Using case studies in various countries (Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan) Reiff demonstrates that humanitarian NGOs’ missions have changed from neutral players going whereever there is need despite politics to a mission of human rights, which is of course very political. The former mission places NGOs in situations where they possibly did more harm than good by propping up brutal regimes. Additionally, many in the NGO community wanted to be heard about what they were seeing on the ground and advocate for intervention following the “never again” mantra. Through the new mission, they have become increasingly an arm of government with the risk of being part of imperialist colonialism. Reiff is calling more for a recognition, transparency, and public discussion of this evolution rather than offering recommendations or solutions. I’m guessing Gaza will be the next case study.

[Almustafa Couch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it was an illuminating book well worth a read.
The readers are taken through the dilemma's often faced by aid workers as to who gets help in a conflict zone (the aggressor or the victim of the aggression) and who's to decide which is which. Doesn't it all then come down to the personal preferences and prejudices of the decider, well I don't know. Even the role of the charter of human rights has a similar problem it has a very Anglo-Saxon bent to it though I must say efforts were made to try not to.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in foreign aid the history of some of the agencies and what they had to go through to provide a ' bed for the night'.

[Morag Forbes · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a long slog, and I say that as someone who had a degree in History and International Relations. I did agree with the authors argument that humanitarianism has lost its way and is being used as a mask for bigger political games. But simple ideas were stretched out to be confusing and convoluted with unnecessarily pretentious language. Then he fails to offer any solutions to any of the issues. Add to that the fact this read is now quite out of date and I don’t think it contributed much to the humanitarian discussion even though his critiques are definitely valid.

[Lara Amro · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite reads for the year specially for the humanitarian field. It’s an excellent book offers some great criticism and reflection on the humanitarian response, and aid. It shows the critiques for it and how we live in a world far away from these ideals.

[Anastasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfocused critique of humanitariasm, no solutions given to the problems described... as such it only helped remind how unjust the world we live in is and always was. Didn't really need to read a whole book to figure that.

[Daniel Fisberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read to give you a different perspective on humanitarianism.

[Lore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that every humanitarian worker should read

[Sara Amorim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written and informative. An eye opener to the shortcoming of humanitarianism as well as a very clear portrait of the evolution of Aid since the 90s

[Emily Smith]

I don’t rate academic reads but if i did this was a 5 star. if you can only read one section PLEASE read the introduction.

[Lenny D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rieff has called himself an "unconstructive critic" of humanitarianism. I expected it to be Easterly-esque, but he goes way beyond that mode of vaguely ideological opposition by loading down his book with what he sees as pure truth, scholastic, reported, observed, inferred. Even when his point is drifting off, his verve stays high (even if his readers' eyes are glazing over). By the end, you're left understanding why he feels the industry needs such a critic. Modern humanitarianism is ultimately an experiment stretching fifty years (he traces it to Biafra more than the Red Cross) that, like all experiments, needs to have its hypothesis tested. He appraises with a cold eye. The conclusion here is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and driven down by miscegenation with the Western military complex/culture. He wants to wake up humanitarianism to its appropriation by Western gov'ts happy to present it as a sufficient and proper response to crises, often when the crises are political and humanitarianism is woefully inadequate.

I do appreciate that he stays true to his mandate by not offering any forward vision. I don't like that he has open contempt for people who do--Ignatieff is his favorite target, and he teases Samantha Power like a third grade boy crushing on her. The book loses points for rambling, but Rieff is so intelligent and informed, it still suffers from density rather than fluff.

Important criticism for any in this space considering what comes next.

[David McCormick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Complicates the received wisdom of humanitarianism. Wars for humanitarian reasons? Can we drop bombs in order to save lives? Yes, maybe, though it sounds like a contradiction. How about speeding the end of a bloody conflict by withholding medical care in order for both sides to be 'ground down' to the point of exhaustion? Ditto for child soldiers? This has been the policy of Doctors Without Borders in the past, and there are legitimate reasons for it. Today's victims are tomorrows violators. Or the ICRC's policy during World War II? The group chose not to publicize its knowledge of the death camps. During the post-war controversy, the ICRC argued that to do so would violate its neutrality charter and thus jeopardize its work in other areas of the Reich. Poland, for example, where war was killing civilians in the old fashioned ways.
Difficult and troubling questions.
Nevertheless, the author denies the notion that effective humanitarianism is impossible. Neither does this book contain a proposal for some bold new plan that the author claims will solve the problems of humanitarianism for the foreseeable future. Rather, it's an exhausted, slightly bitter recognition that the business of helping people isn't a simple manner of global concern and having enough money. Not only do horrible things happen to people, but humanitarian involvement can, at times, actually make things worse.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Criticizing humanitarianism has been in vogue in various political quarters, and my knee-jerk reaction has always been to defend the organizations and workers doing myriad brave strains of aid work - They're just doing they best they can! But Rieff's curmudgeonly book makes some well-considered points that "doing good" doesn't happen in a vacuum. What does humanitarianism mean when you are helping people who are war criminals, who might take your succor and use it to massacre others (as was the case in Rwanda)? What does aid mean when it's used as a primary justification for a war, à la Afghanistan in 2001?

The future direction of humanitarianism seems to be torn between humani-topianism - the belief that we can and should insert ourselves into every crisis, regardless of political context - and cynical pragmatism that ranks crises based on how easy they are to solve and how much money their campaigns will raise. Can aid organizations maintain their independence, or should they cozy up with the state? In the world of 2013 Syria, these answers seem yet to be found.

So there is a lot of food for thought here, but the book itself is often a bit banal and repetitive. Succinctness is not his strong suit, and perhaps a shorter book would be a more captivating way to engage readers less familiar with the humanitarian world in these important ethical questions.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of the most controversial and beloved books I have ever read. Sure, it's for hardcore international development/humanitarian buffs (i.e. not a "quick" read), but it is revelatory. I was introduced to it in a class I am taking, but continued to read the rest of it that wasn't assigned. Rieff and I do not agree on everything, but I really appreciate his well-argued tone, and the reality that he brings to the text. He has analyzed things with his own bias, but he announces it at every turn - and this makes him a credible narrator.

The topics themselves - whether humanitarianism can really achieve goals in the new modern definition, how governments use humanitarian relief in times of political or military conflict, and how aid workers become the middle of that sandwich - are all relevant and crucial for international relations in the current age. Where would we be without involving the UN or aid agencies in some of the conflicts we've seen worldwide? Something to think about.

[Terri London Mabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

52 Books, 2024 Edition: Non-fiction recommended for a friend

3.5 - Super interesting theory that relief NGOs have had to drop their independence over time and provide cover for government agencies. Rieff's point of view is nuanced, and I like that he inserts himself into the narrative--his pessimism, his admiration for relief workers, and his clear stance that he's not against military intervention in cases of extreme violations of human rights. But he's criticizing the way relief organizations have become just another arm of invading governments, judging everything on the basis of human rights rather than humanitarianism.

"So many people, including relief workers, talk these days about 'mere' charity, 'mere' humanitarianism. As if coping with a dishonourable world honourably, and a cruel world with kindness, were not honour enough."

But I wasn't crazy about his sometimes convoluted writing style, and a never-ending insertion of quotations which were interesting, but just too numerous. I also felt he repeated his points a lot.

[Cathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping for more from this book. Having worked in the humanitarian field before I was very curious to see what the author had to say about humanitarianism. I was not thrilled. He makes some interesting points on how NGO's (Non-Governmental Organizations) are adapting their missions to include human rights ideas and are veering away from being neutral however his view are extremely pessimistic and does not provide really any solutions at all. I do have to say that his thoughts are quite relevant in this day in age with everything going on in Syria (Do we intervene on a military scale or observe from the outside and let them solve it???) as well as the Kony 2012 issue (the quality of the NGO doing the write thing.....) Interesting thoughts to ponder.....

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Rieff analyses the history of humanitarianism in the late 20th and early 21st century. This is more a 'history of' than any kind of biographical account, and though he has been intimately involved in conflict and humanitarian relief, Rieff leaves out the personal stories and anecdotes. He is very pessimistic about the future of humanitarianism, and predicts that it will continue to be co-opted by Western militaries keen to use aid in order to seek domestic gains as well as strategic advantage in conflict. He asserts that humanitarianism must re-embrace the original principles of independence and neutrality, though believes it may be too late.

[Danielle · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has some interesting ideas on recent programs to address humanitarian crises, and the negative & positive aspects of these programs. However, the ideas aren't interesting enough to compel me to continue reading this book, which is full of jargon and poorly-written prose. I guess if I couldn't get through it in grad school, when it was required reading, there's no way I'd get through it now, when it's just recreational. If you're really into these issues, this might be a good enough read.