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Touched By Fire: Doctors Without Borders in a Third World Crisis
When the rapes and massacres, the plagues, the famines, the floods, or the droughts erupt in far-off places, the world stands still. MSF does not.
They are the “smoke jumpers” among international aid organizations. While others are often stymied or delayed by bureaucratic red tape, the men and women of Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières or MSF) move in. They provide food and clean water. They dig latrines. They set up first-aid stations and field hospitals. They treat all-comers according to need. Often they are the last to remain in situations abandoned by others as too dangerous.
The risks they take are moral and ethical as well as mortal. They are acutely aware that giving aid is controversial. Does it really do any good to save a child from murder one day when it will probably starve in the weeks ahead? Is it appropriate to bring expensive western medicine into a country that, in the long run, can’t afford it? Should relief be given to civilians who are being starved on purpose, as part of a cynical political game, by a local warlord?
Elliot Leyton and Greg Locke saw something of the implications of these and other questions when they travelled to Rwanda in the fall of 1996. There they found themselves plunged into a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. Hundreds of thousands of people were on the move. Armed militias and hostile armies lurked in the background. Mass starvation, plague, and an eruption into civil or criminal violence were immediate possibilities. The two Canadians, one an internationally recognized expert on the psychology of killing, the other an experienced photo-journalist, had a rare opportunity to observe MSF in action at a time when the stress was enormous and its resources were stretched to the limit.
They watched and listened, to the perpetrators of violence and their victims, to the survivors and those who gave them assistance, and, above all, to the people of MSF who dedicate themselves to saving lives because, in the words of one “The world can afford a humanitarian ideal.”
The result of Leyton and Locke’s research is an extraordinary written and visual record of small miracles performed in the midst of catastrophe.
They are the “smoke jumpers” among international aid organizations. While others are often stymied or delayed by bureaucratic red tape, the men and women of Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières or MSF) move in. They provide food and clean water. They dig latrines. They set up first-aid stations and field hospitals. They treat all-comers according to need. Often they are the last to remain in situations abandoned by others as too dangerous.
The risks they take are moral and ethical as well as mortal. They are acutely aware that giving aid is controversial. Does it really do any good to save a child from murder one day when it will probably starve in the weeks ahead? Is it appropriate to bring expensive western medicine into a country that, in the long run, can’t afford it? Should relief be given to civilians who are being starved on purpose, as part of a cynical political game, by a local warlord?
Elliot Leyton and Greg Locke saw something of the implications of these and other questions when they travelled to Rwanda in the fall of 1996. There they found themselves plunged into a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. Hundreds of thousands of people were on the move. Armed militias and hostile armies lurked in the background. Mass starvation, plague, and an eruption into civil or criminal violence were immediate possibilities. The two Canadians, one an internationally recognized expert on the psychology of killing, the other an experienced photo-journalist, had a rare opportunity to observe MSF in action at a time when the stress was enormous and its resources were stretched to the limit.
They watched and listened, to the perpetrators of violence and their victims, to the survivors and those who gave them assistance, and, above all, to the people of MSF who dedicate themselves to saving lives because, in the words of one “The world can afford a humanitarian ideal.”
The result of Leyton and Locke’s research is an extraordinary written and visual record of small miracles performed in the midst of catastrophe.
- GenresMedicineNonfiction
224 pages, Hardcover
First published April 20, 1998
About the author
Elliott Leyton
18 books17 followersElliott Leyton is a Canadian social-anthropologist, educator and author who is amongst the most widely consulted experts on serial homicide worldwide. He has also served as president of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association.
Leyton earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of British Columbia then went on to obtain his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Toronto in 1972. During his ensuing career, he dedicated himself to the analysis and research of social ills such as juvenile delinquency and the psychology behind perpetrators of serial killings. Leyton's achieved level of expertise has led to his giving lectures at the College of Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Ottawa.
Professor Leyton has held faculty positions at Queen's University of Belfast in Ireland (where he is a research Fellow), and at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario; University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland; Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel; and at Memorial University of Newfoundland where he currently is Professor Emeritus of anthropology.
Leyton earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of British Columbia then went on to obtain his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Toronto in 1972. During his ensuing career, he dedicated himself to the analysis and research of social ills such as juvenile delinquency and the psychology behind perpetrators of serial killings. Leyton's achieved level of expertise has led to his giving lectures at the College of Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Ottawa.
Professor Leyton has held faculty positions at Queen's University of Belfast in Ireland (where he is a research Fellow), and at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario; University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland; Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel; and at Memorial University of Newfoundland where he currently is Professor Emeritus of anthropology.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 17, 2020
Strange discovery, this book.
(I plucked it off the library shelf while perusing East Africa in the stacks before my safari trip.) It gives a brief but unflinching account of what MSF/Medecins sans Frontières/ Doctors Without Borders is and does. It's very matter-of-fact, almost more like a professional journal than storytelling à la newspaper or book, but far less tedious than academia.
By plunging you into mid-'90s Rwanda, the book certainly doesn't resist making you utterly despair about humanity. But your glimmer of hope comes in the form of these humanitarian cowboys who show up anywhere to witness and do the work.
Also, the book is short.
If like me you're interested in global stuff, humanitarian stuff, and off the beaten path stuff, and can tolerate a bit of mad darkness, give it a read.
(I plucked it off the library shelf while perusing East Africa in the stacks before my safari trip.) It gives a brief but unflinching account of what MSF/Medecins sans Frontières/ Doctors Without Borders is and does. It's very matter-of-fact, almost more like a professional journal than storytelling à la newspaper or book, but far less tedious than academia.
By plunging you into mid-'90s Rwanda, the book certainly doesn't resist making you utterly despair about humanity. But your glimmer of hope comes in the form of these humanitarian cowboys who show up anywhere to witness and do the work.
Also, the book is short.
If like me you're interested in global stuff, humanitarian stuff, and off the beaten path stuff, and can tolerate a bit of mad darkness, give it a read.
July 18, 2011
This book discussed at length the politics, bureaucracy & red tape behind humanitarian aid organizations- particularly that of Doctors Without Borders. It was very enlightening and a little disheartening too. Overall a very interesting read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews