November 14, 2002 | Read Time: 2 minutes
A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis
by David Rieff
Humanitarianism is in danger of disappearing, writes David Rieff, a journalist and author who spent time watching nonprofit organizations respond to the war in Bosnia and other crisis spots around the globe. In this book, he describes pressures from government agencies and the news media, as well as internal struggles at nonprofit groups, that he says are causing humanitarian groups to lose sight of their mission to serve those in need.
To win donations from the public, says Mr. Rieff, organizations need to be increasingly “business oriented.” He says groups often present a distorted picture of a situation when they talk to journalists, exaggerating its severity to increase the influx of attention and contributions. Mr. Rieff warns of the “privatization of aid” as organizations tailor their programs to the desires of their donors, and of the “political instrumentalization” of international relief as groups ally themselves with governments that supply a large portion of their funds.
Mr. Rieff argues that in order to maintain financial support, relief organizations have moved away from a model of helping people based on need, in favor of a “human rights approach,” in which organizations attempt to decide which people and which causes are “worthy” of aid.
Another factor in this shift of focus is a sense of frustration among many relief workers, a feeling that they are never able to do enough to help others and are often unable to follow the humanitarian mantra “to do no harm,” argues Mr. Rieff.
In some instances, the success of humanitarian projects can provide Western governments with what Mr. Rieff calls a “humanitarian alibi,” which allows international powers to postpone or rule out military intervention that might be more effective than relief efforts in saving lives. He cites Bosnia as an example of a situation in which international powers delayed using force because they said it would disrupt the airlift and other relief attempts, and thus, he writes, allowed the conflict to continue, costing more lives.
Relief organizations also have the potential to cause harm when they provide services to the people who were responsible for the crisis, Mr. Rieff writes. For example, he suggests that Rwandan refugee camps allowed those who had just carried out genocidal acts to regain their strength and prepare to attack again. Mr. Rieff says that crises such as Rwanda should not be viewed as humanitarian problems, but as political ones.
Mr. Rieff writes that throughout the last decade relief workers have been called upon to intervene in crises that are beyond their capacity and have been manipulated by private and government donors. This, Mr. Rieff argues, has distorted their “limited” but honorable purpose.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 100 Front Street, Riverside, N.J. 08075; (212) 698-7000 or (800) 223-2336; fax (212) 698-7695 or (800) 445-6991; http://www.simonandschuster.com; 367 pages; $26; ISBN 0-684-80977 068480977
