Bare Minimum of Humanity: How Humanitarianism Rein
In the media we have become so normalized to the immense poverty of our Eastern neighbors. With almost a quasi-regard to the sea of suffering bodies that saturate our television screens, we have been forced to believe every native in the Eastern hemisphere are in a constant state of peril. Although Western humanitarians truly yearn to help the suffering, they, ironically, do so in a way that silences a whole population of people. It is not that humanitarianism is a continuation of the colonial past, but that it tends to replicate the power discrepancies that originated during the colonial era. In other words, one of the consequences of humanitarian aid is that in most cases, it unintentionally reinstalls the unequal relationship between the West and its former colonies.
Humanitarianism is reminiscent of the colonial era not because they are monsters who look to deplete a country of its resources, but because they economically capitalize on the suffering of the native population. What makes humanitarianism much more intriguing and complex is that its purpose is to truly help the suffering. However, in compassion a humanitarian feels towards suffering populations, they are also, unintentionally, demonstrating the colossal power the West still has over the East. Since humanitarian organizations work like an industry as it profits from donors, they tend to depict the East in a constant state of suffering and political anxiety. Rather than providing its constituents with detailed accounts of how developing nations got to the poor state they are in, humanitarian organizations tend to paint these nations as crowds of suffering bodies, mostly to grab sympathy from their wealthy donor-base. Similar to how colonial photographers in French Algeria used to portray their colonial subjects as primitive and uncivilized by photographing native prostitutes in strange poses, humanitarian photographers misrepresent underdeveloped populations by consistently depicting them in a manic state. This is not to say that humanitarians are purposely doing this, but to emphasize that these photos inadvertently place the suffering population in a negative light. Aside from placing the underdeveloped world in an overly vulnerable state, humanitarian organizations are also advertising these people’s suffering to the rest of the world (without any consent). For instance, during the Rwandan massacre of 1994, humanitarians never spoke of the horrific state Belgium placed the Congo in after its brutal colonization that maintained an unequal power structure which unfairly placed the Tutsi in a higher socio-political position over the Hutu population for decades. Rather humanitarian organizations displayed Rwandan civilians as “helpless victims” who were “crushed by [sheer] fate” (Malkki 388; Fassin 517). In these photos, there are “no names,” no knowledge of the victims’ and no “opinions, relatives, and histories” (Malkki 387). In other words, there is no way for a Western observer to relate to its suffering neighbours, but just a sense of “anonymous corporality” that strengthens the feigned image that having more material succession is directly equivalent to having a better life (Malkki 388; Lissner “Merchant of Misery”).
Furthermore, humanitarianism also re-enacts the imbalanced relationship the West had with its former colonies because it suggests that they are the only active and rational authority who is able to convey the horrific tales of the Eastern developing world. Humanitarianism unintentionally silences the people it looks to help in by only showing them in a constant state of distress, suggesting that they are unable to be be completely objective about the ‘stories’ they tell. In other words, humanitarian organizations make it seem that Western outsiders are the only objective, and reliable, narrators with the struggles of the developing world. For instance, in 1972, almost two decades before the Rwandan massacre, the Hutu people requested immediate assistance from humanitarian organizations while they were in exile. However, they were ultimately rejected because their ‘stories’ were simply “too messy, subjective, unmanageable, [and] hysterical” (Malkki 385). Although it was not deliberate, the Western media convinced the public that in order to tell a reliable story, one must have recognizable evidence of suffering, whether it is a gaping “corporal wound” or a “starving child” (Malkki 384; Lissner “Merchants of Misery”). In humanitarian logic, someone must die in horrific ways just to catch a person’s attention. Pertaining to the power humanitarians yield in their storytelling, Fassin makes an important distinction between “those who can [whereby posses the power not the ability] to tell the stories and those stories can be only be told by others” (Fassin 518). Basically, the problem of humanitarianism is not that it looks to repeat the colonial experience, but that it reproduces the similar experience of silence. Humanitarian organizations, in their assistance of suffering bodies, strip the underdeveloped nations of the small voice they already lack. And because humanitarianism act like an a business, it rewires humanity to be seen as something not as “one and divisible” but as something that is simply a “sentiment that manifests an individual’s gesture…towards fellow humans who are suffering or in danger” (Fassin 518).
Humanitarianism does not pose a threat in the exact way colonialism did, but it similarly normalizes the unfair power structures that existed between the West and its former Eastern subjects. Although humanitarians genuinely look to demonstrate compassion for the people they look to assist, humanitarianism, as a philosophy, relies on the pre-existing inequality of the West and its former colonies. Through obtaining the power to “tell” the stories of the countries it intervenes in (without any acknowledgement or consent from natives), the West forms an implication that they are the only rational authority. Moreover, instead of presenting a complex overview of a political situation in a Third World country they claim to support, humanitarian organizations solely provide graphic photos that depict natives as overly-hopeless, with little or no means to survive without the paternalistic assistance of the West. Humanitarianism seeks to rectify the unfortunate circumstances of countries the West once conquered while it also inadvertently reinforces ideas of Orientalism and Western superiority.
Works Cited
1) Fassin, Diddier. "Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life." Public Culture 19.3 (2007): 499-520. Web.
2) Lissner, Jorgen. "Merchants Of misery." New Internationalist All Posts RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 June 2016. http://newint.org/features/1981/06/01/merchants-of-misery/
3) Malkki, Liisa H. "Speechless emissaries: Refugees, humanitarianism, and dehistoricization." Cultural anthropology 11.3 (1996): 377-404.
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