necessarily translate into concern for actually–existing humans. We can use a
limited engagement with humanitarian concerns as an alibi to avoid concrete
human suffering. Thomas Laqueur reminds us that:
The very term “humanitarianism” has long been suspect precisely because
sentiments for humanity generally did not translate easily into care for
humanity at hand: Dickens’ Mrs. Jellyby in Bleak House , who worried about
children in Africa but neglected her own, is the paradigmatic fictional case. It
is, and was, far easier to be moved than to be moved to action far easier to
see clearly at a distance than near by.^65One might add that, had Mrs. Jellyby spent more time looking after her children,
she would not necessarily have been acting in a less “humanitarian” way. Rather,
her humanitarianism would have been more coherent had it been able to relate her
concern for distant strangers to a practical, positive vision and experience of caring
humanity.
Arguably then, there are three potential humanitarian mistakes here: caring
for distant strangers to the complete exclusion of suffering neighbours, caring for
suffering neighbours to the complete exclusion of distant strangers, and coming to
view humanity as an essentially suffering entity. The challenge for professional
humanitarians is how to overcome these obstacles, to make the suffering they
engage with concrete and create an enabling context for their and other actors’
political action.
III Stirring the Humanitarian Impulse
How to mobilise and appeal to humanitarian impulses of empathy or pity in such a
way as to prompt action, let alone “appropriate” action, has always been a
controversial and difficult subject. There have always been tensions within
humanitarianism between sensationalism and sobriety, between appeals to “baser”
instincts, such as not losing face and keeping up with the Joneses, and to “nobler”
65
Ibid., 33.