conversation collide. Is it really possible to engage people’s concern with, say, the
suffering of women in Congo, and not promote to some extent a negative vision of
“the African”?^81
Laura Suski argues that “[the] emotional pull of humanitarian appeals is
always dependent upon the worthiness of those suffering, and constructions of the
morality of sufferers shift in different historical and social contexts.”^82 Her work
alights in particular on the place of children, and their suffering, at the heart of the
humanitarian appeal. Arguably, the child heightens all the dilemmas inherent in our
understanding of common humanity, and responses to the wounding of that
common humanity, and its representation and mediation. There is no doubt about
the power of images of children. Christopher Coker concurs: "[it] is above all the
scenes on television of the plight of children that prompt western audiences to
demand that their governments intervene in the civil wars which plague the planet.
Children have become a litmus test by which we judge not only the inhumanity of
others, but our own ability to feel the pain of our fellow human beings.”^83
Kate Manzo has analysed how it is difficult entirely to reconcile NGOs uses of
imagery fully with the various expressions of good intent present in the different
81
It is worth considering, though, whether we risk asking too much of representations, that
is, that they do the work of moral engagement for us. David Campbell notes an interesting
recent project, in which an aid worker, Duncan McNichol, staged photographs of particular
Malawians he encountered, first looking their best, and then wearing the traditional torn
clothes and mournful looks of humanitarian appeals. Campbell notes that the contrast
makes us think, but does not really escape the problem of images stereotyping a situation.
David Campbell, "How Photography Can Construct Poverty", Imaging Famine blog (23 June
2010). Available at http://www.imaging-famine.org/blog/index.php/2010/06/how-
photography-can-construct-poverty/; accessed on 27 July 2010. Duncan McNichol,
"Perspectives of Poverty", Water Wellness (28 April 2010). Available at
http://waterwellness.ca/2010/04/28/perspectives-of- 82 poverty/; accessed on 27 July 2010.
83 Suski, "Children, Suffering and the Humanitarian Appeal", 210.
He goes on to point out that: “[the] paradox, of course, is that civilian fatalities have
climbed from 5 per cent of war-related deaths at the turn of the twentieth century to more
than 90 per cent today. Over the past decade armed conflict has killed more children than
did two world wars. It has killed two million children, disabled five million more, and left
twelve million homeless, more than a million orphaned or separated from their parents,
and some ten million psychologically traumatised." Coker, Humane Warfare.