broadly, though, the purpose of this work is not to formulate a particular, definitive
and impregnable argument against those who would argue that a thousand starving
children pose the rest of us no problem at all. Rather, it is to identify
humanitarianism as the discussion within which we make such arguments and
attempt to act upon them. Using “humanitarian” merely as an adjective, whether
attached to “problem”, “emergency” or “solution”, implies the satisfactory
resolution of such arguments, of an acceptable and agreed-upon list of sufferings
and potential responses. In the absence of such a resolution, which would
presumably require a transcendental authority, “humanitarian” risks becoming
hollowed out as a descriptor, at the mercy of such lazy phrases as “humanitarian
suffering”.^4
The task of this chapter, then, is not to provide a definitive list of “bad
things”, of particular types of suffering that might a priori ground an account of
humanitarianism and define a singular core problem for humanitarianism. Instead,
it aims to explore the broad framings through which suffering might plausibly be
understood and operationalised as a cause for concern within the particular context
of humanitarian discussions. Following chapters will look at how concern can lead
to action. This one examines that which is of concern. To this end, it will chart a
path from the ostensibly practical, technical concepts of “emergency” and “crisis”
to more abstract categorisations, such as deliberate harm and cruelty. It will make
the argument that the problem of humanitarianism is the notion of humanity itself,
and that our understanding of humanity comes into focus, unfortunately, largely
through experiences of “inhumanity”, in particular during “crises of humanity”. This
in turn implies a political understanding of humanity, forces putative humanitarians
to the recognition that they are engaged in a high-stakes “politics of humanity”.
4
Jonathan Moore, "Introduction", in Hard Choices: Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian
Intervention , ed. Jonathan Moore (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 2. The phrase was
also recently used by British Shadow Foreign Secretary David Miliband. David Miliband,
"Shadow Foreign Secretary's Statement on Gaza" (2010). Available at
http://www2.labour.org.uk/shadow-foreign-secretarys-statement-on-gaza; accessed on 12
August 2010.