3. Mobilising the Humanitarian Impulse................................................................................
Any conception of humanitarianism is, at least in part, constituted by visceral
reactions to the suffering of others. Mediated or unmediated, these reactions
sometimes lead to a willingness to act. This section explores the enabling context
for such visceral reactions to develop into such a willingness, building on the
insights of the previous chapter, which highlighted how those convinced of the
importance of humanitarianism can be portrayed as engaged in an ethical and
political struggle to define and protect the category of common humanity, in a
highly contingent process frequently driven by those whose imaginations allow
them to plumb new depths of cruelty. The content of common humanity was seen
to be necessarily political, contingent and contestable. To engage in
humanitarianism is to engage in a politics of humanity.
But some of the clarity of the previous chapter came from its grounding in
the experiences of professional humanitarians with robust credentials, notably
leading figures in Médecins Sans Frontières. It would be a mistake to understand
the “politics of humanity” simply in terms of these figures, virtual ideal-types of
humanitarian conviction, if not necessarily perfect guides to action. Though their
understanding of common humanity may ultimately be contestable, their reactions
are powerfully visceral, while also reflecting robust lived experiences of other
people’s extreme suffering, leading to situations where a humanitarian encounter
of one sort or another is already, if not entirely pre-determined, then at least
extremely likely. Their ability to experience and reflect upon this situation depends
on wider and more diffuse networks of support, on processes that mobilise
humanitarian concern and the will to act. Cornelio Sommaruga, ex-President of the
ICRC, once called for a permanent state of “humanitarian mobilization”.^1
But strongly prescriptive accounts that merely set out strong moral
obligations to act in response to human suffering, whether professional
humanitarian talk of a “humanitarian imperative” or cosmopolitan duties of global
1
Sommaruga, "Humanity": 23.