Token humanitarian intervention

Humanitarian aid which deals with symptoms and not causes, and at the same time declares itself sufficient.

Food appeals for starving people on television serve to drain the giving capacity of people into acute relief without channelling funds to long-term remedial assistance. The lives that are "saved" may be lost in the next famine. The emergency helicopter "rescue" by the UK of a single child injured by shrapnel in the Bosnian war is a symbolic surrogate. No expense is spared and her operation and recovery are headline news, temporarily displacing the pervading cynicism, anger and hopelessness surrounding the "peace negotiations" and the cumulative misery associated with the war.

1. The satisfaction that comes from giving money or personal assistance to others in need is questionable. Very often the act is one of short-term selfish gain if it conveniently allows the fundamental injustices, such as indulgent lifestyles or ethnic cleansing, to proceed.

2. Humanitarianism is being exploited by government, in situations like Bosnia, as a cover for their political failures or indolence. Bosnia is a demonstration of the abusive use of humanitarianism.

3. There has never been a clear definition of what humanitarian intervention implies, and why, if it is desirable, it does not include addressing causes as well as the distress itself. Which is the more urgent, important need?

1. Tokenism
2. Short-range planning for long-term development
3. Insensitivity to non-immediate hazards to society
4. Ineffectiveness of foreign aid
5. Abandonment by the international community

1. Token development initiatives

1. Unexpressed social compassion
2. Self-righteousness
3. Delayed humanitarian intervention

1. United Nations abrogation of responsibility
2. Self-deception
3. Politically exploitative humanitarian aid
4. Political displacement activity
5. Lack of relationship between social techniques and the needs they address
6. Inadequate international crisis management
7. Emotional manipulation

1. Unsympathetic token services
2. Unsolicited foreign humanitarian intervention
3. Neo-colonialist humanistic intervention
4. Inadequate national empathy for external hardship
5. Exploitation of dependence on food aid
6. Denial of access to people in need

1. Resisting token humanitarian intervention
2. Providing emergency humanitarian aid
3. Providing aid to natural disaster victims
4. Providing aid to man-made disaster victims
5. Intervening in humanitarian cases
6. Exploiting humanitarianism
7. Establishing standby humanitarian food service
8. Advocating humanitarian issues

1. Tokenism
2. Self-government
3. Relief
4. Intervention
5. Humanitarianism
6. Government
7. Exploitation
8. Compassion
9. Aid