Sublime

“that blurry, but very real, line beyond which assistance for victims imperceptibly turns into support for their tormenters”.

Eight years after the publication of In the Shadow of Just Wars,6 it examines the precept that the political exploitation of aid is not a misuse of its vocation, but its principal condition of existence.

“blurred distinctions between the roles of military and humanitarian organisations; political manipulation of humanitarian assistance [and the] perceived lack of independence of humanitarian actors from donors or from host governments”.

Should we conclude from these events that the “humanitarian space” is shrinking, as many observers of the humanitarian scene have been claiming in recent years? NGOs, United Nations agencies and donors are unanimous in deploring a “growing tendency to close the door to humanitarians, preventing them from helping victims”.

if we consider that humanitarian aid is not an exact science but an art, then the essence of this art is to create and maintain the conditions of its existence—to generate interest, make itself useful, identify conjunctures that could be propitious for change—and to be capable at all times of modifying the balance of power, creating a hiatus,

Because acknowledging that humanitarian aid is only possible when it coincides with the interests of the “powers that be” does not have to mean giving way to political forces.

But by treating people without challenging the political and social origins of their exclusion, is MSF not confining itself to the role expected of it by the authorities?