Human Needs or Human Rights? The Stereotypes of Humanitarian Work

Megan Nevins

“Finish your food there are children starving in Africa!”  We have all heard that line, just as we have all seen the commercials asking for small donations that would provide food, clean water, and medicine to struggling families in Africa.  The focus of global humanitarian work in the media is often set on countries that lack basic infrastructure that maintain livable conditions for its inhabitants.  This particular humanitarian work aims at satisfying basic human needs, fulfilling the duty of a “white man’s burden.”  For centuries Western nations have intervened into developing and third world countries in the pursuit to civilize the native people and “save them from the jungle.”

            Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a humanitarian as someone who promotes human welfare and social reform.  Humanitarian work is not exclusive to providing for basic human needs, but also for protecting basic human rights.  The world jumps at helping when there is a natural disaster whether that may be an earthquake or a famine.  Celebrities produced charity hit singles entitled “We are the World” in 1985 for humanitarian aid in Africa and in 2010 for the earthquake in Haiti.  These natural disasters are not preventable, but crimes against humanity are preventable and unnatural.  Acts of terror occur all over the world, yet the only ones that are fully acknowledged are events that take place in industrialized, Western world powers.  In 2015 France fell victim to multiple terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists.  The world was put on pause for a few days—there were special news programs, snap chat stories, and hash tags all over twitter, praying for Paris.  Yet Syria and Yemen are suffering from famine, civil war, and terrorist attacks everyday but there is no song made for them?  Are certain lives worth more than others?   Does the world only intervene if the nation in need is significant to the world economy or involved in an alliance?  The world does not tolerate killings by foreigners in Western nations, but seems to turn a blind eye when innocent people are killed by their own respective government in insignificant nations or by people of their own religious group.  There is clear discrimination in society as to who is seen as deserving of humanitarian aid and who is not.   

Omran Daqneesh from Aleppo, Syria

            The most pressing humanitarian disaster in today’s world is the crisis in the Middle East.  Syria has been in the midst of a civil war for almost 5 years, with the situation being exacerbated by the presence of the Islamic State and nations like Russia, for example, who have intervened to provide "help."  Thousands of civilians have been killed as casualties of war.  During the news coverage of the terror attacks in France, there were few images of the victims, but the world still went crazy.  Gruesome images of dead and severely wounded children from Syria have circulated the media, yet it barely grasps the world’s attention for more than a few days.  A quote from the Washington Post read: 

Aleppo will nonetheless be remembered as a symbolic milestone, the final death of a dream of a more democratic Syria that had waned long ago.  The brutality of the government crack down and the reluctance of the world powers to pressure the Assad regime into softening its tactics exposed shortcomings in the global system of laws and norms designed to ameliorate the suffering of civilians in war.

Aleppo represents “the death of respect for international law and the rules of war,” according to David Miliband, who heads the International Rescue Committee, an aid agency.

US Senators John McCain and Lindsey O. Graham, who have long advocated a more assertive US policy toward Syria, said Aleppo would go down in history as one of the great failures of the international community to halt human rights abuses.

“The name Aleppo will echo through history, like Srebrenica and Rwanda, as a testament to our moral failure and everlasting shame,” the senators said, citing the locations of major atrocities in the Bosnian war and in Africa.”

“Endgame in Aleppo, the most decisive battle yet in Syria's War”

Authors: Liz Sly, Louisa Loveluck, and Missy Ryan

This trend of global ignorance has been seen through genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, and now in the Middle East.  I would like to believe that the lack of help is based on a hesitation due to inadequate strategies for providing aid, but in reality it is probably due to a low incentive to help and a lack of global support for the suffering nation.  People will lend a helping hand to issues that are most personal to their own experiences.  Americans can sympathize with people who lack food and shelter, because we have seen homeless people. We can sympathize with those who are affected by natural disasters, as we have seen it through storms such as Hurricane Katrina.  Living in a country where there are people who ride through the streets with machine guns and RPGs, people who will mass murder women and children—that is something that individuals in industrialized countries cannot begin to understand.

Aiding struggling nations is not exclusive to “white men,” because these “white men” who have been carrying this “burden” all these years have not been too successful in saving the world.  The goal of humanitarianism is to help those who are suffering, save lives, and protect human rights.  The two aspects of humanitarian work, fulfilling basic human needs and protecting basic human rights are intertwined; one side is not enough to fill the void left by the other.  What is the point of providing food if the government will not let their people eat it or building homes only for them to be destroyed during an air raid?  Can satisfaction be found in providing aid to one area of the world, but then ignoring the cries of help in another?  Discriminating against whom to provide aid to is contradictory down to the core of humanitarian work, but unfortunately the media and society have perpetuated stereotypes that certain people are more deserving than others.  


Megan Nevins is a sophomore at Rutgers University who is pursuing a major in social work with a Middle Eastern studies minor.
Email: nevinsmeg@gmail.com

Works Cited

Sly, Liz , Louisa Loveluck, and Missy Ryan. "Endgame in Aleppo, the most decisive battle yet in Syria's War." The Washington Post. N.p., 14 Dec. 2016. Web.

“Omran Daqneesh.” Anadolu Agency: Mahmoud Rslan. 17 August 2016. Taken from the Times article: “The night Omran was Saved.” 26 August 2016.