In defence of humanitarianism

Pakistan really is a mess. I returned to find the local papers empty of any mention of the aftermath of the floods. What would be a national obsession in just about any other country has all but vanished from the Pakistani media. It's depressing. Even in this country, where the press is relatively free and vigorous, the self-interested elites manage to control the national dialogue to such an extent that the misery of at least 10 million of the country's poorest doesn't merit a few inches of ink. Instead, the papers continue to meticulously chronicle the near-daily explosions, the drone attacks, and the weekly spat with America. The War on Terror is just so much sexier than the floods, in spite of the fact that there is no positive news to report. Unlike the floods, the War on Terror shows no progress, only stagnation and backslide.

Pakistan is most probably going to get worse before it gets better, with potentially dire consequences both here and in Afghanistan. There is nothing Doctors Without Borders, the ICRC, or the UN can do about it. Hell, there's nothing the US, the Brits, or the EU can do about it either. It's like building a sandcastle at high tide, and we all know it. It's depressing, I'll admit. It can be really tough to work up the motivation to put in another long day, just to add one more drop to the bucket. Sometimes, the only thing you have to keep you going is the faith that you're doing the right thing.

When you're running on fumes, you can be pretty flammable, so when someone questions that faith -- a newspaper column, a guest at a cocktail party, some smug undergraduate -- and suggests that the whole humanitarian/development enterprise is a waste of time, aid workers tend to get good and riled up. When someone blithely remarks that the UN is an ineffective bureaucracy, that their local social entrepreneur is an idealist who will never succeed, that the Congo is a lost cause and a waste of tax dollars, it's all I can do to keep my cool (and often I don't). Because with a very few exceptions, I almost never hear an argument along those lines that doesn't boil down to ignorance, bigotry, or crude selfishness.

So permit me a bit of a rant. Scratch that -- a big rant.

Aid workers and development professionals are hardly blind to the failures. We live, eat and breathe the failures. They make up our daily reality. We understand them in a way no lay person possibly could. How can I have any patience for people who presume to tell me it's not worth it, when I know so much better than they just how challenging what we're trying to achieve really is? To have some armchair intellectual pontificate about all the problems -- problems they have never experienced, could never fully understand, let alone imagine the solutions to -- is frankly insulting.

It's also a cop out. The people I encounter who are the most aggressive about the UN and its ilk are almost invariably the same people who haven't done one damn thing for their fellow man in recent memory. How convenient to dismiss organizations or individuals who are trying to do good, to call it all pointless and naive. After all, that justifies their own lack of contribution.

I also find it amazing how many UN-haters are oblivious to the fatal flaws of logic in their own philosophy. The kind of people who imply that I'm naive for trying to make a difference in a place like the Congo are the same people who suggest that because wars and famines and rapes still happen, the UN has failed. A single organization is supposed to assure World Peace? Who's being naive?

As for the argument that ongoing strife in Sudan or Pakistan or wherever means we are failing and therefore we should stop trying, I just find it disturbing. Earthquakes will keep happening. Floods and hurricanes and landslides will keep happening. No one is suggesting we should leave those people to fend for themselves. How is it any different for people caught up in war? Are they any more at fault? Do they have different rights? Are their lives worth less? What difference does it make if their suffering is an act of God or an act of men?

And then there's the question of which men are at fault. Anyone who imagines that the suffering in the Congo is strictly the fault of the Congolese is, to put it mildly, unfamiliar with the situation. If you look at many of the bloodiest and most intractable conflicts of our time, you'll find outsiders in up to their necks. In the Congo. In Sudan. Afghanistan. Iraq. Colombia. In short, in precisely the places the armchair intellectuals argue should be left to fester. If the West actually left these places alone -- and I mean really alone, taking their corporations, their soldiers, their spies and diplomats with them -- most of those countries would probably be better off. But that's never going to happen. So to those who whine about their tax dollars being poured into bottomless poverty pits, I put it to you that unless and until Western countries can stop extracting every last drop of wealth they can get from the poor world, they can fucking contribute something to mitigating the collateral damage. If you own a cell phone, or a diamond, or a car, if you're fond of coffee, or chocolate, or marijuana, you are part of the problem. That means you have a duty to be part of the solution too. Otherwise you're just a parasite.

Finally, I would challenge everyone who thinks the UN, the ICRC, or their own tax dollars aren't doing any good in the world to actually put their money where their mouths are. Get on a plane and visit the rural areas in Cambodia, or Bangladesh, or Ghana. Come with me and visit a camp out here in Pakistan, where my organization alone is delivering safe water to millions -- that's right, I said millions -- of people every day. Talk to the people you find there. Not the aid workers, not the press or the politicians, but the people -- living, breathing souls with families and friends and hopes and dreams. If you come away thinking that even one life saved doesn't justify the whole goddam enterprise, then I'll surrender. I'll listen to every negative word you have to say. I will, however, wonder if you have a soul.