Militarising humanitarianism or humanising the military?

Sometimes, the military is used for humanitarian activities. I would like to assess the impact and outcome of such partnership on humanitarian field workers and beneficiaries.

The operations in certain countries are hindered by local susceptibility and bad press for the military and security firms. When soldiers or people hired by security firms walk amongst the beneficiaries in civilian clothes, they can draw negative attention to other humanitarian workers. This in turn leads to narrowing the space in which relief workers can operate and undermines impartiality.

We have to be honest with ourselves when it comes to serving the people in need: are we impartial in our attitude and transparent in our activities? If the answer is yes, then we will reap what we sow. If the answer is no, we must work harder towards transparency in humanitarian work.

The Traffic Light Theory

What is the relationship between traffic lights and humanitarianism? The common traffic light which has been developed in the last century has only three light colours: green for permission, orange for caution and red for danger.

However, I have similar ideas that are relevant to the humanitarian work: “The Traffic Light Theory”. My traffic light has five components: white, green, orange, red and black.  You will ask “why the need for five, instead of three?” My answer would be that the diversity and the flow of humanitarian needs and activities in different parts of the world make it impossible to just stick to three.

The white will reflect our success in achieving a strong direct relationship with the beneficiaries through our programmes.

The green light enables us to promote capacity building and advocacy training for local organisations to turn them into international humanitarian actors.

When we have an orange light, we only relate to international NGOs and communities. The danger of being in the orange box is that, even though it can take you to the green box, it can also direct an organisation to operate in the red box, because it might lose focus on the individual needs of the community.

The red light consists of exclusively fund driven and government directed work. In this box, the organisations are only looking for funding for their operations and losing their impartiality when it comes to the local community.

The black light happens when humanitarian actors overuse the military in our relief work. In my opinion, the black box is a no-go area as it can challenge the humanitarian principle of impartiality and neutrality never the less transparency in our humanitarian work particularly in conflict struck areas.

We all must aim to operate when the white and green lights are on and empower local organisations at grass root level, in order to reach the ones we truly serve: the neediest.

The rights of the right/ The rights of the wrong Part 2

We always talk about right and wrong, allow and disallow, yes and no. Our life is full of antonyms. Let us reflect on the value of other people’s existence who share our society. Are we able to judge others only according to our approach or can we judge them by their approach as well?

When humanitarian workers try to design a project or programme in different areas, they might face the local communities rights, which workers might see as wrong and vice-versa. The right and wrong must be reached via agreement between different partners, communities, cultures and faiths.

We can’t change wrong by wrong, we can change what’s wrong by listening to the needs of the local community then, via dialogue, show them what we think is right for them.

The Top-Bottom approach is not a solution; on the contrary, it can start problems. People have to understand others’ psychologies, cultures, values and faiths in order to pass objective judgement. There are many alternative ways to reach a solution, while restricting the path to that solution can only cause trouble in the long run.

The right can be reached by many ways; there is only one way for the wrong.

Human rights or Being right/ Part 1

The Human Rights are part of a universal agreement between governments and the basic principles declare that human beings have a right to exist on this planet. Human rights are God given. We ought to be more inclusive when it comes to giving rights to others.

Human rights change from one country to the next, from one century to another, affecting the universally declared basic principles. In my opinion, the only one who can keep the balance of being right is the source of justice in this world, God.

The difference between Beings’ right and Being right is that the latter happens when you don’t do wrong, whereas the former happens when you don’t wrong other beings and allow them to exist.

Let us be frank in admitting our shortcomings, as we don’t as yet understand the reality of the right to live of other beings, from different cultures and faiths.

Values, cultures and faiths

Can we live without them? Human nature leads us to believe strongly that we are able to draw our values which can shape our culture and, in turn, form part of our faith. Human nature can also lead us to follow a faith, to belong to a culture or believe in a God. We can believe in a God or become gods ourselves.

When we get involved in humanitarian work, we face some problems, hindering our progress to develop local communities. Even if we don’t believe in God, we should realise that other communities have different beliefs in God, different culture and values that we ought to respect.

Life is about values, cultures and faiths. We can’t live without them, even if we claim it.

The Extinction and Extension theories/ Part 2

When people abuse their authority, they get removed democratically and we accept it. When they don’t follow the law, we call them outlaws. When they kill other human beings, we imprison them. However, when individuals kill millions of other creatures from greed or ignorance, we do nothing.

We have started to believe that:

a.    Human is the leader of all creatures
b.    Human is the ultimate, absolute and only focal point on the planet
c.    Human is the reference for other creatures, not God.

This way of thinking has led to the extinction of other species. If we use the new term, creaturitarianism, we find that the human will become:

a.    The leader of all creatures
b.    The focal point, but not absolute
c.    God is the reference, not the human.

The first one is the Extinction Theory and the second one can be called the Extension Theory.

When we apply this theory, we agree that the role of humans is to preserve humanity, to help other creatures of God and to live on the planet according to the interdependent system created harmoniously to keep life going forever.

Is creaturitarianism the answer? Part I

Creaturitarianism is a new concept which first appeared in a talk I was giving at one of the universities in Minnesota in 2008. Why creaturitarianism and not humanitarianism? Is humanitarianism out of date? Or is it a notion abused by people who don’t relate its functionality to peace?

The term “Humanitarianism” was coined in the early 19th century and was an attempt to secularise society by emphasising the importance of the human as opposed to the divine. I feel that in the 21st century we need to reassess this term, understanding the impact our treatment of the environment and other creatures has on the world, and ultimately on humanity.

All the problems we are currently facing have been caused by one sole creature, not by all. This creature, the human being, is letting the rest who form God’s creation suffer. This is in spite of the fact that God has given it the authority to be their custodian and leader. When such a creature abuses its authority and forgets the partners helping it to live in peace, problems, such as natural disasters brought on by climate change, tend to happen.

The world works according to a complex and perfect plan and whether we believe that this plan was drawn up by a creator, by nature itself or some other method, there is no doubt that healthy, successful and continuous life for us all depends on our adherence to this plan. By breaking the rules, it is us who will ultimately pay the price.

This is why I will be putting forward the case of creaturitarianism as a holistic alternative to humanitarianism in a 2 part series.

Who has to pay for...?

We’ve been witnessing the global problems faced by humanity. We’ve also been witnessing the symptoms of such problems and quite often we fail to get to the root of the matter or don’t want to discuss it at all.

Let me list the problems we are facing: climate change, global warming, pollution, food crisis, oil crisis, financial crisis, wars, poverty, ignorance, HIV, malaria and TB. Who is causing these problems and who will pay for them?

Recently, I’ve been listening to speeches full of promises by politicians from all over the world. In their alluring speeches, they were trying to cover the fact they intend to axe different social benefits (health, education, financial support to elderly). It seems to me that the needy will be the ones to pay for all the problems.

My message is: let us be honest in finding a solution, admit when we’re wrong, win over the hearts of the needy and join the humanitarian cause.

PACKAGE and Water moral value

 There are many reasons behind the world’s severe water shortage nowadays, among them climate change, pollution, human abuse (swimming pools, soft drinks) etc.  We need a way out not only to save our planet, but to make it habitable for generations to come.

Water is the most valuable commodity and humanity cannot afford to live without it. We must create a new value, called “Water moral value”- the ethics of using water resources. The sacredness of water needs to be engrained from childhood onward, both by religious and social leaders.

The masses need to be converted into becoming Water moral value advocates. We need to have PACKAGE on our side:

• People’s belief; 
• Academia; 
• CSOs; 
• K - capital, therefore business and economy; 
• Astronauts, as the damage on Earth can be felt in the Universe; We need people who are visionaries, who can take much more than a bird's eye view.
• Governments; 
• Environmentalists. 

The PACKAGE components are most likely stakeholders to shape the Water moral value for generations to come.

The WOT Syndrome, the DIP Factor and the MDG goals

The UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG) for 2015 are: end poverty and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality, child health, maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, environmental sustainability, global partnership. I believe they are basic God given rights to everyone. Ten years after the declaration of MDG, the world is still searching for an answer as to why we are failing to achieve them.

Are we willing to achieve these goals or are we just willing to discuss them? Believers should deliver their belief in action. If governments and institutions believe in MDG, we should have seen the fruits of success by now. Why aren’t they achieved?

Part of the answer to this question is, in my opinion, the current focus on the security mentality which in recent years has exhausted our financial, logistical and intellectual resources. This could undermine the achievement of MDG by 2015. This is why we are still suffering at the cause of the DIP Factor (Disease, Ignorance, Poverty) and the WOT Syndrome (War On Terror).

It is time to set aside political indecisiveness and, instead, concentrate our efforts on saving the planet.

Stop the bleeding...

Migration can happen in times of conflict, famine, economic struggles, natural disasters etc. What of the fate of the Internally Displaced Persons, people lost inside their own countries? In flood-ravaged Pakistan, around 20 million people were affected and most of them were left homeless, losing their livelihoods and hope to restart a normal life in the near future.

The floods could potentially be an effect of climate change, having started 20 years back. Who should be paying for climate change? How can the humanity escape its effects?

The philosophical problem in international conferences is that speakers do not stop the cause of bleeding, but instead pump more blood into the sick patient. Talking about fining high CO2 emission countries and reducing carbon consumption doesn’t stop one single bit of smoke from polluting the air. It’s time that high CO2 emission countries stayed true to their word and reduced their consumption, creating a greener environment and altering the course of climate change.

Faith and value/ Unity and diversion

In this day and age, we should develop a new value and language common to all humanitarian organisations: both faith-based and non-faith based. However, very recently I have heard words which I believed forgotten in this day and age and in the humanitarian context. Those words are converting, proselytising, etc.

In my own view, the vulnerable people need to be protected and helped, from a neutral point of view. Faith and politics need to be separated from humanitarian work. Humanitarianism is not about what we need to do. On the contrary, it’s about what people need. It’s not about our right as NGOs, but about people’s right to the service their community needs most.

Let us call all of us value-based organisations, and share a common ground for helping the ones who we work for: our beneficiaries.