Contenu du sommaire : Regards sur l'humanitaire

Monique Chemillier-Gendreau, Humanitarian Action : Ineffectual Réponse to the Crise of International Law International law has been founded on the principle of national sovereignty. The evolution of the nation state, the movement for national liberation and die Charter of the United Nations have given legitimacy and vigor to this concept. However, the process of global economic integration has upset the practices or, at least, the legal conceptions related to national sovereipity. This destabilization is due in great part to the weaknesses of international law itself. A lack of effective criteria for the maintenance of peace or positive economic relations has contributed to a situation in which intervention in the affairs of other nation-states is carried out shamelessly or simply disguised as humanitarian action.

Marie-Dominique Perrot, Humanitarian Action and "Development" in Search of Continuity The re-articulation of the continuum disaster-rehabilitation-"development" indicates an effort on the part of those engaged in "humanitarian " action and those concerned with "development" to coordinate their activities. These intentions must be placed within an organisational context and linked to the notion of "development" founded upon obsolete ideas, contradictory practices and the deepening of inequalities in both the North and the South. This continuum of disaster-development is in great part a diversion and a way of avoiding the political and epistemological questions posed by the process of economic globalisation.

Sylvia Klingbergh, Planetary Integration and the "Without Borders" Movement The modalities of contemporary humanitarian action began in the 1970s when the without-borders movement was initiated. The evolution of this movement, previously dominated by the International Red Cross, has involved a struggle for its control. This struggle over a kind of humanitarian turf is structured by national and international political strategies designed to establish or consolidate hegemony over geographical regions. The recognition given by the General Assembly of the United Nations to a duty of humanitarian assistance has given legitimacy to the present trend toward such intervention.

Bernard Hours, The Ideology of Humanitarianism, or Moral Globalisation Humanitarian ideology can be understood as the moral cover of the globalisation presently being realized by capitalist market forces. The so-called universal human rights represent the most basic premise of the ideology of humanitarianism. Human beings have become objects of humanitarian action and an object within the ideology of humanitarianism. The political function of this ideology is to absolve the economic and political actor-authorities of any responsibility for the negative consequences of their activities. More precisely, it transforms solidarity into a veritable pulsion which is oblivious of the social and cultural specificity of the human beings it purports to help.

Robert Redeker, Inhuman Humanitarianism : Essay on an Ideology of the Humane The intellectual genesis of the humanitarian ideology has its roots in the refusal of humanism characteristic of post-heideggerian philosophies. It is emblematic of the vacuum left by the eclipse of the humanist notion of human engaged in a political project inscribed within historical evolution. The human being of humanitarianism is a human kaleidoscope, disconnected from political life, reduced to a purely biological existance. Humanitarianism is, therefore, not a humanism.

Gérard Heuzé, Non-governmental Organisations in Contemporary India The considerable expansion of non-governmental organisations in India is part of the continuity of imperial domination characterized by debates between utilitarians and moralists and between missionaries and orientalists. The welfare state which developed in India after indépendance is an important factor in this evolution, but to understand the specificity of the case of India, the situation must be placed within the global context of the non-territorial feudalization accompanied by a calling into question of the Indian nation and the Indian state. In this context, the Indian state has been progressively reduced to its repressive functions.

Margaret Manale, German Humanitarian Aid : Care for Oneself and Care for Others in a Secularized World Third-world regions plagued by catastrophies are today often the scene of national and international aid programs. The religious inspiration of these activities seems clear in the case of Germany. In adapting the model of representative government and the discourse on human rights imposed by the United States, West Germany's politicians have been able to serve their own economic interests as an export nation. In this case, aid and development policies can be understood in terms of attitudes specific to protestantism.

Enzo Traverso, Totalitarianism : History and Contradictions of a Concept The concept of totalitarianism seems both inevitable and unusable because it concerns only a typology of power relations. The problem is that it cannot explicate either the genesis or the history of these structural relationships. If historians and sociologists cannot ignor the notion, they also cannot accept its limitations. Now that the ideological and political connotations of the concept can be disregarded, it is nevertheless probable that it remains insuffisant in explaining the phenomena specific to the twentieth century.

Patrick Bruneteaux. Corinne Lanzarini, The Threatened Sexuality of the Underclass Study of persons taken in charge by charitable organizations reveals different aspects of their disrupted sexual lives. Members of the homeless underclass do not have any place to engage in sex and, in addition, cannot attend to their sexual needs because they are preoccupied with physical survival. However, the risk of HIV transmission is taken when sexual encounters do occur, because such opportunties are so rare. As Aids is used by the strong to eliminate the weak, there is a certain feeling of powerlessness in relation to the problem.