A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis

A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis
by David Rieff

A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis
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Book Summary Information

Author: David Rieff
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-09-30
ISBN: 074325211X
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Product features:
  • ISBN13: 9780743252119
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
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Book Reviews of A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis

Book Review: ... my thoughts exactly.
Summary: 5 Stars

For me, disenchantment came in the form of Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General for the United Nations. When I was a child, on Halloween, I walked around with my happy little UNICEF box collecting money instead of candy, and through school I learned that the UN was this wonderful organisation that had the intention of creating a perfect utopia of a world in which there was peace and no famine. This, of course, was before Kosovo and Annan's Oil For Food scandal. True, Kosovo was but a blurred memory from middle school, but I was wide awake for the Oil For Food fiasco. The more I read about the United Nations in high school and college, the more I came to abhor the institution.

I'm no stranger to charity and humanitarianism -- I'm spending my summer in Ghana with an aid organisation, will be doing two years in the Peace Corps after getting my Nurse Practitioner license, and after that plan to work for Médecins Sans Frontières as a full-time job. Africa is my passion, one could say, and I'd like nothing more than to be there all the time.

That said, humanitarianism has become bogged down in the mire of politics and utopianism. In A Bed for the Night, author David Rieff not only outlines the beginnings of modern humanitarianism in Biafra in the late 1960s, but also highlights the key flaws in specific cases of humanitarianism in the last decade such as Bosnia and Rwanda. No Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) is left untouched -- he explains the failings of every NGO from the umbrella of the UN to the seemingly infallible Red Cross to Oxfam. Both sides of the issue are covered through interviews with such varied people as Rony Brauman of Médecins Sans Frontières and Jean-François Vidal of Action Contre la Faim. His arguments are absolutely supported in every way; he leaves no stone left unturned, and every reference from his ten years of research in preparation for writing the book are listed in a bibliography for fact checking. Also added after the first publish date is an afterward on Iraq which I found very interesting because it was written before Saddam Hussein was captured -- Rieff even says things like "two weeks after the war was finished" when we all know now, three years later, that Iraq is nowhere near being finished.

Basically though, the book is about how NGOs have made themselves bitches to world governments, something which, you know, basically defeats the point of the 'N' in the front of the acronym. Through this inability to stand up for themselves and be independent organisations, they've lost the neutrality that once made it easy for them to go into war zones and help those who needed to be helped.

This book most definitely is for a limited audience. It reads much like a doctoral thesis, which is something that I love, but most people would probably tire of the vocabulary or perhaps even not know what words mean. I read some passages to my younger sister, a junior in high school with all As, and she had no idea what I was even saying a good chunk of the time. For one to understand this book, one must have experience in reading research papers and theses, I would say. It has a lot of information to delve through and one has to be able to absorb the information from it as if he or she were doing research for his or her own project. Knowledge of history is also very important, though Rieff does generally explain the history behind each humanitarian tragedy. Because I'm familiar with most of the organisations in the book, I'm not completely sure if it would be important to know them beforehand, though I did find it helpful, because Rieff does include a handy little reference in the back of all of the organisations mentioned.

If you have some sort of undying affection for the UN, I'd recommend you stay as far away from this book as possible, honestly. Because of my nearly psychotic hate of the UN, I enjoyed every poke and prod at both the organisation and Kofi Annan. On the other hand, if you're a big fan of Médecins Sans Frontières, dive right on in -- Rieff basically states that it's the only aid organisation that's worth a damn in this day and age. Additionally, if you're one of the people who thinks that humanitarianism is the panacea for all the world's problems, the thing that will bring utopia to earth, get away from this book and get the hell away from me.

There are two quotes from this book that I think basically sum it up, the first from Rory Brauman:

'It can not be an accident that the one thing tyrants and aid workers have in common is their liking for being posed next to children.'

And David Rieff on the topics of 'The Responsibility to Protect' and human rights getting mixed into humanitarianism:

'A few dissenting figures, notably in certain French humanitarian circles, have argued that humanitarianism as a vocation needs to separate itself from this project [The Responsibility to Protect], no matter how worthy the larger goals of human rights, conflict resolutions, and the creation of the conditions for peace and development in the poor world may seem to aid workers, and no matter how fervently, as citizens, they hope for the success of such efforts. Where other NGOs, particularly those issuing from the British and American aid traditions, often assume aid groups could play a useful role if only they could develop further their human rights and peace-building "capacities," many of the most influential figures within MSF [Médecins Sans Frontières] and like-minded agencies such as ACF [Action Contre la Faim] continue to insist that such projects take humanitarianism far beyond any role it is suited for.'

Basically, for humanitarianism to survive, aid workers have to realise that they can't change the world on a grand scale, they can't bring peace, they can't make utopia -- they need to accept that their aid is on a local scale and that despite the fact that the world isn't going to know each thing they do, it's going to make a diffence in someone's life. There must be a return to neutrality so that the work that needs to be done can be done one person at a time.
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Summary of A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis

Timely and controversial, A Bed for the Night reveals how humanitarian organizations are often betrayed and misused, and have increasingly lost sight of their purpose. Drawing on firsthand reporting from war zones around the world, David Rieff shows us what aid workers do in the field and the growing gap between their noble ambitions and their actual capabilities for alleviating suffering. He describes how many humanitarian organizations have moved from their founding principle of neutrality, which gave them access to victims, to encouraging the international community to take action to stop civil wars and ethnic cleansing. By calling for intervention, humanitarian organizations risk being seen as taking sides in a conflict and thus jeopardizing their access to victims. And by overreaching, the humanitarian movement has allowed itself to be hijacked by the major powers. Rieff concludes that if humanitarian organizations are to do what they do best -- alleviate suffering -- they must reclaim their independence.

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