Humanitarian Imperialism

Author: Jean Bricmont
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583674888
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
Since the end of the Cold War, the idea of human rights has been made into a justification for intervention by the world's leading economic and military powers—above all, the United States—in countries that are vulnerable to their attacks. The criteria for such intervention have become more arbitrary and self-serving, and their form more destructive, from Yugoslavia to Afghanistan to Iraq. Until the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the large parts of the left was often complicit in this ideology of intervention—discovering new “Hitlers” as the need arose, and denouncing antiwar arguments as appeasement on the model of Munich in 1938. Jean Bricmont’s Humanitarian Imperialism is both a historical account of this development and a powerful political and moral critique. It seeks to restore the critique of imperialism to its rightful place in the defense of human rights. It describes the leading role of the United States in initiating military and other interventions, but also on the obvious support given to it by European powers and NATO. It outlines an alternative approach to the question of human rights, based on the genuine recognition of the equal rights of people in poor and wealthy countries. Timely, topical, and rigorously argued, Jean Bricmont’s book establishes a firm basis for resistance to global war with no end in sight.

Humanitarian Imperialism

Author: Amalia Ribi Forclaz
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191047155
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
Between the late 1880s and the onset of the Second World War, anti-slavery activism experienced a revival in Europe. Anti-slavery organizations in Britain, Italy, France, and Switzerland forged an informal international network to fight the continued existence of slavery and slave trading in Africa. Humanitarian Imperialism explores the scope and outreach of these antislavery groups along with their organisational efforts and campaigning strategies. The account focuses on the interwar years, when slavery in Africa became a focal point of humanitarian and imperial interest, linking Catholic and Protestant philanthropists, missionaries of different faiths, colonial officials, diplomats, and political leaders in Africa and Europe. At the centre of the narrative is the campaign against slavery in Ethiopia, an issue which served as a catalyst for the articulation of international humanitarian standards within the League of Nations in Geneva. By looking at the interplay between British and Italian advocates of abolition, Humanitarian Imperialism shows how in the 1930s anti-slavery campaigning evolved in close association with Fascist imperialism. Thus, during the Italo-Ethiopian war of 1935, the anti-slavery argument became a propaganda tool to placate public opinion in Britain and elsewhere. Because of its global echoes, however, the conflict also generated worldwide protest that undermined the beliefs and certainties of anti-slavery campaigners, resulting in a crisis of humanitarian imperialism. By following the story of anti-slavery activism into the post-1945 period, this volume illuminates the continuities and discontinuities in the international history of humanitarian organizations as well as the history of imperial humanitarianism.

China in Africa

Author: Sabella O. Abidde
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793612331
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 397

Book Description
This book examines Sino-African relations and their impact on Africa. It argues that Africa’s relationship with China has had a profound impact on key sectors in Africa—economic and political development, the media, infrastructural development, foreign direct investments, loans, debt peonage, and international relations. The authors also analyze the imperialist and neo-colonialist implications of this relationship and discuss the degree to which the relationship is beneficial to Africa.

The History and Practice of Humanitarian Intervention and Aid in Africa

Author: B. Everill
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137270020
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Book Description
The history of humanitarian intervention has often overlooked Africa. This book brings together perspectives from history, cultural studies, international relations, policy, and non-governmental organizations to analyze the themes, continuities and discontinuities in Western humanitarian engagement with Africa.

The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire

Author: Martin Thomas
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198713193
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 801

Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire offers the most comprehensive treatment of the causes, course, and consequences of the collapse of empires in the twentieth century. The volume's contributors convey the global reach of decolonization, analysing the ways in which European, Asian, and African empires disintegrated over the past century.

Imperial Powers and Humanitarian Interventions

Author: Raphaël Cheriau
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000383016
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Book Description
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Zanzibar Sultanate became the focal point of European imperial and humanitarian policies, most notably Britain, France, and Germany. In fact, the Sultanate was one of the few places in the world where humanitarianism and imperialism met in the most obvious fashion. This crucial encounter was perfectly embodied by the iconic meeting of Dr. Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley in 1871. This book challenges the common presumption that those humanitarian concerns only served to conceal vile colonial interests. It brings the repression of the East African slave trade at sea and the expansion of empires into a new light in comparing French and British archives for the first time.

The Oxford Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect

Author: Alex J. Bellamy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198753845
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 1169

Book Description
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is intended to provide an effective framework for responding to crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It is a response to the many conscious-shocking cases where atrocities - on the worst scale - have occurred even during the post 1945 period when the United Nations was built to save us all from the scourge of genocide. The R2P concept accords to sovereign states and international institutions a responsibility to assist peoples who are at risk - or experiencing - the worst atrocities. R2P maintains that collective action should be taken by members of the United Nations to prevent or halt such gross violations of basic human rights. This Handbook, containing contributions from leading theorists, and practitioners (including former foreign ministers and special advisors), examines the progress that has been made in the last 10 years; it also looks forward to likely developments in the next decade.

Humanitarianism, empire and transnationalism, 1760-1995

Author: Joy Damousi
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526159546
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253

Book Description
This is the first book to examine the shifting relationship between humanitarianism and the expansion, consolidation and postcolonial transformation of the Anglophone world across three centuries, from the antislavery campaign of the late eighteenth century to the role of NGOs balancing humanitarianism and human rights in the late twentieth century. Contributors explore the trade-offs between humane concern and the altered context of colonial and postcolonial realpolitik. They also showcase an array of methodologies and sources with which to explore the relationship between humanitarianism and colonialism. These range from the biography of material objects to interviews as well as more conventional archival enquiry. They also include work with and for Indigenous people whose family histories have been defined in large part by ‘humanitarian’ interventions.

Humanitarianism in Question

Author: Michael Barnett
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801465087
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
Years of tremendous growth in response to complex emergencies have left a mark on the humanitarian sector. Various matters that once seemed settled are now subjects of intense debate. What is humanitarianism? Is it limited to the provision of relief to victims of conflict, or does it include broader objectives such as human rights, democracy promotion, development, and peacebuilding? For much of the last century, the principles of humanitarianism were guided by neutrality, impartiality, and independence. More recently, some humanitarian organizations have begun to relax these tenets. The recognition that humanitarian action can lead to negative consequences has forced humanitarian organizations to measure their effectiveness, to reflect on their ethical positions, and to consider not only the values that motivate their actions but also the consequences of those actions. In the indispensable Humanitarianism in Question, Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines to address the humanitarian identity crisis, including humanitarianism's relationship to accountability, great powers, privatization and corporate philanthropy, warlords, and the ethical evaluations that inform life-and-death decision making during and after emergencies.

The Aborigines' Protection Society

Author: James Heartfield
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199327409
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
For more than seventy years the Aborigines' Protection Society (APS) fought to protect the rights of natives living under the rule of the British Empire. Active on four continents, the APS resisted the efforts of white supremacists while defending aboriginal interests across the globe. The APS put Zulu King Cetshwayo in contact with Queen Victoria and brought Maori rebels to the banqueting hall of the Lord Mayor. The society's supporters faced dangerous pushback by the powers they challenged and were labeled Zulu-lovers and traitors by senior British Army officers and white settlers. This book tells the story of the struggle among Britain's Colonial Office, white settlers, and aborigines that determined the development of the empire in its formative years. Particularly, it describes the pivotal role of APS in limiting the claims of white settlers for the sake of native interests. Despite this victory, native protection policy actually expanded imperial rule. Focusing on examples from southern Africa, the Congo, New Zealand, Fiji, Australia, and Canada, James Heartfield shows how the arguments made by supporters of native protection policy indirectly justified colonization. Highlighting the wreckage of humanitarian imperialism today, he sets out to identify its roots in the beliefs and practices of its nineteenth-century equivalents.