Populations in Danger - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 086196392X ISBN 13: 9780861963928

Publisher: John Libbey & Co Ltd, 1992

Synopsis

Conflicts, floods of refugees, under-development, famines, epidemics, demographic explosion: the day-to-day coverage of such crises, by mixing up human tragedy and social facts, true accounts and alarmist cliches, has blurred understanding of the "Third World" so much that it increasingly appears to be locked behind the bars of pity, aid, paternalism and fear. We strongly believe that better understanding will lead to resolving this restricted vision. We are convinced that our extensive experience in the field, our determination to understand and our freedom of judgement and speech will allow us to contribute to this in a special way. That is why, with the exception of an article laying out the principles and constraints of crisis medicine, the operations of MSF and other humanitarian organizations are not reviewed here. This book is an appeal for mobilizing the intelligence and the determination to understand as much as the capacity to be outraged and take action. By avoiding present trends and fads in the hope of preventing the tragedy of silence from being added to that of violence, this testimony is part of the humanitarian commitment.

Such an undertaking is open to two main dangers: an ethnic bias, in which conflicts invariably trade in tribal "identity", and a misery bias that leads to drawing up an endless list of the world's suffering and oppressed. To avoid this double minefield, we have decided to spotlight populations in danger, rather than peoples or tribes, by placing ethnic identity as one of many other elements in an often broader picture. Deliberately avoiding any attempt at exhaustiveness, we have chosen a limited number of situations which appear to us as the most critical: the evolving nature of the crises and the existence of a degree of gravity determine this choice. For this report - the first in a series aimed at taking these changes into account and bearing witness to tragedies that have been overlooked - is deliberately limited to the ten cases that seem to us the most serious in the past year. They are basically characterized by the existence of conflicts of internal strife, by population displacement caused by political turmoil and, for some, by the presence of famine or epidemics in very tense contexts.

About this edition

• Publisher: John Libbey & Co Ltd
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 086196392X
• ISBN 13: 9780861963928
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160
• Editor: Lepage Jean-Francois