We Who Light the Flames

“Humanitarian aid work is more and more like firefighters. We are not the ones in charge of pursuing those causing the fire to stop them, we just jump from one emergency to the other, and that will not change things for good.”

We’ve covered many concepts and theories as a class over the past week, including global citizenship, human rights, race, reification, ossification, symbolic interactionism, functionalism, conflict theory, capitalism, neoliberalism . . . truly, everything but the kitchen sink. We discovered early on that global citizenship has grown increasingly popular over the past few decades, particularly in higher education, though its exact meaning continues to elude the majority of people. From a cursory internet search, one would likely find that being a global citizen is often thought to include at least some of the following characteristics: awareness of one’s place in the world and of one’s responsibility as a member of global society; recognition of the interconnectedness of all life on Earth; respect for cultural diversity and human rights; participation in the community at a range of levels, from local to global; taking action to make the world a more equitable, just, and sustainable place for all.

The above list is not exhaustive by any means, and though all these things contribute to our growing conception of what global citizenship entails, what is still lacking is a clear definition of what a global citizen actually is. To me, a global citizen is “someone who identifies with being a part of an emerging global community and whose actions contribute to building this community’s values and practices” (Israel) for the advancement of human rights, equity and justice, sustainability, and the development of the potential of all people and all life on Earth. The above working definition from Ronald Israel I found useful because of its emphasis on self-identification as a member of global society and the implication that such awareness must consequently lead to action on behalf of and with that global society, though I take the liberty here to add onto it the common goals that all such action should reflect.

Humanitarianism, which “connotes philanthropy and benevolence, a charitable impulse towards the unfortunate from those capable of alleviating poverty, disaster or war,” (Seabrook) appears to be the common sense vehicle through which many people can begin their journey as a global citizen. However, what most don’t see is that such well-intentioned benevolence often feeds into a system that utilizes humanitarian aid for the benefit of the affluent West, weaponizing human compassion for the sake of obscuring the structures, practices, and inequalities that make such aid necessary, most of which the West has historically helped create and sustain (Seabrook). From a functionalist perspective, this lack of understanding is the result of widespread unawareness about the place of the humanitarian aid work in the context of the global system as a whole and of its manifest and latent functions for all involved, including countries/states, nongovernmental organizations, individual donors, aid workers, and the beneficiaries. Indeed, as noted in “The White Savior Industrial Complex,” many people’s big-hearted aspirations don’t allow them to “connect the dots or see the patterns of power behind the isolated ‘disasters.’ All [they] sees are hungry mouths, . . . all [they see] is need, and [they see] no need to reason out the need for the need” (Cole).

In conclusion, humanitarian aid work can accomplish very little without the larger, more pressing work of changing the structures, practices, and inequalities that sustain poverty, violence, war, corruption, and instability, but that work won’t even be possible if each of us do not, first and foremost, recognize our own positionality, our power and privilege, our placement in “the transnational networks of oppressive practices”(Cole) as members of the Global North and of global society at large. If we don’t, then our actions as global citizens and as humanitarians will just continue to put out fire after fire without addressing the culprits who light every flame: ourselves.

Works Cited:
Arcaro, Tom. “Big Picture Critique of the Aid Sector.” Aid Worker Voices, 23 Mar. 2016, Elon University, blogs.elon.edu/aidworkervoices/?p=494. Accessed 10 Feb. 2019.
Cole, Teju. “The White Savior Industrial Complex.” The Atlantic, 12 Mar. 2012, www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/the-white-savior-industrial-complex/254843/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2019.
Israel, Ronald C. “What Does It Mean to Be a Global Citizen?” Kosmos Journal, 2012, www.kosmosjournal.org/article/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-global-citizen/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2019.
Seabrook, Jeremy. “The Doctrine of Humanitarianism Is Not As Benign As You Might Think.” The Guardian, 8 Sep. 2014, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/08/doctrine-humanitarianism-not-benign. Accessed 10 Feb. 2019.