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t h e E M i r ro r
Sweet sound of gl
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The question is: what exactly do we mean by solidarity, aid, charity and humanitarian emergency?
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The proliferation of so-called humanitarian initiatives has led to some confusion, and the phenomenon, whose scope has grown with the financial crisis, needs analysing. The question is: what exactly do we mean by solidarity, aid, charity and humanitarian emergency? Is a vast moral formatting process developing across the world, behind the unending emotional blackmail concerning our indifference to the misfortunes of others?
seen as an obstacle to wellbeing, which, in a social republic, was something to be shared around. However, humanitarian action pays little attention to the social condition of victims, and is more concerned with the life-threatening dangers lying in wait for them: the risk of death, from famine in particular, triggers immediate alerts, justified or not.
To begin with, there is the private, rather than public, aspect of these actions and accompanying discourse. The solidarity market being formed before our eyes is part of a general withdrawal of states — except for authoritarian ones, which are by definition the targets of humanitarian enterprise.
In France, the media presence of the Restaurants du Cœur, a free food charity, is so much greater than that of government food aid policies that one might be forgiven for believing these have disappeared altogether, especially with the emphasis now placed on individual generosity. This privatisation of welfare as a necessary complement to public action would not raise questions if public opinion did not perceive it as an alternative — or even an unspoken substitute — to the state.
In the 20th century, welfare states implemented policies to improve the wellbeing of their citizens. Poverty was
This phenomenon needs to be interpreted within a global ideological framework. The socialising role of the state
Since solidarity is presented as a matter of ethics, any criticism is suspect. Yet the content of the “duty to care” merits examination.
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