“
Be nice to people... maybe it'll be unappreciated, unreciprocated, or ignored, but spread the love anyway. We rise by lifting others.
”
”
Germany Kent
“
It bothered them [humanitarian aide workers] that the camp leaders might be war criminals, not refugees in any conventional sense of the word, but fugitives.
”
”
Philip Gourevitch (We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families)
“
I have learned that I, we, are a dollar-a-day people (which is terrible, they say, because a cow in Japan is worth $9 a day). This means that a Japanese cow would be a middle class Kenyan... a $9-a-day cow from Japan could very well head a humanitarian NGO in Kenya. Massages are very cheap in Nairobi, so the cow would be comfortable.
”
”
Binyavanga Wainaina
“
The same philantropists who give millions for AIDS or education in tolerance have ruined the lives of thousands through financial speculation and thus created the conditions for the rise of the very intolerance that is being fought. In the 1960s and '70s it was possible to buy soft-porn postcards of a girl clad in a bikini or wearing an evening gown; however, when one moved the postcard a little bit or looked at it from a slightly different perspective, her clothes magically disappeared to reveal the girl's naked body. When we are bombarded by the heartwarming news of a debt cancellation or a big humanitarian campaign to eradicate a dangerous epidemic, just move the postcard a little to catch a glimpse of the obscene figure of the liberal communist at work beneath.
”
”
Slavoj Žižek (Violence: Six Sideways Reflections)
“
At the moment, don't buy my books, help the people of Ukraine instead.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar
“
On World Humanitarian Day 2014, thanks to ALL aid workers who carry or have carried out lifesaving work. Salute to our champions
”
”
Widad Akreyi
“
This was all strictly run-of-the-mill Victorian patter, striking only for the fact that a man who had so exerted himself to see the world afresh had returned with such stock observations. (And, really, very little has changed; one need only lightly edit the foregoing passages - the crude caricatures, the question of human inferiority, and the bit about the baboon - to produce the sort of profile of misbegotten Africa that remains standard to this day in the American and European press, and in the appeals for charity donations put out by humanitarian aid organizations.)
”
”
Philip Gourevitch (We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families)
“
In lifting another person, we also lift ourselves.
”
”
Seth Adam Smith (Your Life Isn't for You: A Selfish Person's Guide to Being Selfless)
“
Pray less, help more.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work)
“
One week of my life produces enough electricity to power a hundred years of humanitarian intervention.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Little Planet on The Prairie: Dunya Benim, Sorumluluk Benim)
“
Stop calling it war, for war implies faults on both sides. It's an invasion, where the state of Russia is the aggressor and the people of Ukraine are the victim. And stop saying that your prayers are with the Ukrainian people, for prayers may give you comfort, but it does nothing to alleviate their suffering. Shred all hypocritical advocacy of human rights and be involved in a meaningful way that actually helps the victims of Russian imperialism.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar
“
The idea of Appalachia is well understood; the real place, less so. It is a borderland, not truly of the South or the North, and West Virginia is the only state entirely within its bounds. Because of its enormous natural resources and their subsequent extraction, which has largely profited corporations based elsewhere, the relationship between the people of West Virginia and the broader United States of America is often compared to that between a colonized people and their colonizers. The programs of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty that funneled national dollars and aid workers to central Appalachia, though founded on humanitarian ideas, also furthered this troubled interdependency.
”
”
Emma Copley Eisenberg (The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia)
“
A refugee saved is a world saved.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work)
“
A heart that bleeds for others is the only human heart, all others are mere animal hearts.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (I Vicdansaadet Speaking: No Rest Till The World is Lifted)
“
Whether there is a supreme almighty, is no concern of mine, all I care about is the upliftment of the humans by the humans - by me, you and by every single creature who calls themselves human.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (I Vicdansaadet Speaking: No Rest Till The World is Lifted)
“
The humanitarian silo model is also increasingly out of touch. It fails against almost any metric. It doesn't help refugees, undermining their autonomy and dignity. It doesn't help host governments, transforming potential contributors into a disempowered and alienated generation in their midst. It doesn't help the international community, leaving people indefinitely dependent on aid, less capable of ultimately rebuilding their countries of origin, and with onward movement as their only viable route to opportunity.
”
”
Paul Collier (Refuge: Rethinking Refugee Policy in a Changing World)
“
Global health players can become impervious to critique as they identify emergencies, cite dire statistics, and act on their essential duty of promoting health in the name of "humanitarian reason" or as an instrument of economic development, diplomacy, or national security. We are left, however, with an open-source anarchy around global health problems--a policy space in which new strategies, rules, distributive schemes, and the practical ethics of health care are being assembled, experimented with, and improvised by a wide array of deeply unequal stakeholders
”
”
João Biehl (When People Come First: Critical Studies in Global Health)
“
When a Vietnamese official suggested that the U.S. send food aid to regions where starving villagers are being asked to spend their time and energy searching for the remains of American pilots killed while destroying their country, State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley reacted with great anger: “We are outraged at any suggestion of linking food assistance with the return of remains,” she declaimed. So profound is the U.S. commitment to humanitarian imperatives and moral values that it cannot permit these lofty ideals to be tainted by associating them with such trivial concerns and indecent requests.166
”
”
Edward S. Herman (Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media)
“
If a person thinks only about the upliftment of the self, then no matter how many pilgrimages he visits or how strong his belief in God is, he is the least holy person on earth. On the other hand, an atheist who rushes to the aid of the neighbor in their time of distress, becomes the very definition of holiness.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Aşkanjali: The Sufi Sermon)
“
Such are the incalculable effects of that negative passion of indifference, that hysterical and speculative resurrection of the other.
Racism, for example. Logically, it should have declined with the advance of Enlightenment and democracy. Yet the more hybrid our cultures become, and the more the theoretical and genetic bases of racism crumble away, the stronger it grows. But this is because we are dealing here with a mental object, an artificial construct, based on an erosion of the singularity of cultures and entry into the fetishistic system of difference. So long as there is otherness, strangeness and the (possibly violent) dual relation -- as we see in anthropological accounts up to the eighteenth century and into the colonial phase -- there is no racism properly so-called. Once that `natural' relation is lost, we enter into a phobic relationship with an artificial other, idealized by hatred. And because it is an ideal other, this relationship is an exponential one: nothing can stop it, since the whole trend of our culture is towards a fanatically pursued differential construction, a perpetual extrapolation of the same from the other.
Autistic culture by dint of fake altruism.
All forms of sexist, racist, ethnic or cultural discrimination arise out of the same profound disaffection and out of a collective mourning, a mourning for a dead otherness, set against a background of general indifference -- a logical product of our marvellous planet-wide conviviality.
The same indifference can give rise to exactly opposite behaviour. Racism is desperately seeking the other in the form of an evil to be combated. The humanitarian seeks the other just as desperately in the form of victims to aid. Idealization plays for better or for worse. The scapegoat is no longer the person you hound, but the one whose lot you lament. But he is still a scapegoat. And it is still the same person.
”
”
Jean Baudrillard (The Perfect Crime)
“
We even save a few lives, but only a fraction of the lives that need to be saved. Soon, we will leave and when we leave there will be nothing to take our place. The meningitis epidemic, cholera, measles, typhoid fever, all preventable diseases, will return and continue as before. The only solution is a political solution, national public health programs, responsible corporations who reap only as much as they sow. Shell Oil with a conscience. Nigeria doesn't need us. What we do here is less than nothing. We take the pressure off the powers that be, making it easier for those who plunder to keep on plundering. This is the humanitarian aid paradox.
”
”
Pamela Grim (Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives: Tales of Life and Death from the ER)
“
The proponents of Marxian biology appear in unexpected places. In the early disputes over evolution, the most effective aid to the Marxian line came from the humanitarian but conservative Christians, who not only rejected evolution on theological grounds, but who also looked with horror on the amoral viciousness of what they took to be natural selection. Marx himself had also objected to the competitive aspects of natural selection, so both his followers and the more conservative religious groups found themselves on the same side. In fact, the Marxian biologists of the last seventy-five years had their pathways made smooth by the Victorian fundamentalists.
”
”
Conway Zirkle (Evolution, Marxian biology and the social scene)
“
At our own free will, we must make this declaration to ourselves today - the declaration of justice - the declaration of order - the declaration of a united independence from the oppression of prejudices, hate and segregation.
In the course of human events, if ever, injustice grabs hold of the landscape that we the people step foot on, it will be our organically divine right to abolish such injustice, with our thoughts, words and actions conscientious. We the people, each one of us, will do our utmost to create a society that needs not the intervention of law or any specialist authority. We will create a society of humans with our own two hands for the humans that are yet to be born, so that they may know justice and order in their life, which we have been deprived of due to the indifference and callousness of our ancestors. We the living, breathing and thinking humans do solemnly declare upon our functional conscience, that from this moment onwards, we will no longer adhere to the traditional habit of dependency, hypocrisy and meekness, and we will come to the aid of every human who faces injustice in any form, with this golden principle engraved upon our hearts, that there are no foreigners, only family.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Operation Justice: To Make A Society That Needs No Law)
“
Then there were those who were thrilling to Senator Sanders, who believed that Bernie would be the one to give them free college, to solve climate change, and even to bring peace to the Middle East, though that was not an issue most people associated with him. On a trip to Michigan, I met with a group of young Muslims, most of them college students, for whom this was the first election in which they planned to participate. I was excited that they had come to hear more about HRC's campaign. One young woman, speaking for her peers, said she really wanted to be excited about the first woman president, but she had to support Bernie because she believed he would be more effective at finally brokering a peace treaty in the Middle East. Everyone around her nodded. I asked the group why they doubted Hillary Clinton's ability to do the same.
"Well, she has done nothing to help the Palestinians."
Taking a deep breath, I asked them if they knew that she was the first U.S. official to ever call the territories "Palestine" in the nineties, that she advocated for Palestinian sovereignty back when no other official would. They did not. I then asked them if they were aware that she brought together the last round of direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians? That she personally negotiated a cease-fire to stop the latest war in Gaza when she was secretary of state? They shook their heads. Had they known that she announced $600 million in assistance to the Palestinian Authority and $300 million in humanitarian aid to Gaza in her first year at State? They began to steal glances at one another. Did they know that she pushed Israel to invest in the West Bank and announced an education program to make college more affordable for Palestinian students? More head shaking. They simply had no idea.
"So," I continued, "respectfully, what is it about Senator Sander's twenty-seven-year record in Congress that suggests to you that the Middle East is a priority for him?"
The young woman's response encapsulated some what we were up against.
"I don't know," she replied. "I just feel it.
”
”
Huma Abedin (Both/And: A Memoir)
“
With indifference people are continuously breeding a society full of disparity – they are constantly aiding the creation of more inequality. We are constantly making way for a world where some parents give their kids x-box to soothe them, for their birthday, and many more parents are forced to use leftover cardboard boxes as cradle for their babies because they don't even have a roof over their head. This is our so called civilization - this is our so called modern humanity - shame on us - shame on us as a species - shame on us as civilized beings - shame on us as thinking and breathing individuals of conscience. No more - no more - we must break this disparity - and we must do it right now - and we are not going to do it by fighting over whose ideology is the best - we are going to do it only by taking actual responsibility of our society - by taking actual responsibility of the world - we are going to do it by acting as a living cure for those disparities, by using our own resources as means to erase those gaps however we can. Only with action born from our heart can we end disparity, not with talks of argument and inaction of complacency.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Shape of A Human: Our America Their America)
“
On Pembroke Road look out for my ghost, Dishevelled with shoes untied, Playing through the railings with little children Whose children have long since died.
”
”
Richard Heinzl (Cambodia Calling: A Memoir from the Frontlines of Humanitarian Aid)
“
Buddhist organization called Good Friends, led by the Venerable Pomnyun, a Buddhist monk from South Korea, that works inside North Korea to provide humanitarian aid and has been doing so for over twenty years.
”
”
Jieun Baek (North Korea's Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground Is Transforming a Closed Society)
“
Representing the apogee of human rights and humanitarian sentiments among post-war U.S. presidents, Carter also rebuffed Iranian demands for an apology from the U.S. for installing the Shah in power since 1953 and the subsequent decades of the S.A.V.A.K. torture that continued well into this ‘soft’ Democrat’s administration: ‘I don’t think we have anything to apologize for,’ assured Henry Kissinger. Ruminating about the United States of Amnesia, Carter’s principal White House aide for Iran throughout the crisis, Mr. Gary Sick, admitted that from the standpoint of U.S. policy-makers ‘anything that happened more than a quarter century before—even an event of singular importance—assumes the pale and distant appearance of ancient history. In Washington, by 1978, the events of 1953 had all the relevance of a pressed flower.’ Barely over a year before the Iranian people toppled this modernizing despot, Carter toasted the Shah’s Iran as ‘an island of stability,’ which he called a ‘great tribute to the respect, admiration and love of your people for you’. A defiant George H.W. Bush announced, after the U.S. shot down a large Iranian airliner filled with 290 civilians, ‘I will never apologize for the United States of America. I don’t care what the facts are.’25
”
”
Dan Kovalik (The Plot to Attack Iran: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Iran)
“
By “good deal,” Lee is referring to the world’s worst-kept secret: North Korea makes these threats to extort money from the rest of the world, in the form of “humanitarian aid.” South
”
”
Euny Hong (The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture)
“
charity is part of the game, a humanitarian mask hiding the underlying economic exploitation. Developed countries are constantly “helping” undeveloped ones (with aid, credits etc), and so avoiding the key issue: their complicity in and responsibility for the miserable situation of the Third World.4
”
”
Matthew Soules (Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra-Thin: Architecture and Capitalism in the 21st Century)
“
We jokingly queried the phrase because our work did not always feel wonderful but rather difficult, contested, confusing and prone to failure of various kinds.
”
”
Hugo Slim (Humanitarian Ethics: A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster)
“
On the contrary, reading or listening to many critical academics, returning aid workers, journalists and politicians commenting on humanitarian operations, one might well think that the profession is actually an abomination. Humanitarian action is often portrayed as the inept self-interested work of ignorant neo-colonial devils, rather than as an efficient and effective caring profession.
”
”
Hugo Slim (Humanitarian Ethics: A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster)
“
My mission is to flood the world with humanitarians by the thousands.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Corazon Calamidad: Obedient to None, Oppressive to None)
“
Raise your heart not your hand,
That is the only human way.
If you are forced to raise your hand,
Raise it only to shield, not to slay.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Amor Apocalypse: Canım Sana İhtiyacım)
“
Today's seed is tomorrow's shade.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Mücadele Muhabbet: Gospel of An Unarmed Soldier)
“
Money doesn’t fix the world, responsibility does. Responsibility puts a roof over the homeless, responsibility puts food in empty stomachs, responsibility elevates the fallen and forgotten parts of the world.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Find A Cause Outside Yourself: Sermon of Sustainability)
“
The problem is, in a world of humans the humans focus on everything else but humanity. If we wipe out humanity from our fancy equations, then we only wipe out ourselves. With such acts of fallacy how can we expect there to be any advancement in the world whatsoever?
Even our very notion of advancement is all messed up. Our notion of advancement prioritizes colonizing Mars over feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless. If this is advancement, then the pioneers of such advancement are nothing but cancer on the face of earth.
And just like you don't collaborate with Adolf Hitler, you don't collaborate with such pioneers, that is, with toxic billionaires. If you do, then you are no better than those rich and reckless kids of emerald mine owners.
So I say again, the fate of this world lies in the hands of the civilians - everyday, ordinary civilians. When the civilians are responsible, the world is well - when the civilians are sapient, the world is swell.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Find A Cause Outside Yourself: Sermon of Sustainability)
“
Where there is simplicity, there is sustainability. Donde hay simplicidad, hay sostenabilidad. A materialistic and self-absorbed world chasing after the so-called sustainable development goals is like a superobese dog chasing after its own tail.
In a self-absorbed world sustainability is a myth. In a simple and gentle world sustainability is the norm. So let's forget about sustainability. Let's forget about sustainable development goals. These are all gimmick. I’ll tell you why.
Sustainable development goals is actually the privileged lot's code for ‘let's screw this world with our narcissistic shenanigans, then we can make TV shows on us pretending to fix the world's problems that we continue to create with our lavish, self-centric lifestyle.’ It's not a global goal, it's a global scam, sold by the rich to the rich at the expense of everybody else - at the expense of the working people of planet earth.
Am I being too harsh? Perhaps I am, but then again, this planet has never been the home of the human race, it has always been the home of the rich and privileged, while the rest of humanity slave their butt off, barely scraping by on hand-me-downs and leftovers. The privileged screw the world, then the privileged pretend to fix the world. What a joke!
So instead of focusing on intellectual pomposities like sustainable development goals, the next time you indulge in a luxury, ask yourself, is it a luxury you really need – if not, how many lives you could lift with the resources spent on that particular luxury!
Let me put it into perspective. One fancy apple watch could feed a family of four in the developing parts of the world for half a year. So, stop talking about sustainable development goals, and start practicing sustainable habits.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Find A Cause Outside Yourself: Sermon of Sustainability)
“
My soldiers are not to crave for solitude and serenity, they are not to sit in a cave and meditate for eternity seeking enlightenment, they are to rise, fall, learn and burn in bringing smiles on teary faces.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work)
“
It's good to dedicate certain days to certain cause, Greater still is to dedicate a life to the cause of humanity. It's okay to shout about rights and dignity on occasion, Human is one who lives each day for others' rights 'n dignity.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work)
“
Honest and upright people never misuse economic support. Unfortunately, most aid often culminates in the wrong hands or opportunist political and social channels, not on humanitarian grounds or for those directly in need; otherwise, poverty could not continue to stand in the way of billions of dollars of aid a year by economically rich countries or local governments.
”
”
Ehsan Sehgal
“
Giants in Jeans Sonnet 20
Who’s the saint, who’s the tyrant,
Is not determined by the show of strength.
Real mark of human character,
Lies in your gentleness radiant.
The strongest souls on earth,
Keep their strength hidden unless needed,
Whereas the shallow and the entitled,
Walk around trotting over the hearts of the helpless.
Turning the other cheek to the oppressor,
May work in a world of fairies.
In our primitive world of organic apes,
Turning the other cheek means aiding inhumanities.
Love is the only answer, there is no question,
But it is a lover's duty to stand up to oppression.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Giants in Jeans: 100 Sonnets of United Earth)
“
Family is the world to most people, but to me the world is family.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Dervish Advaitam: Gospel of Sacred Feminines and Holy Fathers)
“
Awake, arise ‘n humanize.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Dervish Advaitam: Gospel of Sacred Feminines and Holy Fathers)
“
What if boundaries and boarders are actually the only way people can love each other equally and freely.
What if, without those boundaries, love becomes an act of humanitarian aid.
”
”
CJ Hauser
“
Science Anthem (Sonnet 1216)
Science is my ode to society,
Science is serenade to society.
Science is the road to society,
Science is my aid to society.
Science is my poetry,
Science is philosophy.
Science is my thriller,
Science is my love story.
Science is not a love of knowledge,
Science is love of the light of knowledge.
Light of knowledge doesn't allow inhumanity,
Even if it's peddled in the benefit of knowledge.
Science is love, science is light,
Science is torch to the world at night.
Sometimes boring, sometimes daring,
Science es el loco amante of life.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science)
“
Imagine if, instead of the humanitarian silo, we could conceive of an approach that could support refugees' autonomy and dignity while simultaneously empowering them to contribute to host communities and the eventual reconstruction of their country of origin.
”
”
Alexander Betts (Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System)
“
Humanitarianism may be appropriate during an emergency phase but beyond that it is counter-productive.
”
”
Alexander Betts (Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System)
“
Ukraine is worth aiding, but not Afghanistan,
Tourists are worth saving, but not refugees.
Loss of any life is indeed a moment of tragedy,
Then why this double-standard and hypocrisy!
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat)
“
Heritage, in moderation, is an aid to growth, unmoderated, poison.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science)
“
100 Questions of Life
6. What is perfection?
Perfection is imperfections we've made peace with.
...
13. What is nature?
Nature is order within chaos.
14. What is order?
Order is but friendship with chaos.
15. What is chaos?
Chaos is order we are yet to understand.
...
21. What is knowledge?
Knowledge is ignorance we've chosen to correct.
22. What is choice?
Choice is the fulcrum of freedom.
23. What is freedom?
Freedom is the fulcrum of responsibility.
24. What is responsibility?
Responsibility is the act of backbone.
25. What is backbone?
Backbone is more than a stick to hang your head.
26. What is the head?
Head is the mightiest carrier of progress.
27. What is progress?
Progress is much more than mere functioning of nuts
and bolts.
28. What are nuts and bolts?
Nuts and bolts are our greatest defense against
unforeseen terrors of nature, on earth and beyond.
...
53. What is heritage?
Heritage, in moderation, is an aid to growth,
unmoderated, poison.
...
57. What is death?
Death is but the fear of life.
58. What is fear?
Fear is but memory of our animal past.
59. What is memory?
Memory is the fabric of time.
60. What is time?
Time is the meaning behind moments.
...
78. What is curiosity?
Curiosity is a challenge to superstition.
79. What is superstition?
Superstition is nature's antidote to the insecurity of
the unknown.
80. What is insecurity?
Insecurity is wisdom of the jungle against possible
predatory attack.
81. What is wisdom?
Wisdom is the result of travel in mind, not in time or
space.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science)
“
All the books are useless,
if they don't elevate the heart.
Then again, books don't elevate the heart,
it's the heart that,
with some aid from books,
elevates the world.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown)
“
The current system for refugees who remain in their region of origin is a disaster. It is premised upon an almost exclusively 'humanitarian' response. A system designed for the emergency phase - to offer an immediate lifeline - ends up enduring year after year, sometimes decade after decade. External provision of food, clothing, and shelter is absolutely essential in the aftermath of having to run for your life. But over time, if it is provided as a substitute for access to jobs, education, and other opportunities, humanitarian aid soon undermines human dignity and autonomy.
”
”
Alexander Betts (Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System)
“
The humanitarian silo model is increasingly out of touch. It fails against almost any metric. It doesn't help refugees, undermining their autonomy and dignity. It doesn't help host governments, transforming potential contributors into a disempowered and alienated generation in their midst. It doesn't help the international community, leaving people indefinitely dependent upon aid, less capable of ultimately rebulding their countries of origin, and with onward movement as their only viable rout to opportunity.
”
”
Alexander Betts (Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System)
“
Every generation needs a janitor,
Every era needs an exterminator.
Every tierra needs a transformer,
Every generation needs a generator.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Esperanza Impossible: 100 Sonnets of Ethics, Engineering & Existence)
“
Then there is the callous side, the war-wracked sentiment, the notion that a Band-Aid was ripped from the bullet wound. The fear for what comes next, the longing many Afghans have to leave, the unraveling humanitarian catastrophe, the hunger pains fused with the ache of abandonment.
”
”
Hollie McKay (Afghanistan: The End of the U.S. Footprint and the Rise of the Taliban Rule)
“
If you are to be human, rejecting the society's rampant psychosis of nationalism, you are bound to become an object of an insane amount of hate. The west will hate you for meddling without citizenship, the east will hate you for being a traitor, or vice versa. Despite all this unbearable hate if you can uphold your humanity with a smile, then - you shall be human - then, you shall be an armor of the world.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Her Insan Ailem: Everyone is Family, Everywhere is Home)
“
Peace begins where prejudice ends.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Corazon Calamidad: Obedient to None, Oppressive to None)
“
Mission over Recognition (The Sonnet)
Let me show you what is
action without expectation!
What is it to do your duty,
without regard for recognition!
Quite often I lose count of my works,
Yet I've never had a fancy book launch.
I write in silence, I release in silence,
I have no relation to praise and applause.
I am the peak of humanitarian literature,
All without an ounce of support or award.
I am not a writer, I am world reformer,
My first concern is an integrated world.
Whatever happens next, know that it had
nothing to do with the making of a mission.
It's easy to bask in the glory of the sun,
not so much to fuel solar combustion.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets)
“
I may not be your blood brother,
In me you have a heart brother.
I may disappear in your happy days,
In difficult times I'll surely appear.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets)
“
In crisis, a civilian wonders, how can I save my family - a politician wonders, how can I save myself - a humanitarian wonders, how can I save the world!
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Humanitarian Dictator)
“
Where God retreats, Human must step in.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Humanitarian Dictator)
“
As long as Israel, therefore, continues its blockade of the general Gaza population, it is no less in contravention of the United Nations Security Council instructions than Saddam Hussein was with regard to his weapons programs in the early 1990s. While gathering the details of how some humanitarian aid activists were killed and dozens were wounded by Israeli soldiers is important, above all for the sake of justice toward the idealistic persons mown down, it is far more important that the episode produce an end to the lockdown of the 1.5 million Gazans, who have been placed by the Israeli government in a sort of open-air penitentiary.
”
”
Juan Cole (Gaza Yet Stands)
“
Ignore the flag, focus on fervor -
Attend to the people beyond the pole.
Bring down such rags that spread hate,
Hoist your heart as beacon to the whole.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Humanitarian Dictator)
“
Declaration of Justice:
In the course of human events, if ever, injustice grabs hold of the landscape that we the people step foot on, it will be our organically divine right to abolish such injustice, with our thoughts, words and actions conscientious. We the people, each one of us, will do our utmost to create a society that needs not the intervention of law or any specialist authority. We will create a society of humans with our own two hands for the humans that are yet to be born, so that they may know justice and order in their life, which we have been deprived of due to the indifference and callousness of our ancestors. We the living, breathing and thinking humans do solemnly declare upon our functional conscience, that from this moment onwards, we will no longer adhere to the traditional habit of dependency, hypocrisy and meekness, and we will come to the aid of every human who faces injustice in any form, with this golden principle engraved upon our hearts, that there are no foreigners, only family.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Operation Justice: To Make A Society That Needs No Law)
“
All the clichés turned out to be true: what once had seemed important no longer mattered at all.
”
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Jessica Alexander (Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid)
“
Ideology
Fidel Castro was considered an ideologue by many. His fanaticism was always a continuing animosity towards the United States, while at the same time working to increase his good relationship with most left leaning Latin American countries. However, there have been times when out of necessity he had a tacit understanding with the United States. On September 11, 2001, Fidel Castro offered Cuban airports as emergency landing places, when all American aircraft were diverted from their primary destinations and ordered to land immediately, after the attack on the Twin Towers in New York City. On another occasion he accepted a one-time purchase of food after Category 4 Hurricane Michelle struck the island that same year. Once, he declined a U.S. Government offer of humanitarian aid turning to Canada instead. Castro continued having close relations with Canada and demonstrated this friendship when he attended Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s funeral in the fall of the year 2000. It was a way that he could retain contact with the western world without becoming involved with the United States.
”
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Hank Bracker
“
Heather Mills
As a tireless campaigner for many charitable causes, Heather Mills joined Diana in support of the banishment of land mines all over the world. For her efforts against land mines, Ms. Mills was awarded the inaugural UNESCO Children in Need Award. She is also Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Association, and she has been active in helping amputees by promoting the use of prostheses.
Diana, Princess of Wales, was a truly remarkable human being. All too often today we refer to people as icons; in Diana’s case, the word is wholly appropriate. She was a wife, a mother, a humanitarian, and a true ambassador.
Despite what the press wanted us to believe, Diana didn’t court publicity. On the contrary, she did far more behind the scenes to help people than in front.
Her willingness to reveal her own frailties has, I am sure, encouraged many people to seek help and come to terms with their own personal problems.
She was able to reach out to people in a way that few can. In the early days of HIV and AIDS, when everyone was so afraid of this so-called new disease, Diana’s simple gesture of shaking hands with an AIDS patient at a hospital in London broke down the taboo and removed the stigma around the disease. Her palace advisers had initially tried to dissuade her from making this gesture, but Diana--who always led with her heart--went against them and did what she believed to be right.
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Larry King (The People's Princess: Cherished Memories of Diana, Princess of Wales, From Those Who Knew Her Best)
“
What did your daily work consist of in the Cor unum council? My mission was to be able to express as well as possible the compassion and the spiritual and material closeness of the Church for people who are suffering from all the most difficult trials in this world. As I traveled to the most afflicted countries in our time, I very quickly understood that the greatest misery is not necessarily material poverty. The most profound misery is the lack of God. He can be absent because people are too much imprisoned in their materialism and profoundly desperate; they have abandoned him or reject him. Often there is a hunger for bread, but also a hunger for God. Cor unum, as a representative of the charity of the successor of Peter, was systematically present at all the sites of war, natural catastrophes, famines, and epidemics. Often, behind these immeasurable tragedies, there is an abandonment of God by men. And so Cor unum always tried to bring emergency material aid, without forgetting divine consolation. Charity is service to man, but it is not possible to serve mankind without telling people about God. In this respect, the Church will never be able to conduct work comparable to some humanitarian organizations that are often guided and dominated by ideologies.
”
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Robert Sarah (God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faith)
“
Josephus further wrote that ‘the Essenes were the most honest people in the world, very industrious and enterprising and showed great skill and concern for agriculture. They indulged in humanitarian acts like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, comforting the sick, and protecting and aiding the widows and orphans. The Brotherhood had houses in several towns where members could take abode while travelling and were taken care of.
”
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Joshua Benjamin (The Mystery of Israel's Ten Lost Tribes and the Legend of Jesus in India)
“
Doing good aid required a time commitment—not a week, not a month, but years.
”
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Jessica Alexander (Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid)
“
It takes courage to do aid work but it takes bravery to put your thoughts and experiences out in front of the world.
”
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Kelsey Hoppe (Chasing Misery: an anthology of essays by women in humanitarian responses)
“
We both know that I will not come. We both know that he won't be in Canada. There will be another earthquake, another flood, another war, another reason to not go where we think we are going. It is a strange life, this. Chasing human misery around the planet. We are not the sort of people who go where we say we are going.
”
”
Kelsey Hoppe (Chasing Misery: an anthology of essays by women in humanitarian responses)
“
Table 1: USA Foreign Policy and Actions — Choices, Options, and Alternatives Assassinations, death squads, and drones Bounties for info/capture Bribery, blackmail, and entrapment Celebration of national “morality” and necessity of torture Collaboration/contracts with universities, scientists, professional organizations Contingent “humanitarian” aid Contingent foreign aid Control UN via vetoes Control IMF and World Bank Cooperate with foreign nations (e.g., military, intelligence) Development of domestic crowd controls (e.g., militarization of police) Diplomacy Drug wars and corruptions Disproportionate support of “allies” and enemification of others Establishment of military bases (more than 900 known foreign bases) Exportation of popular American culture Foreign student/faculty/consultant exchanges Fund development of disguised/pseudo-organizations
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Anthony J. Marsella (War, Peace, Justice: An Unfinished Tapestry . . .)
“
Putting an end to foreign aid is impractical and would likely lead to additional human suffering. It is impractical because citizens of many Western nations feel guilt and unease about the economic and humanitarian disasters around the world, and foreign aid makes them believe that something is being done to combat the problems. Even if this something is not very effective, their desire for doing it will continue, and so will foreign aid.
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”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty)
“
A soldier had to stand ready to fight, provide humanitarian aid, teach, learn, and do a multitude of things according to the needs of society. Specialization, as one prominent author once said, was for insects. Just because you were better at one thing didn’t mean you ignored everything else. And
”
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Evan Currie (The Heart of Matter (Odyssey One, #2))
“
A soldier had to stand ready to fight, provide humanitarian aid, teach, learn, and do a multitude of things according to the needs of society. Specialization, as one prominent author once said, was for insects. Just because you were better at one thing didn’t mean you ignored everything else. And just because you were trained to fight didn’t mean that you had to dredge up some insane antiquated notion of bloodlust to cover the moral question of whether violence was right. All
”
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Evan Currie (The Heart of Matter (Odyssey One, #2))
“
money was stolen.” The fishmonger’s complaint highlights the role that international loans and subsidies often play, in Tunisia as elsewhere, in actively feeding kleptocracy. Moroccans complain about an unnecessary high-speed rail line linking their capital to the commercial hub, Casablanca. Their criticisms, like that of the fishmonger, illustrate that it is not just humanitarian aid in crisis or postconflict environments that gets captured as a “rent” by kleptocratic networks. Infrastructure grants—or worse, loans—supposedly provided after unhurried deliberation, serve the same purpose in acutely corrupt countries.
”
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Sarah Chayes (Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security)
“
Corruption is usually classified as a humanitarian aid problem, to be handled by donor agencies, not mainstreamed into overall foreign and defense policy. And while governments may support across-the-board efforts on a multilateral level, they almost never consider acute corruption as they shape their approach to specific countries. Human rights, religious freedom, protections for the LGBT community may enter the conversation, but corruption rarely does. Tools to raise the cost of kleptocratic practices exist—in abundance. It’s just a matter of finding the courage and finesse to use them. All the levers and incentives listed below can be further refined, and new ones imagined, in specific contexts. Particular corrupt officials or structures have unique vulnerabilities and desires; and timelines and windows of opportunity for effective action will be specific to individual cases and will suggest even more potential actions as they are examined. Many of the actions below can and should be routinized—folded into the everyday activities of relevant bureaucracies—so as to reduce the onus on leaders to sign their names to audacious and thus potentially career-threatening moves. But in other cases, a strategy may need to be carefully thought through and tailored to the specific conditions of a given country at a specific point in time.
”
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Sarah Chayes (Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security)
“
What did it mean to give aid in a “Quakerly fashion”? How did Quaker ethics shape the Gadabouts’ collective memory of being unique among Western aid groups? What tensions within Convoy ranks resulted from the diversity of opinions on the Quaker Peace Testimony in practice?
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Susan Armstrong-Reid (China Gadabouts: New Frontiers of Humanitarian Nursing, 1941–51)
“
As the FAU redirected its humanitarian endeavours, it risked being viewed as politically aligned, not only because of who its financial backers were but because it was moving from direct emergency relief to development work, from emergency work to self-help development projects. Building local capacity and competencies had profound political implications in a country no longer fighting a common enemy but increasingly divided by civil war. Aid became viewed as a political weapon.
”
”
Susan Armstrong-Reid (China Gadabouts: New Frontiers of Humanitarian Nursing, 1941–51)
“
Putting an end to foreign aid is impractical and would likely lead to additional human suffering. It is impractical because citizens of many Western nations feel guilt and unease about the economic and humanitarian disasters around the world, and foreign aid makes them believe that something is being done to combat the problems.
”
”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
“
In contrast, protesters in Gaza have launched thousands of rockets aimed at neighboring communities, continued to divert humanitarian aid to build tunnels to infiltrate bordering towns so they could kill residents there, and continued to vow to reclaim every inch of land of the surrounding communities and put the present residents “to the sword” or “into the sea.
”
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Scott A. Shay (Conspiracy U: A Case Study)
“
There's no humanitarian, only human.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Martyr Meets World: To Solve The Hard Problem of Inhumanity)
“
Humanitarians don't die, they turn martyr.
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”
Abhijit Naskar (Martyr Meets World: To Solve The Hard Problem of Inhumanity)
“
Sonnet of Paths
Science means nothing,
Unless we use it to lift the society.
Philosophy means nothing,
Unless it empowers humanity.
Religion means nothing,
Unless it advocates for inclusion.
Technology means nothing,
Unless it aids in collective ascension.
Tastes are plenty in our world,
So are the paths that humans take.
But if those paths hold no humanity,
Fabric of civilization will soon break.
Placing on humanity our prime attention,
Together we’ll attain true emancipation.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Good Scientist: When Science and Service Combine)
“
I die everyday so that your children can live.
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”
Abhijit Naskar (Sleepless for Society)
“
Drunkenness of booze wears off in a day, drunkenness of sacrifice lasts through millennia.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans)
“
It ain't time for comfort, it ain't time for leisure, not yet anyways. It's time for work – uncorrupted, unvarnished, untainted humanitarian work.
”
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Abhijit Naskar (Dervish Advaitam: Gospel of Sacred Feminines and Holy Fathers)
“
You think I am the torch! I ain't - I am just the matchstick. Come - grab my hand - let me set you on fire.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Dervish Advaitam: Gospel of Sacred Feminines and Holy Fathers)
“
If a tree falls in a forest, and you are not there, it is okay that you do not hear. But if a child cries in a warzone, and you are not there, is it still okay that you do not hear?
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission)
“
Light by any name brings the same illumination.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Esperanza Impossible: 100 Sonnets of Ethics, Engineering & Existence)
“
I am no motivation salesman. I am not here to ease your life, I am here to make an absolute mess of your life. I am here to turn it upside down. I am here to turn you into a dynamite of pure humanitarian potential.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination)
“
An apathetic society yells about equality on specific days. An accountable human needs no occasion to roar across dismay.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work)
“
Live to serve, serve to live.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work)
“
The Gentalist Sonnet
I only ask one thing of my soldier – everything!
Give up all, so that those with nothing receive life.
What can I give to thee, except for this life of mine,
Says the brave gentalist across all personal strife.
Gente means people, and people are the music of life.
Love the people, lift the people, people are the way.
Not your people, not my people, it's all one people.
Once you feel it in your bones, uplift is on its way.
I don't believe in a messiah, I don't believe in a god,
‘Cause I’m far too accountable for my society, my world.
Thus speaks the gentalist, burning with a sense of duty,
Thus speaks the living aid, who ain’t no mythical lord.
If a chunk of alum can purify a bucket of putrid water,
Your heart can purify the world with its gentalist power.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Honor He Wrote: 100 Sonnets For Humans Not Vegetables)
“
To take life is easy, but to give life is what makes one human.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work)
“
The One of My Heart (The Sonnet)
I see the one of my heart,
In every direction, in every face.
Yet I won't say a word,
In silence I'll bear all coldness.
You may throw me out of your heart,
But you can't oust yourself from mine.
You are in every pore of my being,
You are my only lifeline.
You are the one that runs in my nerves,
As the power-grid of my mind.
The pain of being a one-sided lover,
Is sweeter to me than a thousand goldmines.
Cuss me, mock me, hurt me all you like.
All I care about is to be an aid in your life.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Şehit Sevda Society: Even in Death I Shall Live)
“
We don’t need to build a world with one superpower,
We gotta build a world where the world is superpower.
We don’t need a world rotting in diplomatic gutter,
Let’s build a world that has no geopolitical clutter.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Iman Insaniyat, Mazhab Muhabbat: Pani, Agua, Water, It's All One)
“
World first and forever, nation never.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets)