CHAPTER 2: CONCEPTUAL DEFINITION OF HUMANITARIANISM
2.3 Socio-Religious Conceptualization
Under the socio-religious conceptualization, the concept is traced from social practices and beliefs as well as religious belief as borrowed from religious texts and practices. It is argued by altruists that human beings have a natural feeling of attachment to other human beings (Sorabji, 2007: 20). This perceived natural feeling of attachment by human beings to each other can be seen as humanitarianism, which when translated to physical actions can be called altruism. The notion that human beings have a natural feeling of attachment to each other is supported by Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2003: 12) which argues that:
Altruism is traced to family and kinship obligations to protect one’s own and offer hospitality to strangers. These behaviours are extensions of basic human drives to self-preservation and protection of one’s offspring, so it is not surprising that altruistic customs are a virtually universal feature of human societies.
The Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions played a major role in shaping the concept of humanity. From the Judeo-Christian and Islamic teachings, humanity is a single entity drawn from a single God and from a single parentage of Adam and Eve. This is based in part on the Biblical verse (King James Version) (Genesis, 1: 27-28) which states that, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth”, and the Koran (4: 1) which among other many verses, says that, “O mankind! Be dutiful to your Lord, Who created you from a single person (Adam), and from him (Adam) He created his wife [Hawwa’ (Eve)], and from them both He created many men and women; and
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fear Allah (God) through whom you demand (your mutual rights), and (do not cut the relations of) the womb (kinship).” From this perspective which is also shared by the different African traditional religions in their belief in the Supreme Creator e.g. (Musiki/Musikavanhu, Shona words meaning the Supreme God) human beings are commanded by this Creator to act righteously towards each other, failure of which results in different forms of divine punishments. In this respect therefore, people have tended to assist each other in times of need.
Practically however, the application of the concept of humanity was accepted selectively by European powers, with only the Europeans being viewed as human while other races were seen as sub-humans.
This assertion is supported by the fact that slavery was practiced by the European countries at a time when the Christian doctrine had developed strong roots in European societies. European thinkers like Gregorio, Aristotle and Sepulveda did not view Africans and American Indians as equal beings to Europeans basing either on the natural skin pigment or on other conjured scientific justifications, or their failure to adhere to Christian values (Sorabji, 2006: 22-23). This proves that political consideration also had a major influence on defining humanity. This argument is raised here given that when the Europeans popularized the concept of HMI in the 19th Century, they argued that the Ottoman Empire was mistreating Christians (Köchler, 2001). However, as noted by Köchler (2001), the European leaders were guilty of the same crime as they were inhumanely treating their colonial subjects in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Given this argument therefore, one would conclude that there was selective application of the norm humanitarianism based on skin colour.
Douzinas (2007: 1) questioned the whole notion of humanitarianism as we know it today. He further noted that the concept of humanity is an invention of modernity, and that its application was selective in the Roman Empire. He postulated that:
The Romans inherited the idea of humanity from Hellenistic philosophy, in particular Stoicism, and used it to distinguish between the homo humanus (free men, citizens or refined men), the educated Roman, and the homo barbarus (unrefined peripheral men). The ‘human man’ was regulated by the jus civile, had some knowledge of Greek culture and philosophy and spoke in a cultivated language – he was like a graduate who read Greats at Oxford and speaks with a slightly posh accent. The homo barbarus was subjected to the jus gentium, lacked the sophistication of the real man and lived in the periphery of the empire (Douzinas (2007: 1).
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While there was an acceptance of the respect of humanity in the Roman Empire as it was in Greece, it was selective. It distinguished between the Romans who were seen as subjects to the idea of being human people and barbarians who could otherwise be viewed in the Roman Empire as semi-humans and not subject to being treated with the morals applied to other humans. Such selectivity gave a moral backing for the inhumane treatment that could be meted on non-Romans (Sorabji, 2006: 23). It was this selectivity that was imported by the European countries when they moved into the colonized world. The selectivity strengthened the assertion that the application of the term humanitarian by Europeans and the Western world as we know it today is a recent invention.
Relatedly, it is noted that humanitarianism has gone through an evolutionary process since antiquity. It developed from the notion of humanism, from the secular world perspective, and religious righteousness from mostly the Judeo-Christian tradition and Islam as well as other religions in the world, both bringing up the concept of humanity (Douzinas, 2007: 2). According to Douzinas (2007: 2) humanism refers to the viewing of a human being as a species in existence “without differentiation or distinction in his nakedness and simplicity (from other human beings), united with all others in an empty nature deprived of substantive characteristics except for his free will, reason and soul”. On the one hand, humanism is pessimistic on the existence of a superior deity and puts faith in human beings as the source of human goodness (Evans, 1999: 1-2). On the other hand, the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions draw the concept of humanity from the religious parentage of Adam and Eve (The Bible (King James Version), Genesis 1: 27; The Koran, 4: 1). Hence, from the Abrahamic (a term used to refer to the three religions that trace their roots to Abraham, namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam) religious perspective all human beings are one nation. This religious world view command human beings to be good to one another as members of a single family, hence being the foundation of humanitarianism.
In the field of international military relations, the concept of a single humanity, which is seen as the viewing of different peoples in the world as one with universal rights, can be seen to have influenced the development of HMI (Franck and Rodley, 1973: 67). HMI is used to justify the intervention by powerful countries into another country, mostly weak ones to stop the excesses or brutality of a government against its own people (Krylov, 1995: 367). The concept was accepted as ethically right and justified by international law thinkers like Hugo Grotius (1625: 247). The concept was used by European powerful countries to militarily intervene in the affairs of the less powerful countries specifically the Ottoman Empire and in the crusades which began after Pope Urban II’s speech in 1095.
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The moral justification is however contested by political realist thinkers who view humanity as individually fragmented and in pursuance of individual happiness. They advance that HMIs are prone to abuse (Krylov, 1995: 403). However, proponents of the Solidarist International Society theory have a different view from the Realist thinkers. Wheeler (2001: 309) forwarded a case for a moral justification for HMI when he argued that, “there is often a compatibility between protecting the national interest, promoting international order, and enforcing human rights.” Belloni (2002: 37) puts forward that Solidarists “argue that intervention is a duty in cases of extreme human suffering. Intervention is thought to actually strengthen the legitimacy of the society of states and deepen its commitment to justice.”
However, not all proponents of the International Society theory subscribe to the moral imperative of HMI.
Pluralists, including Hedley Bull, “believe that states can agree only on a minimum set of rules of coexistence, in particular sovereignty and non-intervention. … Humanitarian intervention is a violation of these rules safeguarding the independent choices of other political communities, and is inherently open to the possibility of abuse by the strong trying to coerce the weak” (Belloni, 2002: 36-37). Hence, the concept of HMI has been divisive among the International Society theorists.