phosphorusIf there is a humanitarian emergency anywhere in the world, the needs seem to be very consistent. Once people escape the immediate danger, they need food, shelter, clothing, and medical assistance—in other words, these things can support our bodies. The most pressing issue is how to procure the goods and services needed and how to distribute them effectively.
However, the factor that determines whether the emergency is resolved quickly or allowed to persist is politics. If you want to see what happens when the political solution fails, the bushes on the northern coast of France, just across the English Channel, are a place to see.
The recent decision of Choose Love, a celebrity-backed charity founded after the European refugee crisis in 2015, is Withdraw most of the funds For aid projects located in northern France, it does not mean that the needs there have changed in nature. An estimated 2,000 immigrants are camping in and around Calais, looking for a way to reach the UK-fewer than when the crisis peaked in 2015 and 2016, but more than at other times in the past.Many of them are impoverished; as winter approaches, local aid organizations that provide everything from clean water and cooking equipment to phone charging have started. Urgent appeal To make up for the funding gap.
However, if there are no major changes in the situation on the ground, the context for the distribution of aid has changed. Political leaders never want immigrants to go to Calais. For at least two decades, the French authorities, encouraged by the United Kingdom, have tried to reduce living conditions as much as possible by demolishing camps and expelling shanty towns.But public sympathy emerged in 2015-thousands of people at the time Europe The demonstrations supported the refugees, and many others joined volunteer work and provided material help—forcing them to withdraw temporarily.
Choosing love to be established, initially in the name of help refugeeIn this wave of sympathy, it is composed of three media-savvy activists. It won the support of celebrities including Coldplay’s Chris Martin, actors Olivia Coleman and Phoebe Waller-Bridge One of the boutiques sells fashion brand goods to raise funds. Today, the charity has expanded to work with refugees in 22 countries and has raised 35 million pounds.
Now, politicians are once again talking about the immigrants in Calais Inconvenience that must be eliminated – By repelling people instead of establishing a route to safety.In a recent statement, the British Home Office hinted that aid volunteers in northern France were part of the problem, telling the Guardian November 3: “Encouraging these strait border crossing points is dangerous. These border crossing points are illegal, unnecessary, and are facilitated by violent criminal gangs that profit from suffering.” This is in line with More hostile attitude In recent years, European governments have expressed their gratitude to humanitarians who they consider to be inconvenient: This month, two volunteers, Seán Binder and Sarah Mardini, who saved lives in the Aegean Sea, Trial in Greece Accused of human trafficking, money laundering, fraud and espionage.
In a statement posted on its Instagram page, Choose Love stated that it was forced to make “some difficult decisions” in its strategic review, and factors including the pandemic have prompted the decision to largely withdraw from Calais. (Funds will still be provided to two charities working with unaccompanied minors in the northern region France.) But its decision tells us something broader about the limitations of this humanitarian activism, and it tries to mobilize the power of brand and celebrity endorsements. It can be a powerful way of raising funds and allocating resources in a targeted way-but what happens when attention is shifted elsewhere and political issues remain unresolved?
The promise of this type of action is that it provides us with the opportunity to solve the world’s problems while minimizing damage to our own privileged lifestyles or the systems that support them.As the late theorist Mark Fisher wrote Capitalist Realism in his bookThis is a form of social protest, but it provides “fantasy…Western consumerism is far from the inherent involvement of systemic global inequality, and it can solve these problems by itself. All we have to do is buy the right products.”
Compared with other more “real” forms, Fisher’s view is not that celebrity-driven activism is inherently false or insincere. On the contrary, it embodies a culture in which we are encouraged to see ourselves as consumers rather than as political subjects. In the victorious era of global capitalism, before the 2008 collapse, the goals of this mode of action were high. Live 8 is a series of charity concerts held in 2005 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the founding of Live Aid. What it requires is nothing more than the eradication of global poverty. Bono’s Product Red is a fundraising partnership with corporate brands launched the following year, taking it one step further. “Charity is like hippie music, holding hands,” U2 lead singer said. “Red is more like punk rock and hip-hop. This should be a difficult business.”
Today’s picture is more fragmented. The new generation of global billionaires does not even need the illusion of public consent. They use their huge wealth to pursue personal passions from space travel to the eradication of disease. At the same time, campaigns that appeal to the public’s imagination are now more likely to focus on crises closer to home. Think about the fundraising activities that have dominated the British public’s attention in recent years: we are not only asked to help keep refugees alive on our doorstep, but also to raise funds for the NHS and prevent children from starving during school holidays-task our government, One of the richest governments in the world should be able to manage itself. It is more obvious than ever that charity is a response to a shaky system, not a sign of its success.
Choosing love is the product of the moment when thousands of ordinary people intervene in a situation they consider unjust. Its priorities may have changed, but this situation still exists. Calais is not the place where natural disasters occur, but a place where the government deliberately creates scarcity for political purposes. It directly becomes the core of the debate about how the state regulates immigration, which is itself a representative of war, global inequality, and more and more broader issues. Climate crisisIn this case, the simple but urgent act of providing assistance to others has potentially greater significance because it challenges established ways of doing things. We should continue to provide this kind of help in Calais-but we should also ask why it is necessary first.
