An Imperfect Offering
Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century
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5.0 • 7 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
“As Albert Camus wrote, the doctor’s role is as a witness–to witness authentically the reality of humanity, and to speak out against the horrors of political inaction. . . . The only crime equaling inhumanity is the crime of indifference, silence, and forgetting.”
—James Orbinski
In 1988, after a year-long research trip investigating pediatric AIDS in Africa, Dr. James Orbinski was inspired to work with others to establish the Canadian chapter of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders/MSF). After working in Peru, Somalia and Afghanistan in 1994, Orbinski agreed to serve as the Chef de Mission for MSF in Kigali, Rwanda and arrived at the centre of civil war and genocide. Confronted by indescribable cruelty, he struggled to regain his footing as a
doctor, a humanitarian and a man.
In An Imperfect Offering, Orbinski explores the nature of humanitarian action in the twenty-first century and insists that while responding to the suffering of others, we must never deny them their agency or lose sight of their dignity.
“Ummera, ummera–sha” is a Rwandan saying that loosely translated means ‘Courage, courage, my friend–find your courage and let it live.’ It was said to me by a patient at our hospital in Kigali. She was slightly older than middle aged and had been attacked with machetes, her entire body rationally and systematically mutilated. Her face had been so carefully disfigured that a pattern was obvious in the slashes. I could do little more for her at that moment than stop the bleeding with a few sutures. We were completely overwhelmed. She knew and I knew that there were so many others. She said to me in the clearest voice I have ever heard, “Allez, allez. Ummera, ummera-sha” –‘Go, go. Courage, courage, my friend–find your courage and let it live.’
—From An Imperfect Offering
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this captivating look at humanitarian intervention in the 20th century, Orbinski, former head of the NGO M decins Sans Fronti res (Doctors Without Borders), uses stories from his decades of service with the group to examine "how to be in relation with the suffering of others." The author describes his time on the front lines of suffering in Russia, Somalia and Afghanistan. When Orbinski recounts his second term in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, the book reaches an emotional peak: it was his "undoing," and struggling with the horror he has seen, he drifts into a "netherworld of confusion," fighting to regain his "footing as a man, as a doctor and as a putative humanitarian." His ensuing reflections on humanitarianism are as riveting as his personal thoughts, which include diary entries, recollections and correspondence with friends in the humanitarian and diplomatic corps. The book manages to be both personal enough to construe the human toll of political and social disasters without falling into the trap of maudlin, patronizing depictions of human suffering. Orbinski, who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for M decins Sans Fronti res in 1999 does credit to his organization and his humanitarian credo.
