'Flight of the Swallows' by Giacomo Ball (1913). Photo: Wikipedia. Some rights reserved.
As the Mediterranean death toll shows no signs of abating, humanitarians involved in addressing the crisis are having a difficult time. Recent academic critiques have pointed out the flaws of contemporary international humanitarianism, noting humanitarians’ white saviour complex, their complicity with the forces of militarism and capitalism, the ways in which they deprive the people they are ostensibly helping of agency, and the ways they trap them in a condition of perpetual depoliticised victimhood. Equally recently humanitarian activities of various kinds have been the target of political undermining and outright assault coming from the political right. One striking example is the official British position to oppose search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean because, as the subsequent Tory governments have claimed, such activities act as a “pull factor” that simply tempts more migrants into risking their lives. This claim has circulated also elsewhere in Europe. Meanwhile in the United States the concern of the new administration has been not so much with repelling refugees as with outright banning their arrival.
