An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century. Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century

“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

Dr. James Orbinski is a Canadian physician, humanitarian activist, author, and scholar in global health. He is a past international President of Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), on behalf of which he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. He received the Meritorious Service Award in 1998 for his work with MSF in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. He founded the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, and Dignitas International, and his front-line work has been documented in the award-winning film Triage and his book An Imperfect Offering. He is currently the principal of Massey College at the University of Toronto, a Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, and cross-appointed to the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy as well as the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. He became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2009.