PDF The Biafran War and Postcolonial Humanitarianism Spectacles of Suffering Human Rights in History Lasse Heerten 9781107530423 Books

Product details Series Human Rights in History Paperback 414 pages Publisher Cambridge University Press (March 28, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 1107530423

The Biafran War and Postcolonial Humanitarianism Spectacles of Suffering Human Rights in History Lasse Heerten 9781107530423 Books Reviews

• This book does an admirable job of describing the politics, propaganda and humanitarianism that went hand in hand in creating the "Biafran Crisis of 1968." The besieged rebels of the Nigerian breakaway state of Biafra exploited the imagery of emaciated "Biafran Babies" in order to further their cause of self-determination, while the Western liberals jumped on the bandwagon of analogizing the situation in blockaded Biafra with the Holocaust. I vividly remember as a young teenager the front covers of magazines featuring the bloated bellies of the near-death children. But inevitably the exaggeration of the comparison of the plight of Biafrans as being akin to Auschwitz were exposed and the 15 minute attention span of the West was diverted elsewhere (in 1968 there was lots of competition for liberal angst.) The author describes how, regardless of how sympathetic the Western public was, their governments (with the notable exception of France) were unmoved and ignored the fervent pleas for intervention or even pressure on the Nigerians. The end goal of the Biafran government was not the rescue of starving citizens but the recognition of their country as an independent state. To this end they found little satisfaction, as only a handful of unimportant countries offered them formal recognition. Indeed, the meeting of like minds on the issue of preserving postcolonial state's integrity made for strange bedfellows; the USSR sided with most Western nations in staying neutral. Tellingly, even France, though generous in supplying weapons and aid, refrained from that most desired step. In the end, tiny Biafra had to succumb to superior Nigerian resources. But the outpouring of empathy for the Biafrans, followed soon after by the bloodbath of the Bangladeshi war of 1971, spurred the creation of many NGOs , notably the French MSF that continues its good works to this day. The book makes an attempt to address the thorny issue of humanitarianism versus outside interference in a nation's civil strife, using Biafra as a test case, but for every "rule" the author attempted to make about what the tripwires for outside intervention should be for addressing humanitarian abuses by sovereign states, he ignored cases that showed how easy these would be to distort for self serving ends. Surely Rwanda in 1994 and Cambodia from 1975-79 have to be the supreme test cases for such standards, but in both the West found it more comfortable to sit on their hands rather than punish bona fide perpetrators of genocide. In both instances, as opposed to the initial hysterical overreaction to Biafra, the West found it easier to either support the murderers or justify their excesses, at least at the beginning. All in all a good summary of a little known and forgotten conflict that captured the world's attention for a few months. It also provides a useful perspective on the wider issue of state sovereignty versus human rights.