For a long time, the word humanitarian gave rise to a part of a dream in each of us. The idea of surpassing oneself, of altruism, of openness to the world, especially distant ones – we haven’t yet calculated the carbon cost of traveling to Africa or Asia… Clichés? No doubt, but shared by generations at the end of the 20th century. Because the time was one of exploits, of the kuchnerization of minds, of a generous diplomacy, capable of prevailing over Realpolitik. The Berlin Wall was falling, we were singing for the Ethiopians who were starving, we were digging wells in Sudan, we were demining the rice fields of Cambodia…
This is how the NGO planet has long prospered, with its armies of volunteers, its 4×4 car parks parked in the capitals of what was called at the time the third world, its trucks of donations and subsidies, its rites, its injunctions. They were good people, repeating, like a mantra, the famous quote from Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross: “Only those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world succeed.” Their franchises were called Oxfam, Amnesty International, Médecins sans frontières…
It was the world of old. The one where NGOs took the side of the weak and the victims, without choosing their side. Without falling into the trap of excessive ideologization, frenzied anti-capitalism (a little anyway) or exacerbated anti-Zionism. We then called a spade a spade. A terrorist a terrorist. Without resorting to a thousand convolutions to avoid using this qualifier to designate Hamas, responsible for the killing of 1,400 people on October 7. Yet this is what the president of Amnesty International France has just done, who, taking refuge behind a disastrous legal quibble, refused to use this term. Did this man at least watch the images of this nauseating butchery, to which these hordes of bloodthirsty assassins were engaged? Or does he prefer to stick to the elements of language, disseminated for months by an NGO which has become monolithic, like this report published last year: “The apartheid committed by Israel against the Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity.” So hide this October 7th that I cannot see…
When it comes to interpreting history, Amnesty International already has a serious history. Is it not this organization, which, in August 2022, sent Ukrainians and Russians back to back in a scandalous report? The one who heads the organization at the global level, the Frenchwoman Agnès Callamard, explained without blinking: “We have documented a tendency of Ukrainian forces to endanger civilians and violate the laws of war when they operate in populated areas “. A few months later, an internal investigation will call into question the conclusions of this report. But by refusing to apply the word terrorist to Hamas, the president of Amnesty International France provides proof that his NGO has become the little telegraph operator of Putin and Hamas.