UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title In the Name of Humanity: Britain and the Rise of Global Humanitarianism Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2zh7h4hx Author Sasson, Tehila Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California In the Name of Humanity: Britain and the Rise of Global Humanitarianism By Tehila Sasson A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Thomas W. Laqueur, Chair Professor James Vernon, Chair Professor Stefan Ludwig Hoffmann Professor Wendy L. Brown Fall 2015 Copyright © 2015 Tehila Sasson All rights reserved Abstract In the Name of Humanity: Britain and the Rise of Global Humanitarianism by Tehila Sasson Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Thomas W. Laqueur, Chair James Vernon, Chair This study examines how a new humanitarian community emerged in the late 1960s and why it came to act in the name of “humanity.” To realize the nature of this transformation, the study focuses on Britain and its relationship to more global forms of humanitarianism. In post-imperial Britain a new set of actors beyond the British state came to adopt humanitarian ethics. In a series of case studies, the study examines how humanitarianism mobilized a range of new historical actors who came to replace the imperial state, beginning with non-governmental activists and former military experts and expanding to include multinational corporations and ordinary people. Initially, post-imperial aid relied on imperial infrastructure and knowledge. In the 1960s, organizations such as Oxfam used former Imperial experts to manage and distribute global relief in places like Nigeria. Older imperial institutions like the British military became major respondents to disasters in the Sahel and South Asia. But the post- imperial landscape also included new, more business-minded actors. In the mid-1970, multinational corporations and private businesses began developing their own solutions to humanitarian suffering through agribusiness projects. Through charity shops, rock concerts, and boycotts, ordinary people, consumers, and youth groups joined such multinationals in acting for the cause of humanity. By the 1980s, humanitarian organizations operated as a profitable business, generating substantial revenues that were mobilized to care for, rescue, and intervene in response to natural and man-made disasters such as famines, civil wars, and earthquakes. Drawing on extensive archival work in Britain, the United States, and Switzerland, this study shows that British humanitarianism was shaped by both the legacies of the end of empire and the tensions brought by new forces of globalization in the 1970s. The end of empires created the globalization of markets and goods as well as the rise of nongovernmental and commercial actors. In a period of economic globalization and mass consumption, I argue, a new humanitarian culture came to commodify aid. As such, I argue, British humanitarianism became part of the new, increasingly market-driven, political economy of the 1970s. In doing so, Britons were integrated into affective and economic communities of aid, as well as the project of global governance. 1 To the memory of Boaz Neumann i Acknowledgements It is only fitting that a dissertation that examines the making of a global community should begin by thanking the extraordinary communities of teachers and friends in three continents who have guided me as I embarked on this project. Their unstinting kindness and patience have helped me translate some very obscure and scattered ideas into words, narratives, and meanings, as I completed this dissertation. Throughout my career at Berkeley I have enjoyed the generous and stimulating intellectual support of Thomas Laqueur and James Vernon, who encouraged me to pursue a broad and ambitious project with breadth and imagination. From my early days in Berkeley, Thomas Laqueur has challenged me to connect the “cosmic to the particular,” as he liked to say, and to treat my historical subjects with great compassion. James Vernon has been a friend and a mentor, whose support, encouragement, and patience helped me find my voice as a historian and connect the past with our current political, economic and social present. Wendy Brown joined my committee and soon became a mentor who pushed me to think critically and analytically beyond any disciplinary boundaries. Finally, with the addition of Stefan Ludwig-Hoffmann, whose support and advice have been indispensable, they all provided the perfect dissertation team. I also want to thank various friends and teachers at Berkeley who provided support, advice, and guidance a various stages of my graduate career including Jennifer Allen, Chris Casey, Bathsheba Demuth, Hannah Farber, Hilary Falb, Sheer Ganor, Alice Goff, Rebecca Harman, Katie Harper, Robert Harkins, Carla Hesse, Daniel Immerwahr, Penny Ismay, Marti Jay, Vanessa Lincoln, Saba Mahmood, Radhika Natarajan, Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe, Terry Renaud, Sam Robinson, Jason Rozumalski, Julia Shatz, Jeff Schaur, Caroline Shaw, Jonathan Sheehan, Daniel Ussiskin, and Sam Wetherel. Special thanks goes to Daniel Sargent who read most of this dissertation and provided me with helpful criticism and comments. Samantha Iyre’s friendship and rigorous intellectual passion has inspired me from the very first summer of graduate school that we spent in Crouch End. Outside of Berkeley, I have met other friends, colleagues and intellectual communities who inspired me while undertaking this ambitious project. In North America, I have been incredibly lucky to have Jordanna Bailkin, Philippa Levine, and Priya Satia read parts of this project and push me to express my ideas with greater clarity and complexity. I also want to thank Aidan Forth, Dane Kennedy, Seth Koven, William Roger Louis, Erik Linstrum, Tom Meaney, Dirk Moses, Malika Rahal, Ben Siegel, Alden Young, Simon Stevens, and Merlin Young. Liz Fink has become, in a very short time, a close friend and offered emotional and intellectual support in the otherwise stressful year of finishing the dissertation. Across the Atlantic, in the United Kingdom and Switzerland, I am first and foremost in debt to the various archivists and librarians who helped me research this project and especially those at the League of Nations Archives in Geneva, The United Nations Archives and Library in Geneva, the World Health Organization Archives in Geneva, the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the Archivists at Cadbury Research Library at Birmingham, the British Red Cross Archives in London and the archivists at the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, the School for Oriental and ii African Studies, London, the National Archives, Kew, the British Library, London, and the BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham. In the United Kingdom I have also enjoyed conversing with Emily Baughan, David Feldman, Matthew Hilton, Claire Langhamer and Kevin O'Sullivan about humanitarianism and British history more generally. Seth Anziska’s friendship and wit has been a source of joy and delight. I will treasure our regular lunches at the British Library when we vented about Israeli politics and gossiped about our mutual communities in Israel, the United States, and Britain. The research and writing for this project were made possible by generous financial support from the Charlotte Newcombe Fellowship, the American Historical Association, the Mellon Foundation, the DAAD, the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion, the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, the Institutes for International, European and British Studies at Berkeley, as well as the R. Kirk Underhill Fellowship from the Institute for Governmental Studies, the Anglo-California Foundation, the Rafael Rodriguez Foreign Student Scholarship, UC Berkeley’s Graduate Division, and the History Department at UC Berkeley. Back in Tel Aviv, I am in debt to the communities of friends and colleagues who initially sparked my intellectual curiosity about the lives of the dead. I am thankful to Gadi Algazi, Igal Halfin, Vera Kaplan, Yardena Libovsky, Irad Malkin, Billie Melman, Michael Zakim, Iris Rachamimov and Shula Volkov for their mentorship as well as Michal Shapira for her advice as I embarked on a graduate career. I am especially thankful for the friendship and support I have received from Yael Fish, Adar Grayevsky, Moshik Guttman, Florian Grosser, Daniel Kressel, Yonatan Turgeman and Kim Yuval. My conversations with Yanay Israeli have made me a better thinker and a historian. Most of all, I am forever grateful for the support, love and patience from Linus Kraemer over the past three years. I also want to thank my family back home and especially Savta Yafa and Savta Simcha who have supported me throughout the years. Finally, I would like to dedicate this work to the memory of my teacher and friend Boaz Neumann. Boaz taught me how to be passionate and uncompromising in the craft of history and at the same time not to forget to live my life beyond this work. iii Table of Contents Introduction: In the Name of Humanity 1-20 Part I 1. Humanity After Empire 22-45 2. Disaster Militarism 46-80 Part II 3. Humanitarian Business 82-95 6. Affective Economies 96-116 Part II 6. Global Citizens 118-136 7. The Global Jukebox 137-152 Conclusion 153-156 Bibliography 157-173 iv Introduction In the Name of Humanity On March 25 1975 the Daily Express published a letter from a one of its readers, Mrs. Grace S. Barnes. Mrs. Barnes, a housewife from Kent, had been following the news about the latest famine in Bangladesh. As images of the destitute and starving masses circulated in the British press, she told the readers of the newspaper: “if we give up the equivalent of one hamburger a week, the starving of India and Bangladesh could be fed.” Mrs. Sheila Pott, from Longwick, Buckinghamshire expressed a similar sentiment.