How important is the role of aid workers?

[RSS News]

It is first ever UN World Humanitarian Day to honour international aid workers. Do they need recognition?

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[AntifaAustralia]

yeah, they do good. the emergency stuff, like natural disasters, temporary relief stuff. without them the people of the world wouldve starved.

Is there a glorious UN army day, i am totally for that.

Need security, and wealth distribution, jobs..... most of all socialism. international socialism.

[BobKKKindle$]

without them the people of the world wouldve starved.There are still people who starve, every day. According to this (http://www.bread.org/learn/hunger-basics/hunger-facts-international.html), 1.02 billion people across the world are hungry, and each day almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes, not to mention the fact that poor nutrition and calorie deficiencies cause nearly one in three people to die prematurely or have disabilities. The prevalence of hunger in a world that has the ability to produce enough good to feed not only our current population but also a population significantly larger than that which currently exists affirms that capitalism is not a system that is capable of meeting mankind's needs, and systematically leads to the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, and poverty for almost everyone else. Doubtless there are some cases where the efforts of aid workers has made a difference but I feel that it's just a drop in the ocean compared to what actually needs to be done to stop hunger and starvation.


Is there a glorious UN army day, i am totally for that.Why? In its capacity as an agent of intervention the UN has historically been used by the "western" imperialist bloc as a means to create a humanitarian facade for interventions that were actually carried out in order to protect the economic and strategic interests of the countries that comprise that bloc. That's certainly what the UN did in Korea, where the army was overwhelmingly comprised of US troops and was used to turn what was initially a civil war between two authoritarian governments (one of which, the government of the northern half of the peninsula under Kim Il-Sung, later to become the DPRK, was somewhat progressive due to its decision to carry out land reform, although it certainly wasn't a socialist government, as it claimed, as its creation did not come about as a result of the working class seizing control of the means of production) into a proxy conflict between the USSR and NATO at considerable human cost (around 2.5 civilians in total) due to the use of carpet bombing and other destructive weapons, many being used for the first time, with the UN force violating its mandate by pushing all the way to the Yalu River, marking the border between the DPRK and the PRC*, where MacArthur argued in favour of expanding the force's role to overthrow the new government of China, under the CCP, and restore Chiang Kai-shek. There's no reason to assume that if intervention took place under the aegis of the UN in Sudan as is widely advocated in the US, it would be able to solve the problems of that country, or be anything less than an imperialist intervention, or an inter-imperialist conflict, directed against the PRC.

*In fact, the PRC wasn't even acknowledged to exist in the UN until 1971.

[AntifaAustralia]

From above ^^^ looky up dere^^^

Yes i know international aid is the most cheapest form of aid that a rich nation could use to show SOME BIT OF HEART. I completely agree wit you there brother.

The UN army is something to be applauded for some things, but i think they could play a better role in International socialism. They have made some horrible decisions with KOREA i must admit, but their overall aim is to achieve peace.

Now that the UN is comprised of wealthy nations i think that is digusting, the UN interventions nowadays seem to respect the imperialist desires of the first world nations.

The overall aspect of human rights and social justice by the UN in a way is communist like, and it is neccessary for international socialism.

I even like the US army on some things too, the overthrow of the Fascist war mongering saddam hussein. We all know that they went in to secure oil resources, and national security (perhaps), but still is was some sort of action neccessary for the people of Iraq, and now look, they plan on solving the problems of the middle east(but not bloody well).

Man i would love america to contribute to international society, damn they are so selfish. Should we steal from them? but damn they have a good army. But North korea has nukes LOL, now they are shitting themselves.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Yes i know international aid is the most cheapest form of aid that a rich nation could use to show SOME BIT OF HEART. I completely agree wit you there brother.

The UN army is something to be applauded for some things, but i think they could play a better role in International socialism. They have made some horrible decisions with KOREA i must admit, but their overall aim is to achieve peace.

Now that the UN is comprised of wealthy nations i think that is digusting, the UN interventions nowadays seem to respect the imperialist desires of the first world nations.

The overall aspect of human rights and social justice by the UN in a way is communist like, and it is neccessary for international socialism.

I even like the US army on some things too, the overthrow of the Fascist war mongering saddam hussein. We all know that they went in to secure oil resources, and national security (perhaps), but still is was some sort of action neccessary for the people of Iraq, and now look, they plan on solving the problems of the middle east(but not bloody well).

Man i would love america to contribute to international society, damn they are so selfish. Should we steal from them? but damn they have a good army. But North korea has nukes LOL, now they are shitting themselves.

The UN is dominated by imperialist countries and the international bourgeoisie. We need working class internationalism and cooperation between countries, but the UN doesn't foster either of those things.

The U.S. overthrew Saddam Hussein because he stood in the way of their imperialist occupation of Iraq. Yes, Hussein was a war-mongering rightist, but he was supported by the US in the 80s and simply fell out of favor with them. It's no reason to admire the US military, which has brought increased suffering and anguish to the Iraqi people.

[Pawn Power]

*In fact, the PRC wasn't even acknowledged to exist in the UN until 1971.

And to this date Palestine still isn't recognized by the UN, though it is by FIFA.

[jake williams]

Yes, there are plenty of things wrong with the UN, but I think ignoring the work it does, especially UNICEF and the WFP, means you really don't care about the millions of lives it saves. I do. Yes, there are conflicting tendencies, and insofar as "aid" has a depoliticizing effect it needs to be challenged - but only that far, lest you run the risk of a sort of ultra-leftism utterly unconcerned about actually helping people. Moreover, UN aid really is qualitatively different from the sort of manipulation you get with country-country aid. It's not that there's no political use of aid by the UN, but it is much less so - again, the main political problem is the way it frames the issue, but that in no way means we should just let millions of people die because socialism is "better" than charity.

[BIG BROTHER]

The UN is good except...it just needs to be dismantled and replaced by an international organization conformed by representatives of a workers states all over the world were capitalism is to be abolished...that would make it better:thumbup:

[spaßmaschine]

Yes, there are plenty of things wrong with the UN, but I think ignoring the work it does, especially UNICEF and the WFP, means you really don't care about the millions of lives it saves. I do. Yes, there are conflicting tendencies, and insofar as "aid" has a depoliticizing effect it needs to be challenged - but only that far, lest you run the risk of a sort of ultra-leftism utterly unconcerned about actually helping people. Moreover, UN aid really is qualitatively different from the sort of manipulation you get with country-country aid. It's not that there's no political use of aid by the UN, but it is much less so - again, the main political problem is the way it frames the issue, but that in no way means we should just let millions of people die because socialism is "better" than charity.
Actually the work of UN agencies is often the cause of the starvation of these millions. UN agencies and "charity" NGOs are one of the major ways in which capitalist social relations have been imposed in the third world. Famines, for example, virtually never occur due to food shortages, but rather through the destruction of subsistence economies and the proletarianisation of those who depended on them. As a result of this dispossession, people are unable to purchase the food they need, and end up starving to death, even though large stockpiles of privately-owned food may exist nearby.

The need for "aid" has provided the basis for military intervention - for example, the US/UN intervention in Somalia in the early nineties was justified on the "right" of the US to be able to provide aid there. Once there, the aid was overwhelmingly provided to militaries on both sides of the Somalian/southern Ethiopian conflict, rather than to civilian parts of the population. This allowed the armies to continue fighting, while "proletarianising" nomads and subsistence farmers by driving them off the land and into refugee camps which gradually became urbanised.

Aid organisations are just as subject to the logic of capitalism as all other institutions in the current society, and must expand themselves or die. Aid organisations have a vested interest in extending and perpetuating the dispossession of their "clients". Aid agencies will not encourage subsistence, but rather try to reproduce the reliance of people on aid for survival, or else support the creation of small businesses through "micro-credit", which can begin to exploit the cheap, widespread impoverished workforce of the newly proletarianised .

some interesting articles on this topic are 'Development by Other Means' by Wildcat, 'War, Globalisation and Reproduction' by Silvia Federici.

both are available at libcom, but I can't link them because my post count isn't high enough