ENGAGEMENT: The Morals of Aid

The space of humanitarian aid is empty: it's contingent upon the suffering individual as the locus of attention, where formal, superceding, structures of international organizations meet needs that could not be addressed by the structures in which aid recipients have a political stake, i.e. the national government. (of course, political enfranchisement was not, and is not, uniform by any means) This impulse to aid is tempered by several contextual vectors, including 1. material contraints of funding, material, and transportation logistics, 2. public relations in recuritment and fundraising, and 3, local agents that may or may not permit access to the aid recipient. The USC mission prefigured the 80-90s trend of humanitarian aid that circumvented government structures, and it was at all points under the direction of UNRRA or the Polish Government / Ministries. While invited, their efforts were frustrated by very local agents who wanted to derive benefits that may be contrary to the purpose of aid. In addition, as aid givers, USC retained quite a bit of power in determining the terms of aid. The situation was never as simple as, you ask, and you shall receive as an empty humanitarian landscape may suggest. Rather, humanitarian agencies like the USC often dictated the moral values of aid that separated what is sensible or correct, here the latest American medical equipment, vs. what is ridiculous or wrong, or for the hospital everyday supplies like blankets.