3 ms·

Thanks, that clears things up massively. I've never heard anything negative about the Red Cross (International Committee or otherwise) in Europe, and was a bit

by l0b0 9y ago

Thanks, that clears things up massively. I've never heard anything negative about the Red Cross (International Committee or otherwise) in Europe, and was a bit shocked to see their (collective) name pulled into the dirt.

toyg 9y ago
> I've never heard anything negative about the Red Cross (International Committee or otherwise) in Europe Well... my dad volunteered in various relief operations during the Balkan conflicts (Bosnia first and Kosovo later, raising and delivering aid as well as coordinating localised rebuild efforts). As a result, his opinion of Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières went way down. According to him, RC activities are routinely used for on-the-ground intelligence gathering and operations by most states involved, a lot of RC people are basically civil servants or straight out spies, and the org often discriminates on religious grounds in many ways (this was particularly relevant in Bosnia, where aid operations were effectively compartmentalised by faith); and MSF is only a career vehicle for a lot of people. Also according to him, a lot of volunteers in any org are simply out for easy sex, abusing their position of privilege with the local population - and often ignoring details like age of consent. We had a big row once, where I basically proposed that supranational orgs like those will inevitably become more and more key as disasters and wars get bigger and longer, and that scale helps dealing with these scenarios. He was extremely skeptical. This said, he still raises money for a smaller NGO every year. Obviously this is anecdote, but I bring it just to point out that critical outlooks on RC and other big "relief institutions" do exist, although they rarely coalesce in anything particularly scandalous or front-page worthy.

3 ms·

Thanks, that clears things up massively. I've never heard anything negative about the Red Cross (International Committee or otherwise) in Europe, and was a bit

by l0b0 9y ago

toyg 9y ago
> I've never heard anything negative about the Red Cross (International Committee or otherwise) in Europe Well... my dad volunteered in various relief operations during the Balkan conflicts (Bosnia first and Kosovo later, raising and delivering aid as well as coordinating localised rebuild efforts). As a result, his opinion of Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières went way down. According to him, RC activities are routinely used for on-the-ground intelligence gathering and operations by most states involved, a lot of RC people are basically civil servants or straight out spies, and the org often discriminates on religious grounds in many ways (this was particularly relevant in Bosnia, where aid operations were effectively compartmentalised by faith); and MSF is only a career vehicle for a lot of people. Also according to him, a lot of volunteers in any org are simply out for easy sex, abusing their position of privilege with the local population - and often ignoring details like age of consent. We had a big row once, where I basically proposed that supranational orgs like those will inevitably become more and more key as disasters and wars get bigger and longer, and that scale helps dealing with these scenarios. He was extremely skeptical. This said, he still raises money for a smaller NGO every year. Obviously this is anecdote, but I bring it just to point out that critical outlooks on RC and other big "relief institutions" do exist, although they rarely coalesce in anything particularly scandalous or front-page worthy.