An Imperfect Offering: Dispatches from the Medical Frontline by James Orbinski
Rider Books, £16.99
THIS is the extraordinary story of James Orbinski, former president of Médecins Sans Frontières – Doctors Without Borders – and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize on their behalf. He was born in Britain, into a devout Roman Catholic family, in 1960 but moved to Canada when he was seven. He considered becoming a priest but decided to train as a doctor and, after graduating from medical school, volunteered as a founding member of MSF Canada.
Orbinski believes in humanitarianism and its principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence. At first he looked at humanitarianism as outside politics but has come to realise that they relate to each other: “Humanitarianism involves an insistence that international humanitarian law be applied and a call to others to act as citizens to demand that governments respect basic human dignity.”
He takes us through his experiences of some of the world’s most catastrophic humanitarian disasters. From Somalia, Afghanistan and Rwanda to Ground Zero in New York, he describes the suffering and brutality he has witnessed and shows what ordinary people can do in those situations.
In Somalia – the City of Death as it became known – he witnessed starvation and civil war. He describes how the Amercian-led United Nations military intervention used “force in a clumsy effort at statecraft”.
Up to 10,000 Somalis were beaten, tortured and killed by United States, Canadian, Italian and Belgian troops. UN forces shelled hospitals and Somali public opinion turned against the UN-mandated mission.
In Rwanda in 1994 he describes the criminal politics of genocide where more than a million people, mostly Tutsis, were butchered in 14 weeks: “A brutal, horrible time, a time of rational, systematic and state-planned evil.”
Part memoir, part call to arms, Orbinski’s story is moving and compelling. His dedication, compassion and commitment are inspiring. He says that An Imperfect Offering is about “finding a way to confront unjust human suffering in the world as it is”.
As well as witnessing human cruelty and suffering, he describes how he has witnessed the good of which human beings are capable: “The good of those who refuse to remain silent as another is violated, and who act to right a wrong. It is the good we can be if we so choose.”
Melina Sophocleous
