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This chapter addresses two arguments on the basic differences between “secular” and “religious” organizations. It first studies the creation of the layered and complicated meanings of the sacred in the life of modern humanitarian organizations. It then studies two religious and two secular organizations and how they express and give meaning to the sacred. The chapter also discusses the consequences of the creation of the sacred, which is common to both secular and religious organizations, and shows how these organizations connect with the “profane” and with the world.

This chapter expresses concern with the one-sided nature of humanitarian actors’ narratives from Syria, which is promoted by international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) through their large presence in the media. It discusses how these humanitarian actors’ narratives contributed heavily to the growing alienation and intransigence between the opposition and the government, making any meaningful dialogue between them nearly impossible. It also mentions the humanitarian actors’ contribution to the spread of disinformation in the Syrian war due to their presence on only one side of the conflict. The chapter refers to humanitarian actors who continued to defy the constraints on providing assistance by finding ways to deliver aid inside areas under siege and by speaking out against the complete disregard for civilian life and infrastructure by the warring parties. It reviews the history of contemporary humanitarian organizations’ formation, as well as their role and the activities in which they have participated.

This chapter analyzes how foreigners have dealt with the Myanmar problem by examining the policies adopted by outsiders over the past quarter-century. The first section provides an overview of the global debate about Myanmar. The second looks at engagement strategies associated mainly with Asian states and a range of humanitarian organizations. The third evaluates the efforts of western states and activist groups to sanction and isolate Myanmar. The final section analyzes the degree of political leverage foreigners have been able to exercise over the dominant military machine and looks for pointers to future involvement. It is argued that external actors have generally fallen far short of their major objectives in shaping Myanmar's politics. The result is that today global policy responses are fiercely contested not only among outsiders, but also among people living and working inside the country.

This chapter examines the relations between Poland and the United States, focusing on the period between September 1982 and January 1985. More specifically, it considers how decisions to lift individual U.S. sanctions were used to push for gradual reforms as part of what was known as the “step-by-step” policy. In one particular instance, sanctions were exchanged for political prisoners. This chapter also looks at the continuing work by humanitarian organizations, as well as the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy, which significantly increased resources provided by the United States in support of opposition underground in Poland. Finally, it discusses the role of Radio Free Europe and the Catholic Church within Poland, together with the efforts of the Polish United Worker's Party (PZPR) to liberalize and reform the system.

Based on ninety-nine interviews carried out with health professionals, this chapter briefly describes how the Syrian government transformed medical units into strategic targets. It then turns to discuss the legal advocacy strategy used by human rights and humanitarian organizations, claiming that while the law provides medical units with a series of protections, it also introduces crucial exceptions, setting out conditions under which warring parties can legally unleash violence against health facilities and staff. Even as accountability for the violation of international humanitarian law has been the primary rallying cry for NGOs seeking justice in Syria, the chapter argues that invoking the law to seek relief from violence is not necessarily the best strategy since the law itself sows doubt on the validity and solidity of the moral injunction to protect medical units.

This chapter examines the role of social service agencies, independent adoption organizations, humanitarian organizations, and individuals in facilitating Asian international adoption in the United States. The labor of many different agencies and organizations, it argues, has transformed the United States into an international adoption nation. It also highlights the efforts of charismatic individuals who popularized international and transracial adoption in the United States in the mid-twentieth century, including Harry and Bertha Holt, Nobel Prize-winning writer Pearl S. Buck, and screen siren Jane Russell. In addition, it considers Asian international adoption in the historical context of US immigration and how it created a vision of the world in which national, cultural, and political borders could and should be crossed. In particular, it looks at the work of World Vision, a Portland, Oregon-based organization founded by Christian minister Bob Pierce to facilitate international adoption from Asia. Finally, the chapter assesses the legacy of independent adoption programs in America.

This chapter outlines how the history of health care in Syria has shaped the way in which wartime health care has been delivered and controlled. The chapter analyzes the claim by humanitarian organizations to a form of neutrality in the Syrian war, which was ultimately incompatible with the way the Syrian state and the opposition saw aid delivery as part of the battle for statehood. It also mentions how service providers to areas controlled by the opposition were seen by the Syrian government as complicit in directly challenging the legitimacy of the state. The chapter looks at opposition groups that co-opted humanitarian assistance to enforce their own legitimacy to the population.

The Conclusion considers the distance between Bonhoeffer’s politics and ours. Our own thinking about political resistance in the West tends to begin with the idea of inviolable human rights, the protection of which is a chief duty of the state. If the state allows those rights to be violated or violates them itself, individual citizens ought to resist, and the church should lend its moral authority. As this book has shown, Bonhoeffer’s vision of resistance differs from ours in several important ways. His political thinking privileges not rights but the state’s mandate for preservation. And for him it is not the chief task of the church but rather humanitarian organizations to speak out against the state on moral grounds. This latter, consistently articulated distinction between humanitarian organizations and the church as the gospel community frequently sets Bonhoeffer’s politics at some distance from ours.