Kim jest cywil?

• Authors: Waldemar Rapior

Title variants

EN

Who is a civilian?

Abstracts

EN

Pursuant to Art. 52 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, “civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals”. Such objects include hospitals, market squares, schools, residential buildings or modern urban life institutions. Reports on attacks on civilians make us realise the fragility of human beings. How shall we understand the category of ‘civilian’? How does this category function nowadays, and why is it so important for the modern lifestyle? These questions will be addressed through the exploration of the Civil March for Aleppo case study. The march that started in Berlin on 26th December 2016 is an inherently apolitical initiative which was organised by civilians for civilians. However, since it started there has been a discussion among the marching Syrians and Europeans on political issues surrounding the march and the ‘illusion of objectivity’ – whether other, engaged parties’ viewpoint should be taken into consideration in the march. I joined the march twice, for a few days, had a lot of conversations with the participants and took part in discussions that sometimes turned into aggressive, hourslong, argumentative exchanges. The words of one female activist saying that “peace without justice is just an empty word”, I treat as a starting point for my exploration of the notion of aptness in the combining of politics with humanitarianism. On the one hand, campaigners, such as Linda Polman and David Rieff, politicians, such as Colin Powell, and philosophers, Giorgio Agamben, criticise the ‘neutrality of humanitarianism’ rule, because strict following of this principle results in the cooperation of NGOs with authoritarian regimes and losing the credibility of peace keeping missions. On the other hand, philosophers specialising in armed conflicts, such as David W. Lovell and Igor Primoratz, point out that the civilian’s immunity is not categorical. This criticism is not without merit, but participation in the march made me understand how important it is to pose questions, from both the faraway, overseas, civilians’ perspective and from the European one. Namely, are we – the outsiders – capable enough to understand the complexity of the Syrian conflict and take one of the sides? Or, the only thing we can do is not adopt a particular political stance but adopt a distinctive humanitarian attitude. Should initiatives such as the civilian March for Aleppo remain neutral or, rather, should they be against something (whether it is the Assad rule, Russia, or European decision-makers or somebody else entirely)? Is it possible to be impartial without being neutral? All these questions are significant due to the fundamental separation of politics and war from the civilians’ life.

• Publisher: Narodowe Centrum Kultury
• Journal: Kultura Współczesna. Teoria. Interpretacje. Praktyka
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 95
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 110-126

Contributors

author

Waldemar Rapior

Identifiers

DOI

10.26112/kw.2017.95.09

Biblioteka Nauki

1848354