Desire to help and adventure
THOSE WHO TRAVEL EXTENSIVELY have many tales to tell. This is certainly true of the five Swiss women and seven Swiss men who report on their humanitarian aid work in the anthology “Die andere Seite der Welt” (The Other Side of the World). Some were involved in emergency relief aid, some in development aid, and others in both. They all share a desire to help combined with a spirit of adventure. The third key quality they possess is the ability to negotiate in foreign cultures.
Lengthy interviews have produced recollections and observations in the first person, often about perilous situations, even if sometimes “only” on journalistic assignments (Al Imfeld before his time as a development missionary, Andrea König after working for the ICRC). Just under half of the portraits are about former ICRC delegates. Naturally, these Red Cross deployments often involved trouble spots. The interviews are part of an “oral history” project but they are presented uncritically and only with the necessary supplementary information.
Besides their adventures, this easy-to-read book, which is also suitable for young people, also provides great insight into the motivation of the workers, their approach and their relationship with local people and the head office in Switzerland. The latter appears sometimes to lack understanding of the situation on the ground but at the same time proves invaluable during crises. -“Today you spend half the day reading e-mails from Berne with your back turned to the country”, says the agronomist Martin Menzi recalling the “golden days” when he was a largely independent project manager several decades ago in India.
The account of the former ICRC delegate Antonella Notari is touching on a personal level, not just but certainly in part because her partner was fatally wounded before her eyes in Somalia. The reports of Notari’s ICRC colleagues, Carlos Bauverd, Beat von Däniken and Jacques Moreillon, also contain some extraordinary, disconcerting accounts, above all about prison visits. The two oldest contributors, Verena Fiechter, employed by the Basel Mission, and Anna Wicki, known as Sister Maria-Paula of the Baldegg Convent, recall their long-term humanitarian aid work as hospital managers in Africa. Both were given honorary native names, though a male nurse did tell the nun once when she got annoyed at all the chaos around them: “Mama, you cannot be like us, you have different chromosomes.” She took comfort from this.
Two other new publications look at Swiss development policy from very different perspectives. “Gemeinsam unterwegs. Eine Zeitreise durch 60 Jahre Entwicklungszusammenarbeit Schweiz-Nepal” (Travelling Together – a Journey through 60 Years of Development Cooperation between Switzerland and Nepal), written by Rolf Wilhelm, the former deputy director of the SDC, and other experts, is a portrayal and collection of material set out in chronological and thematic order. It was published by Haupt-Verlag, which also has another quasi official-sounding title by several authors in its portfolio: “Im Dienst der Menschheit – Meilensteine der Schweizer Entwicklungszusammenarbeit” (Serving Mankind – Milestones in Swiss Development Cooperation).
DANIEL GOLDSTEIN
THOMAS GULL, DOMINIK SCHNETZER: “Die andere Seite der Welt. Was Schweizerinnen und Schweizer im humanitären Einsatz erlebt haben”, hier+jetzt, Baden 2011, 272 pages,
CHF 42
