Book contents
- In the Cause of Humanity
- Human Rights in History
- In the Cause of Humanity
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Interventionism and Humanitarianism under the Sign of Internationalism
- Part II The Struggle against the Atlantic Slave Trade and the Emergence of a Humanitarian Understanding of Intervention
- 4 Dehumanisation and Humanitarian Mobilisation
- 5 From National Ban to International Implementation
- 6 Possibilities and Limits of International Cooperation
- Part III Humanitarian Intervention and Its Solidification as an Imperial and Colonial Practice
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Dehumanisation and Humanitarian Mobilisation
from Part II - The Struggle against the Atlantic Slave Trade and the Emergence of a Humanitarian Understanding of Intervention
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2021
- In the Cause of Humanity
- Human Rights in History
- In the Cause of Humanity
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Interventionism and Humanitarianism under the Sign of Internationalism
- Part II The Struggle against the Atlantic Slave Trade and the Emergence of a Humanitarian Understanding of Intervention
- 4 Dehumanisation and Humanitarian Mobilisation
- 5 From National Ban to International Implementation
- 6 Possibilities and Limits of International Cooperation
- Part III Humanitarian Intervention and Its Solidification as an Imperial and Colonial Practice
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Chapter 4 focuses on the struggle against the Atlantic slave trade and the emergence of a humanitarian understanding of intervention. It begins by briefly outlining the system of the transatlantic traffic in slaves, which, by reducing human beings to a mere commodity in a circular trading system, constituted one of history’s worst humanitarian disasters. One of the central concerns of the abolitionists, who towards the end of the eighteenth century grew from a small cohort of well-connected activists to a mass movement, was to reverse this process of dehumanisation and render slaves visible in public discourse as fellow human beings who were suffering and in need of help. The focus is thus placed on the successful humanitarian mobilisation of the public by means of a targeted ‘humanitarian narrative’ and an unprecedented combination of multifarious instruments of appeal. For strategic reasons, the abolitionists concentrated their efforts on the slave trade, which was to be terminated by means of state intervention. A close interlinkage of mobilisation in parliament and civil society can be observed here, for the activists used petitions and legislative initiatives in their attempts to make their cause the official policy of the British government. In doing so, the abolitionists were the first to link humanitarianism with the policy and practice of state intervention.
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- In the Cause of HumanityA History of Humanitarian Intervention in the Long Nineteenth Century, pp. 49 - 71Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021