The humanitarian conscience between war and peace

Tobias Kelly examines the fine line which humanitarianism walks between war and peace. On the one hand, humanitarianism seeks to prevent violence; on the other, it may become implicated in violence to achieve these ends. Kelly takes as a case study the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU), loosely affiliated with the British Quakers, which worked in China during the Second World War, and was committed to self-sacrifice, witness, and service. Its desire to be of service to a society at war sometimes meant uneasy proximity to the military, relying on soldiers for supplies and transport as well as themselves operating with military-like uniforms and training. Some members of the FAU had doubts about the enterprise, feeling that it made too many compromises or was ineffective at its work. Nonetheless, the members of the FAU maintained a hope in the human potential to overcome violence that can provide lessons to humanitarianism today.