Kobayashi was deeply impressed by the writings of Shiga Naoya, whose realism, as well as the humanitarianism of the Shirakaba ("White Birch") group with which Shiga was associated, provided a model for his own idealistic concern with social problems.
This suggests the humanitarianism of our age demands – in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Libya – flattened cities, heaps of corpses, strife and bloodshed in order to find its fullest expression.
Or about the humanitarianism of the British that, as they were turning away from such practices as drawing and quartering, they were shipping slaves across the Atlantic?
"Our only message is one of peace, of humanitarianism, of tolerance, a message of interacting with the people".
This disparity has led to widespread disaffection in struggling countries about the lack of universality of humanitarianism and to the perception that double standards exist regarding refugee and other emergencies in poorer countries.
It can therefore be concluded that, like the rest of humanitarianism, the field of campaigning for the rights of COTM, is inherently paternalistic.
That approach also points up the limits of biopolitical analyses of humanitarianism, suggesting the ways in which vulnerability is never merely a biological condition.
The examples range widely but include the University of Manchester's work on the history of humanitarianism, which has influenced the thinking of a number of NGOs, including Médecins sans Frontières, and the University of Oxford's Compassion in Healthcare project, in which the theologian, Josh Hordern, is working with the Royal Society of Medicine to improve patient engagement and health outcomes.
To Qaddafi, everything that is not murder is theatre, and having scared us into joining his war he is now calling our bluff, saying, in effect, that the West once again pretends to be acting in the name of humanitarianism when the real motive is regime change.
