Gino Strada: help behind boundaries

He doesn’t vote because no politician embodies his anti-war morale. And he has operated on over 30’000 victims of armed conflicts. Gino Strada is an Italian surgeon and peace activist. Through his neutral and independent foundation “Emergency”, established in 1994, over 6 million people in 16 countries have received treatment in the last 23 years. Thanks to donations, high-quality medical surgical care can be offered to victims of wars, mines and poverty.

In addition to providing medical care, Gino Strada and the Emergency foundation also promote Human Rights, peace and solidarity. On May 12th, one day before he was honoured by the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Foundation in Zurich, Strada shared his visions, experiences and view of the world with a handful of people and opened the floor to critical questions.

Gino Strada pleads for a world without war and terrorism – which he believes is possible. Humans need to learn to solve their conflicts without violence. People talk about the Second World War and the Cold War as if the era of wars were over, but today we live in a world full of armed conflicts and terrorism, with over 90% of the victims being civilians. War is not a useful tool, also from an economic point of view. Peace is more interesting economically. One day of war in Afghanistan costs over a hundred million dollars. This makes no sense economically, says Gino Strada.

The role of the United Nations, which was established after World War II for avoiding wars in the future, is paradoxical as well. There have been over 170 armed conflicts since 1945 and still there are many exceptions in the law of war that legitimate violent actions, for example, the right of self-defence. In Strada’s opinion, violence is always a crime and the right of self-defence is just a clumsy justification for barbarism. He sees humans as the reason for war and war crimes. An animal is not capable of such cruelty. A fox would sneak into a chicken coop and kill a bird to survive. But no fox would band together with other foxes and organise a massacre. Only human beings can be that brutal.

For Gino Strada, to help is a moral obligation. He does not distinguish among victims – because this is not his job as a surgeon. He takes the same stance when it comes to refugees. We first need to ensure that all the refugees coming across the sea are looked after: they should be taken care of medically and they should be safe – only then should we worry about the distribution.

At the end of the discussion, Gino Strada is still convinced that a world without war and terrorism is possible. But we as a society need to put pressure on our politicians and hold them accountable for their actions. And we need to act now.

Photo: Keystone