The Biafran War and postcolonial humanitarianism: Spectacles of suffering

Abstract

In the summer of 1968, audiences around the globe were shocked when newspapers and television stations confronted them with photographs of starving children in the secessionist Republic of Biafra. This global concern fundamentally changed how the Nigerian Civil War was perceived: an African civil war that had been fought for one year without fostering any substantial interest from international publics became 'Biafra' - the epitome of humanitarian crisis. Based on archival research from North America, Western Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa, this book is the first comprehensive study of the global history of the conflict. A major addition to the flourishing history of human rights and humanitarianism, it argues that the global moment 'Biafra' is closely linked to the ascendance of human rights, humanitarianism, and Holocaust memory in a postcolonial world. The conflict was a key episode for the re-structuring of the relations between the West and the Third World. Proposes a new view of the history of human rights and humanitarianism by using the instruments of cultural, visual and conceptual history. Shows that the end of decolonization resulted in a structural transformation of global order and international relations. Uses a global historical approach to study human rights, helping readers to develop an understanding of human rights and humanitarianism as defining features of postcolonial global relations.