A Study of International Humanitarian Assistance bya religious non-governmental organization:Case of the Buddhist Compassion ReliefTzu-Chi Foundation

• Main Authors: Fang- Fu Lin, 林芳甫
• Other Authors: 巨克毅
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/36144713846566866949

碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 國際政治研究所 === 95 === Globalization has led to increased convenience in many facets of international politics, economy, society, culture and environment, but it has also created conflict of interests. In international relations, realpolitik has become the mainstream; military hegemony has been replaced by economic hegemony. As a result, international social development has become even more unbalanced, the gap between rich and poor in the domestic society has grown wider, worldwide resources are exploited inappropriately, destroying the planet''s environment and its equilibrium, leading to ever more frequent natural disasters and even more suffering for the most disadvantaged people. On the other hand, globalization has led to the disappearance of traditional national boundaries, followed by a modification in the role of governments and the emergence of movements from the civil society, including religious Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) whose activities have quickly developed at the right moment. They all have one thing in common: the search for society''s wellbeing and global justice. NGOs have developed to the point they can pay close attention to global problems, NGOs with on-site operations provide humanitarian assistance to realize their ideal of global justice, while advocacy and sponsoring NGOs provide an important help to international humanitarian assistance with respectively moral and financial support. We describe the above subjects in Chapter 1 to 3. Currently, the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu-Chi Foundation is an international NGO whose action is based on the Buddhist spirit of "compassion" and on the idea of taking from society to give back to society, it has been actively promoting social relief work. From volunteer work, it was able to develop into an organization following global events and promoting humanitarian assistance around the world based on its ideal of "Love without borders", it started in 1991 by relief work for typhoon and flood victims in Bangladesh and for flood victims in Southern Jiangsu Province, China. In a short 15 years, it has developed from offering only moral, material and medical support to victims of natural and man-made disasters, to the next step of rehabilitation, support and development: founding schools, building hospitals, supporting developing businesses, helping hope to raise again. The achievements from strict adherence to Buddhist consciousness and its humanitarian implementation into society to promote international humanitarian assistance can be seen on five continents across 61 countries, with the spirit of love without distinction of race, region or religion, as witnessed and recognized by the international community. Chapter 4 and 5 introduce historical data and the results from the field study. In conclusion, we show that their value lays mainly in awakening the sense of justice in everyone. If because of that, humanitarian assistance by NGOs keeps raising globally, "realpolitik" which is the current mainstream of international relation will slowly be replaced by "global justice" and we expect a day when the ideal of a world living in peace will concretize. One added value is to market Taiwan to the international community and establish an excellent environment in which to develop another channel for Taiwan diplomacy. Keywords: globalization, realpolitik, global justice, NGO, humanitarian assistance