Ahmad and the Red Cross
the red cross was founded by swiss jean henri dunant, who, in june 1859, found himself in the northern italian town of solferino. there were thousands of dead bodies of soldiers all over the place — austrian and french soldiers who had died in 16 hours of fierce fighting. this scenario of horror made him sad because no one cared to bury the dead or take care of the wounded. no one provided any sort of medical care so he went to the local people and asked them to help. w h e n d u n a n t returned to switzerland, he published the book, ‘a memory of solferino’ and issued two calls — the first was for the formation of global relief societies of male and female nurses to care for the war wounded and to advocate the recognition of those volunteers who must provide medical services and protect them under international agreement. in 1863, the geneva society for public welfare (a charity society) was formed to examine the applicability of dunant’s ideas and 16 countries and four humanitarian associations were represented at the international conference, which opened in geneva on oct 26, 1863. during the meeting they agreed upon the ‘cross’ to be the logo of the red cross which is similar to the swiss flag, in recognition to dunant’s idea with regard to the foundation of the committee. the conventions and treaties were made to other categories of war victims. today, the red cross has representatives ‘diplomats’ in 60 countries, including kuwait, and has about 12,000 employees working in 80 countries. the task of these employees is to visit prisoners of war and civilian detainees, search for missing persons, provide food, water and medical assistance to civilians deprived of these basic necessities. this is in addition to disseminating knowledge of humanitarian law, monitoring compliance, drawing attention to violations, and carrying out all humanitarian actions that meant nothing to anyone in the past. therefore, the role of the committee was vital and significant in saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of the wounded, prisoners of war as well as playing a big role from the humanitarian point of view, a role that cannot be underestimated. the international committee of the red cross (icrc) is an impartial, independent and non-governmental organization that has been entrusted with the task of protecting and assisting victims of armed conflict through various conventions that have made the organization 150 years after its founding, one of the best and most important organizations, which has not been flawed throughout this long and turbulent period. it should be noted that the ottoman empire, at the beginning of the last century, took the red crescent as a logo of its society followed by the rest of the muslim countries. the (former) shah of iran also chose the logo of the ‘lion and red sun’ before khomeini abandoned it, although the world officially recognized it. in 1992, the icrc president called for an additional emblem devoid of any national, political or religious connotation, so the red crystal was chosen. i wrote this article in response to a question raised by my friend ahmad: which is the most deserving body to donate a large sum of money, to our charities, or to the international committee of the red cross? the reader knows my answer.
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