Time & Perspective Quote by Anna Lindh

In Lindh's clipped, almost bureaucratic frustration, you can hear the moral stakes of logistics. She isn’t describing tragedy in Mozambique so much as the quieter scandal that followed it: the way humanitarian response can curdle into turf war. The image does the work. Not bodies, not ruined homes, but “the same helicopters and local guides” - scarce, concrete assets that become symbols of institutional ego. Disaster, she implies, doesn’t just expose vulnerability; it exposes competition disguised as concern.

As a politician and foreign minister shaped by late-90s faith in multilateralism, Lindh is also indicting a system that prides itself on coordination while repeatedly failing at it. The syntax is telling: “Instead of co-ordinating assistance properly” sets up a missed obligation, and then the sentence slides into passive chaos (“too much time and resources was spent”), as if no one is ever quite accountable when agencies clash. That evasion mirrors the real-world problem: everyone can claim they’re helping, even while obstructing.

The subtext is both practical and ethical. Practical: in emergencies, duplication and rivalry kill efficiency. Ethical: when institutions argue over tools and intermediaries, they’re implicitly prioritizing visibility and control over outcomes. Lindh’s intent is to push past the sentimental language of aid and force attention on the unglamorous mechanics that decide who gets rescued first. It’s a warning that humanitarianism, absent discipline and humility, can become another arena for power - even in the shadow of a flood.