For author, journalist, political analyst and some-time professor David Rieff, spending 18 months living amongst refugees in war-torn Bosnia is the sort of decision one simply "stumbles into."
Rieff, a specialist in issues of immigration and international emergencies visiting Dartmouth to speak on issues of humanitarian aid, recounted living and working in Berlin during the summer of 1992.
"I was trying to write a book on refugees emigrating from Eastern Bloc nations to the West. When I would go home, I would see Bosnia burning on TV," he said. "I think subjects choose you as much as you choose them."
The ensuing year and a half provided Rieff with material for his second book, "Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West," and served as just one episode in a career spent hopping around global hot spots such as Afghanistan and the Great Lakes region of Africa.
Rieff displayed a penchant for the exploration of dangerous locales long before settling into a career based around freelance journalism.
During high school, Rieff and two friends convinced their parents to allow them to spend the summer traveling abroad. The three hitch-hiked from Nairobi to Cape Town.
"We had this idea that we wanted to roam around ... on some weird level, I'm still doing what I always did -- just getting paid for it," Rieff said.
At age 22, Rieff worked with a film crew documenting 1973's Yom Kippur war.
Rieff's formal education included stints at several colleges, including Princeton University, interspersed with time spent in Paris and working with a "radical priest" in Mexico.
"I was a terrible student ... some people should think twice [about going to college], and I was one of those people. I treated Princeton as day school," he said.
Rieff's hands-on experiences in areas such as Kosovo have helped shape several personal philosophies -- for one, despite a wealth of textbook knowledge, he avoids speaking about places he has not spent time in.
Noting the 28 years distancing his last visit to the Middle East, Rieff said, "I haven't smelled the burning tires, stood at the checkpoint, or felt the sun of Jerusalem -- until I have done that, my views aren't interesting."
He also shies away from speaking about his own emotions and personal experiences within war-zones.
"This isn't Oprah ... Everybody who does this work has had run-ins with death. Everybody's been scared, but nothing compares to what the people [who live in these areas] go through," Rieff said.
"The siege at Sarajevo was full of people going through their normal lives, even though they might have spent the morning scrapping pieces of the neighbor off the lawn," he added.
Rieff acknowledged that his work is "fraught with hazards" and as such not for everyone -- in addition to the physical danger, he cited the moral challenges, and the transient nature of the lifestyle.
"You're always jumping into other people's worlds, and that has it good and bad," he said.
Yet he emphasized the rewards of the occupation, and an appreciation for his luck at succeeding in such work.
"Being a journalists in these areas gives you an opportunity to tell the truth, and I think it's all a great privilege ... Sometimes I think it's all a big mistake, and I'll wake up on the style beat."
Rieff spoke to an audience of Dartmouth students and community members last night in Silsby Hall on the subject of the complexities of humanitarian aid and national sovereignty in the post-Cold War era.
