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April 6, 2008

Ilyas M. Mohsin, PPP, Platinum Contributor (296)

A philosophic analysis of the security issues.
I think traditional concept of security takes precedence over human security aspects for a known reason. As human society still functions, generally, in terms of state, the collective security of concerned citizens assumes the primary position in human affairs. The other aspects of human security like poverty, environmental degradation, food/ water resources etc all get handled at the state level, the role of International Agencies notwithstanding.
As the current system is based on a baneful heritage of colonial exploitation, cold-war compulsions and now the US policy, generally,'my way or highway', traditional security is held hostage to various threats. this is aggravted by the undermining of the UN by the most but more so the US. So human security is in tatters, particularly in the poorer countries.

April 17, 2008

amarjyoti acharya

Human Security is a broad-rubric and was presumed to be an evolution of the so-called 'traditional' security studies and carried on and supported by the so-called middle powers. They do not necessarily and explicitly deal with the frontiers of what is known as 'world-community' - arguably imagined as the group of 8 etc., the Trans-atlantic Community, and imagined to be in a conflictual relationship with the 'thus' imagined 'outside'.
Going by the logic of the inside-outside dichotomy - very few areas in the world would then form the 'outside' - since the idea of the state is an universal one. That then pushes us to making distinctions between causes of conflict - between and within states. So one has the Security Council within the UN which was imagined to take into account such conditions and mediate between states with differing and conflicting perceptions and interests. The entire gamut of international organizations are ostensibly geared towards attempting to resolve conflicts between states where everyone falls 'inside'. The 'outside' within the imagination of the state-system and its arguments is barely visible. Yet - security continues to remain a focal point. Both the 'hard' variety of security and the 'soft' variety of security. Human Security is the soft variety of security and is very important and necessary.
The various constructivist arguments over the larger conflicts between the 'inside' and the rather less issue of the 'outside' being a threat.
The idea and the notion of the 'outside' flows from the Hobbesian imagination of the world. The twenty-first century arguably is more concerned with the soft variety of security parameters. It has been a long time since Hobbes wrote about Europe and Machiavelli inspired many a intrigues during the Cold War.
The threats from within and the threats that one calls as arising from terrorism do make it difficult for the play of the inside-outside arguments - except for the Kissingerian ideas of 'revolutionary states' versus the 'status-quo' states in an environment of the nature of the world system.
Terrorism as a threat that is non-state based calls for various measures of which human security occupies a central role - in de-fanging terrorism of its rhetorics and its emotive appeal.
Human security paradigm is an important one and does occupy a place of worth. Moreover, the idea that 'human security' is in tatters in poorer countries does not negate human security but it does indict the state in question and also asks the state its raison d'etre for flying a flag at the UN and what would be the parameters that the 'state' in question adheres to when it claims its status as a 'state' in the very first instance. What does one do in the cases of failed states?
Such issues are different than and from systemic challenges that the various contending forces put forth - i.e. religious nationalism versus secular nationalism, for instance. That does bring us back to Henry Kissinger and also delineate the new threat that has been well recorded.
How does one deal with it? Both the hard and the soft variety of security.