Student Network for Human Security (SNHS) Blog

Without his permission, and important message:

Dear all

At July 8th 2009, there was presidential election in Indonesia that more than 100.000.000 Indonesians voted one of three candidates. It been assumed that will be chaos after the elcetion process due to some political scandals colored it. But it never happened fortunately

At July 17th 2009, two bombs exploded on two ritzy-hotels in Jakarta and shocked the country effectively after 4 years stability on domestic security. It related to the one's who joins to Al-Qaeda network and been doing mission for weakening the country by suicide-bombings like past in Jakarta and Bali. Public argued it happended because there was an idleness of country secuity during election's process, even the terrorists used new method for doing the bombing that out of predictions.

(For your information, the suicide-bombers usually Indonesians, moslem-extrimist that indoctrined to be terrorist by foreigners, they usually come from poor-class of economy and been alienated. That fact make them really vulnerable to be indoctrined as extrimist.Now it become popular topic to counter terrorism from its root)

The bombs hurted the citizens here. But it only affected not very on economical and tourism sector, later the spirit declared to rise-up "WE ARE NOT FEAR, WE WILL NOT GO DOWN" for countering terrorism. It only days after the evidence.From government to citizens to unite for countering terrorism. Here some actions-plan have been doing and will be done:
1. Public-medias demand for guidance to be published by government. The guidance for facing the bomb-explosion and its recovery process as well as the other disaster's guidance based on experiences.
2. The need to pay more attention into poor people and moslem that vulnerable to be suicide-terrorist. It called by the former chief of special police of terrorism.
3. The need to raise citizens's awareness bout terrorism and the stranger and suspicious person on their environment
4. Demand for civic education on identifying someone's psychological related to suspicious person around, to raise public awareness bout suicide-bombing
5. For citizens doing their activities normally after the evidence and not to be panic on domestic security. It helps the country recover soon
6. To renew the technology for identifying bombs on public spaces

Several days recent, I noted that even the country like Indonesia that not belonged to hi-tech country, but has great power from its social capital for recovering and countering disaster and another human security risks like earthquake and so on. Social capital is something important to build human security, and cheaper than hi-tech.

Later, I would like to hear your opinion as we ever met on human security conference.

After several weeks going and coming, the pile of magazines I would like to review in this space is growing out of control. And, given that it is very probable that I will be leaving again soon, I think it is better just to give you the links - and open the space for your comments or invited posts:

+ The debate over human rights in the UN, the reappearance of US in the Council, and the implications of laws against the "defamation of religion", can be overviewed in this article

+ Somehow related with the previous, this place is getting concerned about the role that religions are to play on Human Security and, thus, articles like this on the postures of the major monotheistic religions on economy and ecology are worth reading.

+ Just until his dead, I became aware of the significance of Robert McNamara in understanding the paradigm of security during the Cold War. From Ford Motor Company, to the Pentagon during Vietnam War, and then the World Bank, the history of his rise and fall, in this short obituary, is enlightening. The last paragraph is very moving:

He was haunted by the thought that amid all the objective-setting and evaluating, the careful counting and the cost-benefit analysis, stood ordinary human beings. They behaved unpredictably. During the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which he had lived through at cabinet level, “Kennedy was rational. Khrushchev was rational. Castro was rational.” Yet between them they had pushed the world to the brink. Rationality, he concluded, “will not save us.” Perhaps what would were the little quirks that had made him love John Kennedy: the president’s sudden capacity to be empathetic, surprised, intuitive, and ready to jettison his most confident calculations.

+ Finally, an update on the movement around the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and some menaces to its role inside the UN system (here)

See you around

So, finally, it seems that the government of the United States is one step from recognizing Climate Change as a National Security threat. I read first this (uncritical) article from the New York Times. The highlighted comment came from a retired general, and goes as follows:

“We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms... And that will involve human lives.”

The expected reaction appeared in the Foreign Policy blog of Stephen Walt. After reading the whole report that originated the news, and reviewing some other interesting opinions, he closes with:

But the more closely you look at the report, the clearer it is that the actual national security implications of climate change are modest, at least for the United States. The likely demands on U.S. military forces will be for humanitarian relief, not for the protection of vital U.S. interests. I have no problem with humanitarian relief, by the way, but let's call it what it is -- a form of global philanthropy -- and not try to sell it as a defense of the American people.

I just want to add that, if you follow the quote carefully, this whole case may be an interesting start for a new paper, since it turns upside-down the conspiracy arguments behind securitization: it is not the case of the human security zombies rushing after the Department of Defense money but, on the contrary, the soldiers behind their share for that big new thing.

I may come up with an abstract soon...

Tons of work lately, and not much time for the blog but, for your entertainment, two sort of counter-intuitive emergent menaces to humanity in the news (both from the Economist):

First, the ban of smoking in public buildings enacted in... Iraq! Well, yes, why not? The authorities say that an average of 55 Iraqis die every day, which is larger than terrorism toll - though I feel a little concerned about the method to come up with that number. But as you may suppose, people is not quite happy about this, specially because perception on the priority of threats is quite different - and I think yours too. So, has this something to do with human security? Sure, it tells us a lot about hidden threats and the effects of fear: uncertainty pushes people to risky behaviors that can make them more insecure than what the perceived threat actually does.

Second, a story from one of those places where the "absence of threats" claims for some new. What else can you think when you read the Danish Prime Minister saying: “We don’t want a society where you cannot go walking with your child or your poodle without risking an attack.” Maybe this is not so uncommon in the first world, but I think this politician goes too far with his idea: not only banning certain breeds, but killing all the mongrels. “We will surely see lots of press photos of sweet little puppies being put down but we must be determined.” It should be hard to make politics out of no threats but, you know, you even have Copenhagen meeting in two months...

See you!