Mogadishu, July 31: The pictures of the hunger-stricken and homeless women and children in Somalia that are broadcast these days are reminiscent of the warning that Manuel Castells, the author of the famous book End of Millennium, The Information Age…, had sounded about the formation of a fourth world out of the dark corners of the modern one.
The conscience-pricking poverty and hunger visible in Somalia are the results of the ceremonial importance accorded to the human security in the international security discourse.
Where is the abject poverty that is found in the areas below the Sahara Desert and many other regions across the world going to lead to? What threat will it pose to the international community and who is responsible for the management of the crisis?
Prior to providing an answer to these questions, a definition should be put forth for the international security. According to security experts, one cannot draw a clear line between national and international security. But, analytically, implementation of national security can be defined as the blocking of the threats, while establishment of national security requires the eradication of the threats.
It is crystal-clear that the latter is more complex and exacts more competence. Hence, the establishment of international security demands cooperation among countries and international institutions as well as serious contribution by the superpowers, without whose assistance the entire matter would be no more than a fairy tale.
Over the past century, however, the main agenda of the international security has been limited to the superpowers’ security concerns. The discourse on the international security involved any objective or subjective threat that the superpowers face.
During World War I, the UK and France described the gravest threat to international security as the monarchical system; and later the biggest menace became the fascist system. The two top issues on the agenda of the international security discourse triggered the two destructive world wars.
During the Cold War era, communism was introduced as the villain of the piece. The United States was a fresh-out-of-the-box power that depicted its international contender, the Soviet Union, as a threat against the world.
International security was defined in terms of the military and political competition between the two superpowers. Warfare and tension in any part of the world had a East-versus-West cast, and the two superpowers would expand their contention into different parts of the world as they would get themselves involved in different crises. During the period, even the Arab-Israeli and the India-Pakistan conflicts would be translated in terms of the confrontation between the Eastern and Western Blocs.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, fighting communism was crossed out of the international security agenda. The US and the liberal democracy apparently faced no big threat any more. The Western world gloated over the end of history and the victory of liberal democracy.
Fortunately, there was new room at the international institutions for the introduction of arguments in favor of human security. Countries gathered to discuss the real threats to the human society, with the superpowers listening with a diplomatic gesture.
In the circumstances, poverty, diseases, terrorism, money laundering, ethnic conflicts, organized crime, environmental issues, etc. were named the new subjects in the field of international security. These, however, were never treated as matters topping the agenda. And the reason was obvious, as these threats apparently had not managed to seriously jeopardize the security of great powers. They were simply raised as chic sub-discourses and were archived.
The 9/11attacks, however, shook the international security system out of its 1990s mayhem. The fight against terrorism was pulled out of the archives and put on the table as the security myth of America had been shattered.
This time, the great powers turned the fight against terrorism and characteristically the fight against al-Qaeda in the Middle East into the dominant discourse of international security.
The new enemy, however, did not exhibit clear enmity, as Moscow earlier did. Al-Qaeda lacked a clear address, but the United States and its allies targeted the failed state of Afghanistan and the rogue state of Iraq and claimed that these two countries were the sources and supporters of international terrorism.
This new discourse still persists; however, poverty and hunger are only suggested as the major root causes of violence in dull and tedious conferences.
The US statesmen had better compare the current situation in Somalia to the past situation in Afghanistan. We should not forget that, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union backed Afghan communists and the US provided financial support for the Afghan Mujahedin and the Taliban.
As the Soviet Union collapsed, the protective umbrella of the two superpowers was removed from Afghanistan. Communism became obsolete and the logic of capitalism dictated to the American statesmen that they should not spend more in Afghanistan. The outcome of this inattention was clear. Fighting began between power-seeking groups in Afghanistan, and gradually, the weak state of Afghanistan degenerated into a failed state. Its borders were made susceptible to al-Qaeda entry and terrorism took root in the country, resulting in the 9/11 attacks.
Somalia’s situation today has rung the warning bell for the international society. Weak states losing their minimum efficiency allow terrorists and criminal organizations into their territories.
Based on the Afghanistan experience, countries first become weak in fulfilling their minimum efficiency, and then gradually turn into failed states.
Terrorists find space to act freely in the failed states, and turn into an identity-giving authority for the forsaken people who have lost their source of authority and are suffering from an identity crisis. This is a much greater danger.
In a world where 3.1 billion people have a daily income of less than a dollar, 880 million people do not have access to basic health services, a billion people live in absolute poverty, 30,000 children die of curable diseases everyday, 840 million people suffer from malnutrition in the very regions which have the highest rate of food production, how can relative order be established and terrorism as well as violence rooted out?
Will the great powers come back from their historical vacation and put human security on the agenda of the international security discourse?
Even if they feign sleep, the United States and its allies should know that the root causes of international terrorism are poverty and injustice. International security requires a renaissance. In order to prevent the emergence of another bin Laden in weak countries like Somalia, a return should inevitably be made to the discourse of human security.
——Agencies