In my first Security essay, I wrote that social justice security and ontological security were the most important security issues, as they have often unacknowledged impacts on humanity. I believe this is very true. However, after a semester of learning about security concerns all over the world and the factors involved, I have come to the conclusion that the most important security issue is: none of them, and therefore, all of them. Human security, national security, physical/traditional security, individual security, ontological security and emancipation security are all so interwoven it is impossible to say one is more important the others.
Take, for example, the discussion we had in class about Tuvalu and their environmental crisis: with sea levels rising more and more each year, soon the entire island will be underwater, meaning everyone living there will be forced to evacuate. When we were discussing which category of security this issue best fit into, we didn’t come up with just one: every category of security was mentioned as being threatened by the island sinking.
The same thing happened when we discussed piracy in Somalia. These pirates are operating million dollar businesses by capturing passing ships and taking their inventory and money on board, claiming to give it back to their struggling people. They are fueled by government connections who allow them to continue pirating so they can skim a profit. This piracy poses not just a threat to the security of the nation (because of the compromised government), not just a threat to the people of Somalia (both because of physical danger and misplaced trust in the pirates), but a threat to all categories of security.
I believe we have confused priority with exclusiveness. When analyzing both of these examples, it is sensical, and even necessary, to point out that one security category should be prioritized over the others. However, this doesn’t mean we should exclude the other security categories, which discredits their impact on the effected people. For example, in Tuvalu, it is reasonable to prioritize human security as, if the island is slowly sinking, people will soon be without food, shelter, etc. However, prioritizing human security should come with acknowledging the impact of the other security categories instead of saying that, because it is a human security issue, it is not a physical, ontological, national, security issue.
It seems there is an understanding that if one security concern is being addressed the others can’t be, which seems to be detrimental and dangerous. Take the Ebola outbreak: in the documentary, there was not one mention of therapy services being provided for the village people whose family and friends were dying around them as they were forced to watch due to the quarantine. This issue was deemed a national security issue or a human security issue, and other, lesser important security issues like ontological security weren’t acknowledged. Even the mentions of the burial rituals, something the village did for comfort, were not brought up as being viewed as a source of comfort but instead as a danger to the people. It might have been a danger, but the villagers were trying their best to cope with an unimaginable tragedy.
It will benefit security efforts around the world if all security categories are treated with the same sense of urgency. We have seen throughout the semester the consequences countries and societies face when these concerns are not taken seriously. Instead of picking one type of security that is more important than the others, all types of security should be acknowledged with equal significance.
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