Flashpoint Syria
The rhetoric of human security and a reality check
Photo: AFP
Steady rise of intra-state conflicts, enormous civilian sufferings, emerging trends of non-traditional security threats and increasing roles played by the non-state actors led the analysts to view the security matters from a fresh perspective since the end of World War II. One of the earliest references to such renewed outlook can be traced in the speech delivered by Edward R. Stettinius, US Secretary of States, in the inaugural meeting of the UN on June24, 1945. He said, "The battle of peace has to be fought on two fronts. The first is the security front where victory spells freedom from fear. The second is the economic and social front where victory means freedom from want. Only victory on both fronts can assure the world of an enduring peace."
The 'freedom from fear', ''freedom from want' and a latter inclusion 'freedom to live in dignity' became the key components of what was to be later known as the concept of Human Security (HS). The concept advocates a people-centric approach towards comprehending security instead of the traditional state-centric one. The ultimate victims of any conflict are the common people. And threats to security do not always originate from the sources external to a state; they could emerge from within. And sometimes even the state policies and actions could also cause unlimited sufferings to its citizens. So the concept proposes that the individuals and their communities should be the referent object in any study of security.
Besides, security threats do not necessarily relate to military alone. Threats to individual security could originate from political upheaval, sectarian violence, economic downturn, endemic diseases, environmental disasters, so on and so forth. The sources of insecurity are also interconnected and those often complement each other. Therefore, the concept of HS suggests a holistic approach towards identifying and preventing the whole range of threats individuals are exposed to.
The concept looks fine. Instead of just focusing our concerns on the external military threats, we now have a concept that encourages us to follow a multidisciplinary approach to critically examine each possible factor affecting our security as individuals. So long the individual States retain the supreme authority to judge the standard of HS among its citizen and act appropriately to enhance it, things remain perfectly alright. However, when other states tend to complain about the standard of HS within a particular State, things start taking a different shape. The very essence of the concept denies the state's absolute monopoly over the security of its citizens and assigns a collective responsibility to the civilized world to proactively set things right especially when the state itself tyrannizes its people. And exactly that is the point where the opinions diverge. The opponents of the concept smell conspiracy, a subtle endorsement of the interventionist attitude of the powerful nations, in the approach. They argue that since their interests essentially guide the states' actions, the more powerful nations might be tempted to intervene into the domestic matters of weaker ones, not in response to some overarching humanitarian needs but in quest of securing their own interest, under the pretext of HS.
Viewed from the perspective of mass crime against humanity committed, for instance, in Rwanda in 1994, the concept of HS provides a very pertinent and humane approach to heal human sufferings by regional or global intervention. But any premature exploitative intervention by external actors into the delicate domestic affairs of the victim state on silly grounds would only add to the suffering of common people and severely undermine the spirit of HS.
As the debates over the issue continue, so does the intervention of powerful nations into the affairs of weaker ones, sometimes on moral ground and some other times on material. In today's globalized world, each of our actions produces a cascading effect on many others. We find a candid mention of this reality in the report of the UN Commission on HS published in 2003, which reads, "We share a planet, a biosphere, a technological arsenal, a social fabric. The security of one person, one community, one nation rests on the decision of many others- sometimes fortuitously sometimes precariously." Right at this moment, nothing could probably validate the statement better than an insight into what is happening in Syria.
What initially looked like the whiff of Arab Spring spreading into the neighborhood is now sending alarming signals. Unlike the popular uprising in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen, Syrian revolution is taking much too long to produce any visible progress. Egyptians took 17 days, Tunisians 28 days, Libyans 8 months and Yemenis 9.5 months to bring the change. To the contrary, the Syrian case is lingering more than 23 months now without any visible sign of conflict termination. Analysts and commentators around the world have attributed a host of internal and external factors to this prolonged conflict. Offering another view will only add to the list. Therefore, it looks more pertinent to rather identify the causes underlying the human sufferings and examine whether or not the application of the HS approach could help the ordinary Syrians overcome the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
If the state's internal mechanism is considered inadequate to ensure HS and external intervention is deemed essential for any meaningful application of the concept, then one has to begin with the assertion that the state monopoly in Syria has already been challenged, albeit ostensibly. A good number of external actors or their representatives are already in action on battleground Syria. The very fact that the anti-Asad factions are offering considerable armed resistance to the government forces is a manifestation of external role-play. Given the decades long suppression of freedom of expression, it was not quite possible for any anti-government sentiment to develop in an organized manner. The role of 'Mukhabaraat', the secret police, must have dissuaded the ordinary Syrians from thinking or talking, let alone organizing, any kind of revolution since the time of Bashar Al Asad. How could then the movement receive such potent momentum over the night? The domino effect of Arab Spring might have had some contribution to the uprising. But how would anyone explain the arming of the movement? Apart from the defected 'Free Syrian Army' (FSA) the other factions must have been supplied with arms from external sources. Such surreptitious intervention connotes nothing but moral low ground of the external actors and could be termed as anything but a HS approach.
Except for the unified demand 'Bashar must go', the warring factions bear no commonality whatsoever. So if and when Bashar goes, the inevitable aftermath is likely to be a more fierce, ill-organized and poorly led series of violence among the warring factions each disparately seeking to materialize its individual agenda or those of their patrons. At the end, it is the ordinary Syrians who would suffer.
The failed attempt of Kofi Annan to seek a negotiated settlement of the issue must have made the Syrians skeptic about the outcome of the ongoing diplomatic efforts of Lakhdar Brahimi. The only other overt measure, the sanctioned imposed by the international community, has rather worsened the HS condition in Syria. Sanctions hardly ever bring a regime change. It did not work in Cuba, China, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran or elsewhere. It does not seem to be working in Syria either. As a matter of fact, so far the interventions of external stakeholders, overt or covert, political, military or economic, do not seem to have taken any serious account of the HS in Syria.
According to the latest report of UNOHCHR, the total number of documented conflict-related killings in Syria from March 2011 to November 2012 was 59,648. The internal displacement triggered by violence has created 6,37,958 registered refugees. The WFP finds it increasingly difficult to extend emergency help to the victims due to frequent attack on their aid trucks. The food price has shot ever high. The 'Mazot' fuel, used for room heating had become unavailable at a time when Syria was experiencing the severest bite of winter in the recent history. Breads, the staple food of ordinary Syrians, have become one of the rarest commodities to be found in the bakeries. Sanctions, rebel sabotage and the ever expanding black market, all combined are delivering telling blows on the innocent civilians. The recent Israeli air strike inside Syrian territory bears the potential of broader regional escalation of the conflict. Any such escalation would only add to the sufferings of ordinary Syrians.
At the moment, the ordinary Syrians are not at all 'free from fear' as they are being mercilessly slaughtered by the regime and rebels alike. They are not 'free from want' as they are starving into death due to the ever strangulating sanctions. They are not 'free to live in dignity' as their womenfolk are being forced into prostitution to earn a piece of bread. All the three basic components of HS have been absolutely undermined by both internal and external actors. The only way forward could be a non-violent intervention by the world body not with the intention of securing the interests of powerful external actors but to save the humanity. Everyone must remember that Syria is not simply a land mass of geopolitical importance; it is also the home of millions of peace loving people. The international community has a collective obligation to help them live in peace.