Revisting My Security Essay

Elif Okan

Revisting My Security Essay

In my security essay, I argued that security's about having basic needs met and being treated equally first before having anything else. Without this being met, no other type of security can be met. I argued that overall if a person does not have human security or security as emancipation, the person cannot be secure/ have security since national security, physical security, and ontological security would not matter without human security and emancipation security and would be pointless to have. In my security essay, I thought that if a person is not being treated equal and being treated less than it would be hard for that person to gain security even if they have all their basic needs met, their country is safe, they are not physically in danger, and if they know who they are without questioning their identity. Being treated like a second-class citizen for any reason will make it almost impossible for the person being treated that way to have security even if they do not admit it themselves. At the same time if the person had everything expect human security it still would be almost impossible to have security. The person needs basic things like food, water, housing, etc to survive and without that nothing else would matter since it would be hard to survive. In my security essay I wrote about how I thought that human security and security as emancipation are the most two important out of all five things of security.
After taking this class, my opinion still stayed the same and I am still arguing that security is having basic needs met and being treated equally so human security and security as emancipation are both still the most important out of all the types of security. I am arguing this since human security and security as emancipation matter most and having the other three securities would mean nothing without human security and emancipation security. The basics need to be met before you can worry about anything else. Also without human security and emancipation security, it would be hard to have physical security and ontological security.
This is mostly and clearly shown when looking at two cases we looked at in class which was the climate change in Tuvalu and sex trafficking in general. The people of Tuvalu are in danger of using their homes because of climate change and in a couple years from now, they will use their homes and country of Tuvalu so their biggest worry right now is human security. Without their homes, it is hard to survive. Also if the people of Tuvalu have to leave Tuvalu and go to another country, their emancipation security will also be in danger. If the people of Tuvalu move to another country because they lost their home because of the climate change they will be treated as refugees. Rather we like it or not refugees tend to get looked down upon and treated less/ worst than the citizens of the country so once the people of Tuvalu have their human security problem solved it is likely they will have their emancipation threated and have an emancipation security problem. Also other than climate change and Tuvalu, sex trafficking shows human security problems and emancipation problems as well. The people being sex trafficked or the family of the people being sex trafficked most likely had human security problems so they were tricked into being sex trafficked not knowing what they were getting into or what they were sending their loved one into. If the person signed up they most likely did not have much of a choice and had their human security threatened so they argued without knowing what it was going to be like. After being stucked in the sex trafficked the person will likely use their emancipation being threated like less than and no longer have their emancipation security as well.
Overall I still think that human security and emancipation security are the most important type of securties and that did not change after taking this class and instead stayed the same.

Revisiting My Definition of Security

In my first, “what is security” essay, I argued that ontological security was the best definition of security. I looked at the definition of security as an American, as I would still argue that our ontological security is being threatened. But what I did not consider, is the rest of the world. Where people are often deprived of their basic human rights, for the sole benefit of another. From human trafficking to what is happened in Bosnia to what is happening in Syria. All these cases lead me to believe that when these people are ripped of their basic human securities, they are ripped of their livelihoods, and the hope of the future might hold for them.

            Basic human security, is the right to have a home, clothes and food to survive. Not only for yourself, but the people that you must care for each and every day. The basic necessities of life coincide with what human security is. Without it you must live your life a certain way, making sure that you have enough food for your family, or a place to stay in the winter. The lack of human security affects the most people on the planet. Millions of people are without these things, and often if there is a chance to make there lives better they are going to take it. However, often the lack of human security relates to the lack of education, so people may have to make decisions that they think are the best for their family, but often turn out to be quite dangerous for themselves.

            While not everyone involved in human trafficking was forced to be a part of it, most are. The most common types of human trafficking are debt or sex related. People will indebt themselves to a group to move to a better country, with more human security. But what they do not realize is how long they are indebted to the group, not to mention, often the conditions are worse in these places they force you to work, than if you stayed in your home country. Others are usually forced into sex trafficking, parents will sell their children, or some are just kidnapped and forced into it. In these cases, there is little to no chance of ever getting out, the group holding you hostage will make the conditions of your life miserable. Stripping any dignity or basic human rights that you would have otherwise. All these horrible things for the head of the group kidnapping, and essentially holding these people hostage, is to make money for themselves. While providing the smallest amount of care they can provide to keep these people alive.

            In Bosnia and Syria, however, the conditions where most of the citizens of the country, have a one point or another, been horrible all because of the leaders of the country. Bosnia, for example, the leaders of the country wanted it to be one nation, with a little diversity. The nationalism got the best of them, and so different factions, or different groups of people, fought each other for the right to live where they wanted. Causing upheaval in the country, displacing thousands of people, often destroying the fabric of their lives and any human security they once had. While in Syria, the start of the war was to get rid of the leader of the country for betterment of the people. While it is often hard to tell who is fighting who, and for what cause. The war itself has created thousands of refugees, some cannot even leave the country to avoid the fighting. Each person having their human security removed in an instant.

            All these things happen with a purpose, whether it is to make money or to change the country for the better. Each time though there are people in the middle, and some are directly involved, that are forced to lose their life and their human security. In Syria and Bosnia, during their wars, people had to flee the country to make sure them and their families survived. While at the same time making sure they lived, by scavenging for food and shelter along the way. Human trafficking’s whole purpose to force people to work for them, giving them the bare necessities to live and work. With little to no chance of escaping, these people are stuck in this horrible situation. Human security is baseline of having a life, and then being able to build upon what you’ve made. Otherwise you can be forgotten, put in a place where no one can find you, only the people that want to exploit humans will know where to look. It is horrible situation all around the world, and that is why it is more of important part of security than what is happening with ontological security in the United States. 

Post 5- The Revisit

Revisiting the Security Essay

            Looking back and reviewing the first security essay I written, I excluded many off the topics we covered in class because I simply did not think of these issues as being security issues. I do hover still, believe that physical and property security is the most vital kind of security based on how much weight these two carry, because they most directly impact your way of life. But I really was limited in how I thought these types of securities could be threatened, this will be analyzed in depth below, but they include mother nature, as well as other issues. To sum up my original position I talked about how John Locke mentioned that physical security is vital and crucial, thus is a basic human right that everyone should be granted, but despite his beliefs these principles are still exploited around the world even today.

            When looking at nature, being the weather geek I am was far more cynical of these rights. People who live on the west coast, the east coast or the central plains all experience different types of severe weather. This has been the case for ever. When it comes to hurricanes in the east, whenever one will make landfall they will be much more deadly and cause far more damage than hurricanes that did the same 50 years ago. The reason for this has nothing to do with climate change, but our desire to live by the ocean. Populations have been blowing up along the coasts as people every day desire to live on what is dearest to them, the ocean. With this trend, when hurricanes make landfall they have the potential, depending on strength to cause serious damage because people cannot settle living at least a couple miles away, leaving storm surges licking their lips to destroy houses along the shore. The reason why droughts have been terrible, although much alleviated in recent years in California is that there are 32 million people living in an already dry state. More people using up water means less water that is not getting replenished fast enough due to their natural climate. At some point we need to be cognoscente of where we are choosing to live and the risks that come along with it.

            Pandemics can also include this because they have the potential to destabilize whole countries and kill millions. These issues can affect one’s health altogether, thus their body being their property it affects their security as well. Proper responses must be set up so that these affects must be minimized and as Bill Gates illustrated the US and world as a whole are not even ready to be able to deal with a situation like Ebola but at a much larger level. Another area relating to the person is the issue with sex trafficking. Before this class I really did not have much of an idea how terrible it was and that it even existed in the US. This relayed to human security because you’re essentially a slave and have no control, which is obviously a huge issue with everyone possible needing to be emancipated, these issues really expanded my take on security issues.

            Although we did go over a large amount of security issues, only a couple really resonated with me as being the most important. As I mentioned in the original, security is an inalienable right and that right to yourself should never be jeopardized, but yet still these issues are plaguing the world and many people are not fortunate to escape them, as a world we need to be more cognoscente and help make sure these issues are properly addressed and taught. My opinions till remains the same but they fit under more applicable situations.

Blog Post #5 - Revisiting Security

Bobby Orokos

December 13, 2017

Blog Post #5 - Revisiting Security

POL331 - Global Security Studies

In my original security essay, I argued that security should primarily focus on human and global security, and that national and ontological security are barriers that prevent us from achieving human security.  After this class, I argue that while human security is still the most important, ontological security also plays a large role.  Security to me is “freedom from fear, freedom from want”.  I interpret these various securities as what is more important: humanity, ethnicity, or the state.  While all are important, without our humanity, we would not have either ethnicity or states.  I will be arguing this through the cases of the Ebola pandemic, Tuvalu, and North Korea.

The Ebola pandemic is the example I think of when I refer to human security.  Human security, to me, is the being secure in living.  In more affluent countries, this means being secure in a job, secure in owning a home, etc., but in developing countries, this often means fighting to be secure in having food, water, shelter, as well as secure in survival.  During the Ebola outbreak, developed countries were secure and safe from the pandemic, while Western Africans were in constant threat of their lives and health.  The Ebola outbreak threatened humanity as whole were it to have spread farther than Western Africa.  The potential that a disease could annihilate the human population needs to be addressed, while we also need to focus on the establishment of a securitized human existence, where no person fears for their survival as a result of lacking essential needs, such as food and water.  Ebola showed us the power that disease has against the human population, but also how we need to address the root causes of diseases.  In the Ebola case, the pandemic began when hungry children hunted and ate infected bats.  We live in a world where people hold more money than some governments, and others are still not “free from fear” of survival.  When one group of humans hurt, we all should hurt, but this disassociation and isolation from groups leads to the “othering” effect, where people do not identify with specific groups, and therefore do not care.

This brings us to the ideas of ontological security, and specifically, the Tuvalu issues with climate change.  Ontological security focuses on the security of one’s identity: in this case, the identity of the Tuvaluan people and the islands they inhabit.  The Tuvaluan island is in constant threat of being submerged as a result of climate change, which threatens their identity as a whole.  When Tuvaluan people are forced to migrate as a result of their island becoming uninhabitable, their identities become a hybrid of Tuvalu as well as their new place of residence.  Similarly in America, immigrants come here identifying as their heritage and country of origin, but later on begin to identify as American.  Protecting identities is an important role because although we are all human, diversity and differences between us allow us to learn: we would not learn anything if we all solely identified as “humans”.  Additionally, the elimination of a culture’s homeland allows them to be easily targeted and blamed for any issues that may arise in the country they migrate to.  In this case, the Tuvaluan migrants might be blamed for an economic downturn or higher unemployment in Australia or Fiji, or any other state they are forced to migrate to.  Human and ontological security work hand-and-hand in certain ways, and individually in others.  

While states are very evidently important in the international system, states are founded around two main variables: a human population, and a common identity among this human population.  National security cannot exist without the first securitizing the survival of humans, as well as the preservation of identity.  National security calls for the survival and preservation of the state: a form of security where state is larger than individual.  While important, it is also important to realize the state is just one large group of individuals: should these individuals begin to leave or not identify with the state, the state essentially becomes nothing and holds no power.  The preservation of the state requires sacrifice, and calls for people to give up some of their human and ontological securities to make the state more secure.  Using the case of North Korea, people’s rights to self-expression of their identity, as well as some human rights are given up for the protection of the North Korean state.  The Kim regime of North Korea is able to make people believe that the state is more important than them as individuals.  Had the regime not been able to do this, the people of North Korea most likely would have attempted to free themselves and win back some of their human and ontological securities from the state.

I believe that there is only so much security in the world, and we have to choose how to split it: humanely, ontologically, or nationally.  Originally, I believed human security stood above ontological security, but now understand the importance of identity as well.  We need to address the various threats to human and ontological security before focusing on the state’s security: without individuals, there is no state.  As I did in the beginning of the course, I believe the security ideology of “freedom from fear, freedom from want” argument is how we should approach security.  Additionally, individuals need to be secured first, as without them, states would not exist, and therefore could not be secured.

Revisiting the Security Essay: Emancipation and National Security

In my first security essay, I argued that security as a form of emancipation is the basis for all other forms of security. Without emancipation, or freedom, there is no possibility for any other type of security, relating to the individual or a group. My reasoning for this was that security is impossible without individual liberty and equality. I applied this reasoning to cases where emancipation was necessary before security of identity, property or state. These include rebellions against corrupt governments and revolutions in impoverished countries, like in Malaysia, and the impact on American identity caused by the Cold War. Although worldwide equality is obviously difficult to establish, I based my argument on cases where rebellions for civil liberties were the first step to security. This almost exclusively applies to cases where the people are able to rebel against whatever government is in place. I realize now that that is not always possible, even if it is the first step to other securities.

After taking Global Security Studies and reviewing this first paper, I would argue that national security has more of a role than I originally argued. This change is not only based on the topics we covered in class, but in reviewing my first essay. I still believe in the claim that security as emancipation is vital, but since it is not universally possible, national security could pose to enhance some rights. If the government or a nation is secure as a whole, it would be easier to protect the freedoms associated with security as emancipation. In the cases of Somali Piracy and North Korea, security as emancipation would certainly be beneficial, but national security would help to mitigate the problems better. These cases all deal with weakness in the government in one way or another. And because the national security in Somalia and North Korea are so weak and corrupt, there really is no way to protect the citizens’ liberties. I still argue that security as emancipation is important, but it is not the most essential form of security in many cases.

In analyzing the different cases throughout this course and applying them to the forms of security, I’ve learned that there is a lot of crossover in the different definitions of security. There is rarely a case that can only be argued to relate to only human security, or only national security, for example. The problem of global sex trafficking incorporates national, ontological, and human securities. This is because it involves victimizing individuals into a global sex trade. Global health pandemics apply to multiple forms of security for the same reason: it applies to individuals who are threatened by illness, and in turn threats huge groups of people worldwide. We even argued in our last class about cyber security or human security in relation to Netflix or other corporations being able to use our private information. The different definitions of security often crossover, and many of the issues we reviewed this semester dealt with many forms of security.

Returning to my original essay, I still argue that security as emancipation is integral to security as a whole. But after taking this course and reviewing my original essay, I understand that global security issues often deal with multiple forms of security. I still hold onto the belief that security as emancipation is necessary for people to be secure in all senses, but I understand that my essay was one-sided in this argument.

Boys Sex Trafficked in Thailand

Elif Okan

Boys Sex Trafficked in Thailand

In class, we talked about sex trafficking but mostly just talked about girls being sex trafficked and not about. Well yes, girls are sex trafficked more than boys, it happens to boys as well and affects the boys that are sex trafficked as much as it does for girls. While looking at recent articles about sex trafficking, one article stood out to me which was called "Rescuing boys from Thailand's northern sex trade". 30% of all trafficking victims are male which is not just limited to sex trafficking but that still shows that a large percentage of boys are still affected.

In the "Rescuing boys from Thailand's northern sex trade" article, it starts by talking about a boy named Krit who was forced into sex trafficking at the age of 16 and was forced to stay in it for 5 years until he finally broke free. Krit was forced to work at bars and massage joints in the red light district as well as go home with men that bought sex with children and years later. Krit was hospitalized with HIV when he was a teenager almost dying but recovered and then got away and set up his own tuk-tuk (like taxis in Thailand) business in which he is helping other boys who are victims like he was. Krit teaches them how to drive the tuk-tuk, practice English, and read maps. This is part of the only NGO in Thailand that supports/ helps male victims of sex trafficking called Urban Light.

Urban Light has a center where teen boys can lounge, have a big lunch, take a nap, watch a movie in the breakroom, etc. It is a safe space for them and like a refuge. Originally the founder of Urban Light went to a bar to research trafficking to support the girls but that ended up changing after she saw a "Western men sitting in bars with 14-year-old boys on their laps" and when she tried to help the boys she was just told "Save your time for the girls, those boys are just going to get HIV and die." This part of the article stood out to me a lot. Most people wouldn't expect to see something like that and be told that the young boys are just going to die of HIV so there is no point in trying to help them and to just help the girls instead. In class, we talked about what should be done and how to help but we never really considered what to do about boys that go through sex trafficking. Even though we didn't say a gender it seemed like we were talking about more about girls than boys that go through something like this. The Urban Light program is a great tool to help boys that need and want help and have different programs to help instead of just the tuk-tuk taxi. On top of the tuk-tuk program with Krit, some of the boys train to become barbers and Urban Lights help them find other work too if they want since "Equipping the boys with job skills is a crucial part of the organization's work." There are boys that did not know what they were getting into when agreeing to work just like how girls can be tricked the same way.

Chaow started working at a bar after he left school at the age of 12 since he needed money to send home where he believed he would just be selling alcohol. Since he was the youngest "he inevitably was the one that all the men wanted". The founder of urban light wanted to get Chaow out but couldn't until he wanted it so he stayed in there for 3 years before Urban Light got him out. This could have happened to both a girl or a boy but since girl sex trafficking happens more and is more known there are more organizations to help the girls while there aren't many to help the boys. It needs to stop for both boys and girls but there also needs to be more organizations/NGOs like Urban Light around the world to help those who need help as well.

Article:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/rescuing-boys-thailand-northern-sex-trade-171210184544070.html

Blog Post #4 - Global Pandemics/Health: Ebola

Bobby Orokos

Blog Post #4 - Ebola

December 10, 2017

Ebola wrecked havoc throughout West Africa during its pandemic in 2015.  According to Bill Gates, this pandemic taught the international community a very important lesson: we are not ready for the next upcoming pandemic.  As observed with the way the recent Ebola outbreak was handled in West Africa, evidence shows that we are not able to prevent the spread of another pandemic when it strikes.  While many hold various proposals, I support the call for an international team comprising of specialized doctors and nurses, as well as a diverse enforcement team to be officially established to prevent the next pandemic.

After hearing Bill Gates speak in a TED Talk, it came to my attention exactly how unprepared we are for the next pandemic.  Additionally, watching the short film we did in class showed me all the pre measures that exist, but were not enforced during the Ebola outbreak.  For example, an attempt to create a quarantine was made in the West Point slum within Monrovia, Liberia.  As seen in the film, the quarantine was overrun by civilians, who then stole mattresses of Ebola victims, as well as ran through puddles of bodily fluid while barefoot.  However, this was not unforeseen, as a similar instance occurred when a woman began a rally outside a quarantine hospital by yelling that Ebola is not real.  A team of specialists on various diseases should come together under a global organization to combat the next pandemic, but will require military support.

Similar to the United Nations Peacekeepers, I propose that every state who signs into this new anti-pandemic organization agrees to send some military support as well.  Additionally, should a pandemic break out in state A for example, soldiers from state A should not be allowed to participate in the enforcement of a quarantine in order to ensure an unbiased and successful quarantine.  While quarantines will not be necessarily perfect, having enforcement officers of differing backgrounds lowers the likelihood of an enforcement officer having past relations with potential victims of the pandemic.  However, calling for a foreign army to oversee a large national issue could raise potential questions and doubts.  In order to alleviate doubts, states affected by the next pandemic would be able to conduct other operations and hold more of a voice at the negotiating table, but not provide hands-on services to patients in order to prevent an incident because of the potential a victim might know a service provider, which could interfere with the effectiveness of a pandemic quarantine.  This same concept is used when surgeons hold personal relations with one of their patients: they are not allowed to operate on them.

Having a more equipped international organization supported by states is important in order to contain the next pandemic.  Additionally, a group assigned to enforce the laws passed as a way to handle the pandemic should be established and given authority to enforce the laws within pandemic-struck districts.