A real option: Grass roots human security

A real option: Grass roots human security

By David Harries

JAKARTA (JP): If human security is the ability to live, to
move and to work in satisfying, safe ways then the human security
of a majority of Indonesian citizens is falling.

The reasons are all too obvious. The country is threatened by
breakdown and break-up, and the international community is
increasingly unwilling to support the situation.

The government is in disarray. Almost everyone is fighting for
or against a President whose legitimacy and credibility have been
hammered by alleged scandal, national embarrassments, quirky
leadership and a retreat from reforms.

The major institutions are at best unequal to the tasks
current realities have set them, and at worst violently opposed
to anything that could reduce what they achieved under Soeharto.
Some regions are aflame with civil and religious strife. Fleeing
victims infect others.

The emerging devolution of financial and administrative powers
from Jakarta to more than 360 regencies is a perverse combination
of good intentions and bad timing. The struggling and unstable
center can ill-afford to give anything away.

And the wildly differently endowed and capable districts are
unlikely to use what they receive in ways that foster unity for
the nation, or efficiency for local human security.

Indonesia's problems will take years to solve.

But some 200 million-plus people need and want more human
security now. Those at the top are consumed by the problems at
the center and impressions abroad.

Therefore, those at the bottom are going to have to make the
first moves.

This is not bad news. Human security is primarily an
individual's challenge. Although technology has made it
everyone's shared and common issue, it is best measured at the
level of the individual. Therefore, where better to protect and
build it than at the grass roots.

In the literature on human security, much is made of the need
for process -- such as good governance, and knowledge -- from
improved education. But too little is made of the fact is that
all human security rests on physical foundations. The recent
massive earthquake in India makes the point.

Human security of millions in the world's most populous
democracy was severely disrupted, and for tens of thousands
destroyed, by physical force.

Asia has not only its share of armed conflicts, but is the
region where a variety of natural disasters happen with the
greatest frequency. Weekly, reports tell of another earthquake,
typhoon, tidal wave, volcano, flood, landslide, structural
collapse or pestilence. Not infrequently, crises combine, or
follow one another in short order.

What use the college degree, trade qualification, good
governance or a planning and budgeting system if, every time a
conflict, natural disaster, ecological hazard, or industrial
accident occurs, the home, market, school, court house, clinic or
factory become inaccessible or unusable because of damage or
destruction.

Rich and poor, young and old, powerful and weak, military and
civilian in both developed and undeveloped countries are
threatened if the physical foundations of human security are
weak. Rich or powerful people not only have more to lose but
also relatively less with which to defend against the loss.

How do the largest number of men, women and children help
themselves live, move and work better in the face of the
inevitable clashes with nature, bad people and fate? A key step
is convincing them to engage in a self-help life-style that is
for their own benefit.

Engaging in human security is an investment in one's quality
of life, with immediate returns. Appropriate human security at
the grass roots must have its priorities and processes determined
there.

Needs can be as varied as a barrier to stop vehicle entry, a
structure to protect stored water, a wall to stem the annual
flood of a river, or reinforcement of road or track to the clinic
or court.

People confident they will be alive with dignity well beyond
tomorrow are easily motivated for community activities that
strengthen human security.

A community with strong and sustainable human security is
unlikely to be a threat to the security of neighboring ones, and
is an example of what can be achieved.

Methods to protect and promote physical human security have
been practiced for centuries. Advances in technology mean that
each individual can now make a greater contribution faster.

The costs? Minor. They can be a tiny fraction of what is spent
each year on armaments in countries that suffer the worst
disasters.

They will be far less than what was needed -- but so often not
committed -- for recovery after past crises. And for each man,
woman or child who in the past tried to fill 50 sandbags, it is
less than US$50 for a tool that gives a stronger result in a
fraction of the time.

Indonesia needs some good news that millions of citizens can
see, feel part of and benefit from. It is not a pipe dream to
claim that tens of millions of Indonesians could be prepared and
equipped to significantly improve their human security, and do so
in months, and for less than went adrift in the Bank Bali affair.

The writer is an executive of Maccaferri Asia, the Asian
division of an Italian-based corporation that produces and guides
use of goods used for stabilizing ground and slopes and to
prevent or mitigate the effects of flooding and other natural
disasters.