The Dynamic propensity of ‘self’ and ‘Security’

  

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“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”- Aristotle

This quote by Aristotle seems attractive and satisfying too, but how does one get to know herself/himself and have wisdom? Who we are, comes when we look around and find ourselves different from others in many aspects and relatable in certain ways too? When we go out, interact, and observe, we get along with many perspectives that are way different from ours and help us shape our view about how we see things in general and certain issues in particular. I think my perspective about security and insecurity has been largely in terms of military and war until recently when I realized how broad this term is and encompassed so many issues far from the militarized world.

As and when identity is discussed, we know that we were constructed out of the interaction between individuals and various social structures in which we have spent our time. (Booth, 1994,4). Terrorism appears to be a military-related issue but as one delves down, one can see how it has penetrated all the spheres of human life. I believed When terrorist attacks happen, it is the government of the nations that are impacted, the economic institutions have to bear the burden and it is the politics that lead to the unfolding of these incidents but as realized they impact humanity, the people of the nations and their living habits and conditions. The capability effect of terrorism on sufferers is devastating and diverse and may have individual, collective, and social effects on many levels. Suffering is felt with the aid of using people who are immediately injured with the aid of using harm or loss. By the family, relatives, or buddies of the primary sufferer. And with the aid of using people who witness the sufferer, document the sufferer on tv or radio, assist or take care of the sufferer.

As a child, I have heard about the 9/11 attack of airline hijacking and suicide attack in America which brought immense shock to the world. Also, the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008 where 10 gunmen, connected to the Lashkar-e-Taiba organization targeted civilians in Mumbai. I saw the attacks as the play of forces trying to establish their viewpoint and prove ideological superiority. Being an International Relations student has broadened my perspective to look at the issue and see how there are many socio-political actors in the play. How diplomacy unfolds and escorts the actions taken by immediate victim nations and other nations too as the impact is going to escalate to the whole world.

As the famous feminist phrase says ‘personal is political’ that asks to break the distinction of the public and private sphere as the issues also don’t make a distinction. It further conceptualizes that personal is international and so is international personal because the actions taking place at the international level crash the world of an individual and how they perceive things around them.

When looking through the feminist lens and for women, every war, big or small, takes women’s security to another dimension because women are easy targets and easily impacted. As social networks and establishments that save you gender-primarily totally based violence ruin down because of war, girls end up greater uncovered to sexual abuse and exploitation. The effect of war on girls is on occasion neglected or now no longer given the eye it needs. As they're extra tormented by the oblique results of financial change, displacement, and sexual abuse, girls’ lifestyles expectancy and intercourse ratio fall disproportionately while as compared to men. As pointed out, international relations are gendered because they have different effects on male and female bodies, both physically and discursively, as people experience violence differently depending on their gender, and because of what we expect of men and women in terms of violent and nonviolent behaviour is constrained by the meaning(s) ascribed to male and female bodies by society. (Shepherd 2009, 211).

“The war will end; the leaders will shake hands. The old woman will keep waiting for her martyred son. That girl will wait for her beloved husband and those children will wait for their heroic father. I don’t know who sold our homeland. But I saw who paid the price.”

-        Mahmoud Darwish

The human self is a reflexive being, made up of an `I' and a `me' (Mead, 1934). The latter is socially constructed whereas the former is more the product of subjective choice, though this subjective choice is also in part the product of social circumstances. According to Booth, the notion of security can mainly be understood through the perspective of the referent object or the victim of a certain situation. As an individual is embedded in pollical structures and power relations they inhibit constraints for human life. Human beings require a conducive environment to pursue their dreams, have enough space to utilize their full potential but security issues like terrorism bind human beings and limit their sphere to think, to dream of something big as they leave them with psychological trauma.

I think not only as an individual, but we have evolved as a society and what we think of security concerning individuals, society and nation-states. This evolution is holistic and going to enhance eventually.

 

 

 

References:

1-    Booth, Ken. Security and Self: Reflections of a Fallen Realist. Routledge, 1997. 

2-     Mead, George H. 1934. Mind, Self & Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

3-     Shephard, Laura J. 2009. “Gender, Violence and Global Politics: Contemporary Debates in Feminist Security Studies.” Political Studies Review 7 (2): 208-219.