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Module Title - War, Peace and Terror QUESTION - "Security" Is ( ) A Self-Referential Practice, Because It Is in This
Module Title - War, Peace and Terror QUESTION - "Security" Is ( ) A Self-Referential Practice, Because It Is in This
practice that the issue becomes a security issue – not necessarily because a real
existential threat exists but because the issue is presented as such a threat’.
(Buzan et al, 1998, 24). Discuss in relation to at least one case or issue
INTRODUCTION
Before the end of the cold war, new discourses have emerged that have depicted
health and environmental issues as being linked to security. The need arose to
expand the field of security beyond the bounds of the military sector, which was
basically threat of invasion from one State to another. The analysis of security,
threats and risks, especially in the absence of an obvious enemy had to take into
and State security issues are encapsulated in Security studies. The problem with
this definition is that it is not only foreign countries that can pose a threat to
This essay intends to lay out the logic of the Copenhagen School on the
process of securitization and evaluate some of the issues that have been
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as explained by Barry Buzan in his assertion, but it ought not to be just a speech
act. The mere application of the rules of a securitizing speech act is not enough
successful.
By the end of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear Armageddon had
events that threatens drastically and over a relatively brief span of time to
degrade the quality of life for the inhabitants of a State or threatens significantly
the traditionalists fear that widening the definition of security will render the
them, the State remains the only referent object of security and the field of
security studies is about the phenomenon of war which can only be defined as
the study of the threat, use and control of military force [Walt, 1991:212-13].
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object of security is now no longer confined to the State and its defence from
external military attacks but also includes societies and humans collectively
breaking free of rules [Buzan et al, 1998: 6]. According to Buzan, threats and
vulnerabilities can arise in many different areas, military and non-military, but to
count as security issues they have to meet strictly defined criteria that
distinguish them from the normal run of the merely political. They have to be
From this argument, it can be said that not all issues that pose an
societal, and political security. The dynamics of each category are determined by
the priority and urgency of an existential threat the securitizing actor has
objects are things that are seen to be existentially threatened and that have a
legitimate claim to survival. These can be the State (military security), national
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internal grammatical form of the act; the relationship between the actor and the
audience and the likelihood of the audience accepting the claims made in a
securitizing attempt; and features of the alleged threats that either facilitate or
military elites can exploit an act of securitization to curtail civil liberties, restrict
Muslim couple that saw about 14 people dead and several others seriously
Donald Trump, called for a total and complete shutdown of the US borders to all
Muslims. He said, “until we are able to determine and understand this problem
and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of
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horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of
Trump’s call is subjective against the back drop of Barry Buzan’s assertion
because his opinion is not based on a consensually observed fact. A singular act
had written sequel to 9/11 that, “Islam cannot explain the actions of the suicide
hijackers, just as Christianity cannot explain the gas chambers, Catholicism the
bombing at Omagh. They are acts beyond belief by people who long ago
Muslims to practice their religion freely. Moreover, statistics reveal that more
people are killed by gunfire, which is not related to terrorism than those killed in
acts of Islamic terrorism. Between 2001 and 2013, 406,496 Americans were
killed by gun violence on American soil compared to only 3,380 Americans who
died as a result of terrorist incidents within and outside the US [Jones et al,
2015]. This difference is quite staggering and what should top the US agenda is
gun control, not the banning of Muslims from gaining entry into the US.
than issues that are causing more human damage. For instance, more people die
of poverty and disease than are killed by terrorist acts, yet terrorism receives
more attention than poverty and disease as Aradau criticizes the moral and
ordering force of the fear of violent death by a mythical replay of the variations
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approach to immigrants and asylum seekers, and the issue of terrorism and the
There has been call for a stricter border security by the US and EU because
States. Whereas, a recent report published by the World Bank, the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the UN’s International
the European Union are aging too fast to maintain a healthy economy and that
an influx of relatively young and skilled workers could alleviate this problem
[Buchanan, 2015]. Judging by these reports, it can be said that immigrants are
not posing as much threats as poverty, which is killing hundreds of people every
constructed phenomenon as the saying goes that one man’s terrorist is another
does explain the major issues of global security since the late 1960s, which is
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word used in conflict situations in order to contrast one side’s legitimate killing to
violent non-state actors during conflicts. This is one of the reasons why Syria
has had a prolonged civil war because the opposition groups to Al-Assad’s
negotiations difficult. Similarly, ten years after Margaret Thatcher remarked that
a group like the African National Congress (ANC), which was perceived to be a
terrorist group and led by Nelson Mandela, would never run the government of
South Africa, President Mandela was welcomed by the Queen Elizabeth on his
first visit to London [Milmo, 2013], meaning that yesterday’s terrorists may
another State only when they are not in support of that State or group, not
non-state actors. Some examples are Nazi genocide, Stalin’s purges and the
killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, among others [Hough, 2004: 62].
as Rapoport put it, was borne out of the western interference in the political
invasion into the country [Hough, 2004:65]. Some Islamist groups took the fight
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resistance to Israel and further to the US and Western Europe seen as upholding
Israel and meddling in the affairs of the Islamic world. As a result, Islamic
AlQaeda, for instance, was born out the Soviet-Afghan war to oust the
Mujahideens, though, hate the US and its hegemony, made use of the
opportunities given by the US to support their cause. They were trained and
equipped by the West in an effort to drive out the Soviet from Afghanistan
thereby containing communism in the Islamic world [Rapoport, 2004: 62]. But
the transformation of the group after driving out the Soviet was unprecedented.
Their operation in all parts of the world became a cause for concern and by the
time attacks on the world trade centre were carried out it then occurred to the
West that those once approved and trained by them had turned out to become
their enemy.
threat, but because the actor is able to influence his presentation of that
particular issue as a threat and win the approval of an audience in the sense that
some politicians have been able to successfully label Islam as a religion that
supports violence mainly because most terrorist organizations hide under Islam
to justify the legitimacy of their actions. However, it would be very wrong to look
at Islam and judge the religion by such lens because not all Muslims live a
violent life.
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on America and its allies, despite the fact that there was an ongoing inspection
into the nuclear programme embarked upon by Iraq and a report had been
Iraq intended to possess WMD, but the programme had been jettisoned [Nichols,
organizations became the centre of security policy after the collapse of the
Soviet Union owing to the fact that political and economic instability in the
region raised the fear that there could be black market for WMD which could be
accessed by terrorist organizations and rogue States such as Iraq, Iran, Libya,
north Korea and Cuba [Farrell, 2010:p.70]. In essence, the issue of terrorism
has been over-securitized by the US and its allies much more than issues that
was securitized because it had become a pandemic and its spread needed to be
checked. The first case of HIV / AIDS was reported in 1981 when infectious
the social, economic, and political levels that threatened to spread anarchy
within societies, but it was not securitized until the end of the 20th century
during the era of Bill Clinton [Leboeuf, 2008: 6-8], when peacekeeping
personnel were being sent to war torn countries in Africa and their movement in
and out of countries where HIV/AIDS was prevalent, was becoming a cause for
concern. By the mid to late 1990s, when it became apparent that countries
affected had failed to contain the spread of the disease, HIV/AIDS began to
come to the attention of the security policy community, prompting the then US
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threat to stability in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that it needs to be regarded
of UNAIDS, pushed the issue on the agenda of the UNSC in 2000 and the
testing and counselling for peacekeeping personnel. This was due to the increase
died of AIDS and it was estimated that half of the police and armed forces were
infection rate among security forces, the economic burden caused by the
peacekeepers due to the risk of infection, and even its use as a weapon of war,
(SARS), Ebola, and Tuberculosis are believed to have the potential of moving
there were enough empirical evidences to show that the diseases were
inherently dangerous.
However, some diseases that have more record of mortality than these
diseases have not been given much attention. Their threats have been
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result of lack of portable water, sanitation and hygiene in the developing world
[Farrell, 2010:67], sharing the view of Ken Booth, who says, “terrorism is an
abomination and must be countered, but poverty is the world’s biggest killer”
result of the threats they pose, but because a particular set of people feel some
of these diseases are likely to affect them than the others. As a result of
controlled. As such, only diseases that can spread through contact with people
coming to industrialized areas from where the diseases are domiciled are given
developing countries.
added that the attention given to the spread of infectious disease speaks more
to the concerns of western foreign (including economic) and security policy than
in developed countries than the number of malaria deaths in Africa. More than
16 million Americans are living with a disease caused by smoking and for every
person who dies because of smoking, at least 30 people live with a serious
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smoking-related illness [CDC fact sheet]. Smoking causes cancer, heart disease,
emphysema and chronic bronchitis. It also increases risk for tuberculosis, certain
arthritis [CDC fact sheet]. But, tobacco industries have not been banned because
issues that may likely not happen. Secondly, most natural disasters occur in
overpopulated poor areas and they affect people that are not of great economic
importance.
natural events. The fact that people live in places known to be prone to disaster,
alleviate the potential human cost of events known to be likely to occur [Hough,
2004:180].
in the media that global warming might lead to the collapse of Gulf Stream,
plunging Europe into a new ice age and triggering widespread unrest. In 2004,
the British government’s chief scientist, Sir David King, suggested that climate
change is a far greater threat to the world’s stability than international terrorism
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not have received attention if the existence of industrialized nations had not
set of terrorist groups like ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab and the Taliban partly
because these groups are operating beyond the borders of their domiciled
regions and because of their western targets. Other terrorist groups like the
Boko Haram, which also operates beyond the borders of Nigeria, have not
received as much attention as ISIS and others because the areas where they
operate are of not much importance. It has been over 2 years since the kidnap
of over 200 schools girls by Boko Haram in the northern part of Nigeria and not
much help has been received from the international community on how to locate
or rescue these girls. The Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan attacks in France early
and late 2015, which left about 12 people [Levs, 2015] and 130 people dead
than the estimated 2,000 people killed by Boko Haram in January of 2015 alone
There was a notable social media support for the Charlie Hebdo attack
that popularized ‘Je suis Charlie’ slogan. The same went for the Bataclan, where
individual profile pictures on Facebook social medium were veiled with the
French flag in support of aggrieved France. It is not the same with Nigeria. Many
attacks of Boko Haram have gone unnoticed since 2009 that the group launched
its bloody massacre of innocent civilians and the displacement of many, yet a
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CONCLUSION
It can be concluded against the back drop of several evidences in this essay that
inconsequential.
In the same vein, not all issues are securitized by security actors because
The role played by the media in publicizing security issues cannot be over-
nations even though there are other security challenges that are causing more
deaths than terrorism. Terrorism overrides the issue of climate change, which
poses a bigger existential threat to humanity because climate change does not
existential threat have failed to be securitized because they have not been given
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