The rise of fourth wave industrialism and globalization has led to mass urbanization, especially in the global south. Urban migration has grown exponential, as it is estimated that 70 million new residents migrate to urban centers every year. This huge surge of urbanization has created megacities, or cities in major metropolis areas with over 20 million residents, and these cities are now home to the world’s largest slums. The UN defines slums as neighborhoods lacking: access to sanitation and water, security of tenure, housing durability, and free space, as slum residences are habitually overcrowded. Today, 1 billion people live in slums around the world and face huge insecurities both politically, socially, and physically. The poor living conditions of slums and the vulnerabilities they create within metropolis populations pose serious security threats as exemplified by epidemics like Ebola.
In the developed world, rapid urbanization has accompanied rapid and sustained economic growth, but in developing world regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, economic growth has declined as rates of urbanization have soared, leading to increased rates of poverty, compounded by weak and corrupt governments. The effects of poverty have created serious social and material insecurities, which threaten the stability of the slums’ surrounding cities. Slum dwellers, due to their insecurity of tenure etc., are more vulnerable to economic, social, and physical disasters, i.e. disasters ranging from state-sanctioned displacement to gentrification to disease. These vulnerabilities, argues Peter Loitta, author of The Real Population Bomb, form a context for the emergence of national security threats, as if left un-aided, megacity slum vulnerabilities will seep out into the rest of the city, if not nation. Loitta writes that the conditions in these slums are huge contributing factors to national security challenges, such as: “…ethnic rivalry, cultural grievances, religious-ideological extremism, environmental degradation, natural resource depletion…drug trafficking…and the spread of infectious diseases.” In regards to infectious diseases, the poor, unsanitary, and crowded living conditions in slums make them the perfect breading grounds for disease pathogens. With their proximity within major global or regional metropolises, slums thus pose a serious threat for the spreading of diseases into other areas of the city. And, due to the high travel rates within and amongst these cities, slums can therefore become origin points for global pandemic outbreaks.
Pandemics threaten national security because they put massive pressure on state infrastructure and organization, and lead to incendiary atmospheres of fear and distrust among citizens. Riots and political upheaval become possibilities, as citizens’ fear the loss of their lives and scapegoat the state as a causal factor in the proliferation of the infectious disease. While structural conditions play major parts in the spread of epidemics worldwide, slums become not only hubs of social unrest, but also hot spots for contamination for the reasons cited above. National security thus becomes severely impaired when epidemics break out.
This is exemplified by the outbreak of Ebola in Liberia’s largest slum located in the state capital of Monrovia. Ebola was first found in Monrovia’s West Point Slum in December of 2013, and since then, Liberia has had the highest rate of infection worldwide. 50,000-100,000 people live in this slum located on a peninsula surrounded by the Atlantic ocean; its geographic isolation and high density makes the slum and the city bordering it highly vulnerable to mass infection. To curb the spread of Ebola, the Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has declared a state of emergency, and has made rash attempts to isolate the rest of Monrovia from the slum. Sirleaf stated” “The government and the people of Liberia require extraordinary measures for the very survival of our State and for the protection of lives of our people,” as she declared the suspension of certain rights, i.e. the right to free travel, and she also instituted a city-wide curfew. As a manifestation of the statement, soldiers in Monrovia sealed of all city borders to West Point Slum by creating a blockade of scrap wood and barbed wire. West Point residents were infuriated, as the blockade was erected with no prior notice, and segregates them from many treatment facilities as well as sources of food and other resources. Sirleaf and the Liberian government deem this a necessary action, as the entire country is already experiencing fuel, food, and basic supplies shortages due to their inability to curb the spread of Ebola within its citizenry. This segregation has prompted internal protest and violence as hundreds of West Point residents have thrown stones and hurled things at the blockade police. They also raided an Ebola clinic, accusing officials of bringing sick people into their neighborhood. Sirleaf’s actions demonstrate the threat epidemics pose to national security, and the actions of the slum residents in West Point demonstrate the threat residential inequity (slums vs. nicer neighborhoods) has on internal peace, as domestic violence is just beginning to erupt within the country. Thus, marginalized slums pose serious threats to national security, especially when it comes to the spread of infectious disease.
Works Cited:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/08/07/Liberia-Blockades-Monrovia-Sierra-Leone-Quarantines-Rural-Areas-to-Contain-Ebola
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Detail/?lng=en&id=175893
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola/11045977/Liberians-trapped-in-Ebola-slum-as-security-forces-seal-off-Monrovia-district.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28879471
http://ww2.unhabitat.org/mdg/
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTURBANDEVELOPMENT/EXTURBANPOVERTY/0,,contentMDK:20227679~menuPK:473804~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:341325,00.html
http://www.stabilityjournal.org/article/view/sta.ap/45
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/we-still-dont-know-how-deadly-the-ebola-outbreak-in-west-africa-will-be/