America is a nation founded and built on racism, and continues to be so, as is demonstrated by the riots and protests in Ferguson, Missouri after Darren Wilson was denied indictment for the death of Michael Brown. On August 9th of this year, Wilson, a white policeman, killed Brown, an 18 year-old unarmed black man after asking Brown and his friend to move from the street to the sidewalk. There was a struggle, Brown ran, and Wilson followed, shooting Brown six times and fatally wounding him. This shooting caused racial tensions in Ferguson to build up past the point of containment, resulting in protests and actions of civil unrest. This controversy exposed the racial imbalances within the community, as it came to light that the Ferguson police department arrests three times more black people than they do other races. 1,581 other police departments across the US have even more unbalanced arrest rates, indicating the racial tensions that guide jurisdictional and police-based actions.
Thousands of people all across America have joined together to protest the recent exposure of racist police brutality as well as the lack of legal consequences the police community face for committing such crimes. After the latest ruling on Wilson, the protests became violent, as bottles were thrown at police, cars were burned, stores were looted, and hundreds were arrested. The illusion that American citizens are living in a post-racial society is actively being shattered, resulting in civil conflict and social disharmony, both of which threaten national security.
Since Obama began to phase out the Iraq War, tens of thousands of machine guns, police departments have acquired hundreds of silencers, armored cars, 200,000 ammunition magazines, aircrafts, and tanks. Mine-resistant armored vehicles, rapid-round machine guns, and military-grade tactical gear do not belong in the hands of non-military trained policemen. The over eagerness of these highly-armed policemen coupled with the rise of gang warfare in lower-income neighborhoods with majority black populations, as well as an under-funded education system, creates an atmosphere of expected violence and justification. Unfortunate consequences have emerged, as according to independent trackers, police shoot and kill upwards of 1,000 people each year; the Justice Department does not in fact document police shootings, and instead allow law enforcement agencies to self-report police shootings, thus there is limited reliable data available.
While these riots and protests are a justified means of being heard in a government and country that continues to repress African American voices in the media, political arena, legal sphere, etc., any sort of social violence is highly coercive to a nation’s security. Violent social protests expresses a decline in national political trust, which, according to Political Scientist Marc J. Hetherington, undermines domestic policy actions. The provision of social services, necessary legislative updates to keep up with changing global and local trends, as well as economic management policies are just a few aspects of domestic policy, but these aspects foster trust abroad in American legitimacy. Violent rips in the social fabric of society threaten America’s place in the global economy, as well as show security weaknesses that can be exploited by America’s enemies. Thus, it is crucial from a security standpoint, that the American government makes peace with the Ferguson protestors and begins to reform its racist and militarized police structure.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2014/11/riots-ferguson-after-no-indictment-ruling-20141125456576161.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/11/23/how-ferguson-became-ferguson-the-real-story/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/18/ferguson-black-arrest-rates/19043207/

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00548.x/full

In less than a week, 31 heroin overdoses have been reported in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. This is the highest number of overdoses in 11 years, and signifies the failure of the North America’s “war on drugs.”
The trafficking of illegal substances across national borders poses a threat to the state, as laws and regulations are not being followed. The conditions of the black market economy created by federal prohibitions against illegal substances and their procurement, are those of heavy violence and desperation. These conditions destabilize states as the low-income areas that are hubs of black market activity are made victim to violence and intimidation of cartels and drug dealers. Cartels in South America that supply the majority of the drugs available in the U.S bring the highest homicide rates in the world to their respective countries. They have led to mass influxes of refugees across America’s borders, which supposedly threatens existing resources and a bruised American employment rate.
The black market drug economy causes high prices and secret conditions of drug production. Drugs made in secret with no regulative body are often cut with different substances to maximize quantity. This processes creates unsafe drugs as the drug makers have no interest in the consumers. This is the case for the bad batch of heroin making its way around Vancouver; it was cut with fentanyl, a very strung pain reliever given to gunshot victims and other people in sever emergency conditions. The policies American governments have created to combat the circulation and consumption of drugs in society impact the safety of the drug user and their families.
These conditions weaken the internal fabric in local society, which lead to generational poverty and families of addicts. These harsh policies have done nothing to reduce the consumption of drugs, in fact there is more demand in the U.S. than ever before. Thus, violent cartels that are destroying the nation-states they exist within, have even more incentive to continue the drug trade.
I believe that drugs and their social impact are dangerous to national security both on a domestic level and internationally. I think than rather than imposing tighter regulations and punishments for drug users and sellers, a paradigm shift is in order. Understanding addiction as a disease, as a consequence of systemic inequality, and as a mental health/physical problem that can be managed so as to mitigate the effects of drug addiction on human productive capacity, are the first steps toward a paradigm shift. If we can produce this level of understanding on a governmental level, national security will not be impeded in the same way from the drug trade.

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/

Disease Stigmatization and National Security

I spent my summer living in Eastern Uganda and working for a community-based AIDS prevention organization called The AIDS Support Organization (TASO). While at TASO, I observed the impact the stigmatization of HIV/AIDS has had on national unity and international relations- two variables that impact a state’s security. With a highly transmissible disease, like HIV, especially in a developing country non-reliant on western biomedicine, stigmatization plays a large role in citizen response. Disease stigmatization constitutes prejudice and rejection, often manifesting in forms of social exclusion and public shaming of victims of illnesses feared by the public. While sociologists like Erving Goffman argue that stigma is a binding agent within a society because it delineates social order and societal values, other authors argue that stigma is a “powerful discrediting [agent] and a tainting social label that radically changes the way groups view themselves and are viewed.” This final statement conveys the way stigma can impact a state on an international level, as it influences international relations by affecting trade relations and/or by creating or identifying state vulnerabilities. Stigmatization within a state’s populace also impacts internal cohesion, causing the breakdown of social support networks as fear drives people away from each other. As citizens become divided and are unable to get adequate support, and as international bodies isolate or act against the stigmatized state, that state’s security is jeopardized both internally and externally. Thus, the stigmatization of infectious diseases like HIV, or currently Ebola, must be mitigated within a nation-state in order for it to preserve its security.

Case-Study: Uganda
The HIV-prevalence rate in Uganda went from 0-1% in 1982, to 29% in 1986, indicating a massive spread of the virus among the Ugandan population. With such a rapid dissemination of HIV/AIDS can a tidal wave of stigmatization that covered every part of Ugandan society. The impact this stigma had on Uganda internally was the breakdown of the family structure, as fear of catching HIV caused neglect of family members, the expulsion of people from their family structures, and ultimately the inability of society to absorb the 1.1 million children left orphaned by the disease. With this huge number of uncared for children and youth, civil unrest is growing within Ugandan society, and many predictions have been made about what these unoccupied youth will do to the security of the country as they mature. Internationally, Uganda was impacted by stigmatization as the majority of international non-government organization (INGO) effort and foreign aid money went to fighting HIV/AIDS, rather than into other infrastructure/government transparency/human rights causes- impacting government functionality and priority. Disease stigmatization created conflict between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the mid 1990s-early 2000s, as the DRC accused Ugandan sex works of crossing the border and proactively spreading HIV within their population. This and other historic tensions created guerilla warfare across their shared border.

As a response to this stigma, the government, under Yoweri Museveni, created a comprehensive public health campaign promoting a three-point approach to HIV prevention: Abstinence, Be faithful, and use a Condom (ABC). Musevein worked with community, religious, and cultural leaders to spread HIV/AIDS education in rural areas, trained Ugandan community and health workers in HIV/AIDS education/treatment, and solicited donations from global partners. Museveni also spoke publically about HIV/AIDS to national and international media outlets- he was the one of the first African leaders to publically speak about such a socially taboo disease. Through this government run and INGO-supported campaign, Museveni was able to decrease social stigma of HIV/AIDS, as indicated by the now 7.2% HIV-prevalence rate among Ugandans.
While the community structure within Uganda has been severely impacted by HIV/AIDS, it is clear through huge community-based organizations like TASO, that stigmatization, especially within Uganda’s heavily populated urban areas, is decreasing, and that more people are coming for treatment without fear of social isolation or rejection. 26 years ago, TASO helped on average 100 people a year. Now, they have over 600,000 patients in every region of Uganda. Internationally, Museveni’s public mitigation of HIV/AIDS-based stigma and his successfully multifaceted approach has made Uganda today a leader in Sub-Saharan Africa, and has given them an advantageous position within their regional economy. Through the public commitment to decreasing the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS within its population, Uganda was able to boost its national security, and stand as both a regional and international leader in the fight against infectious disease.

Works Cited:

http://news.ku.dk/all_news/2014/03/why-sanctions-do-not-always-work/Stigma_Management_in_International_Relations_-_IO_print.pdf

http://news.ku.dk/all_news/2014/03/why-sanctions-do-not-always-work/Stigma_Management_in_International_Relations_-_IO_print.pdf

http://www.avert.org/hiv-aids-uganda.htm

http://www.irinnews.org/report/96349/uganda-decades-later-hiv-stigma-lingers

http://www.afrik-news.com/article16489.html

On September 18th, 2014, the UN Security Council called an “emergency meeting,” to garner support for the “emergency UN mission” to combat Ebola. This is only the second time in UN history that a public health crisis has been deemed such a threat to the international system, second only to HIV. The UN has called on its member states to raise $1billion in aid money, and for states to resist isolation, and instead join together to curb the spread of this disease. A record number of 130 states signed this resolution, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to loan the three countries most affected- Sierra Leon, Liberia, and Guinea- $ 127 million to boost their health care infrastructure (ironic because of the austerity measures, no?). The US has also pledged to send troops into West Africa to help increase health care standards, and Congress is reviewing a bill for $500 million to fight Ebola. A solid basis of international governmental support has been established for a epidemic that has infected 5,000 people and killed 2,500 since March.

A problem with this American and UN response to containing Ebola is its lack of contextual understanding. Thus far, the most tangible security risk in regards to Ebola is that of the health care workers in the three states most affected by Ebola. Yesterday, 8 healthcare workers and journalists were killed and 21 injured in southeastern Guinea after attempted to educate a village about the spread of Ebola and how to avoid it. Within this region and many others, the culture of western biomedicine is not mainstream. Local variations on folk medicine tend to dominate. The difference between what is being proliferated by international health-based NGOs and government services versus what the local people know and believe to be true about infectious disease is vast, as if the same international healthcare approaches continue being pushed again and again on these communities of people, the containment of Ebola will not be a peaceful one. This is regardless of how much money is pushed into the hands of the international and government-based health care workers.

To exemplify current local attitudes toward Ebola, the BBC reports that some people in Guinea believe Ebola to be a tool white people are using to kill black people. There is great suspicion of the outsiders who come to take Ebola patients away, as many of these ‘outsiders’ have encouraged local people to abandon with their age-old traditions, as these are spreading the disease among villages. The lack of cultural context had lead to riots and increased hostility and resistance to aid workers, as reported by Doctors Without Borders. Health workers have begun fleeing their posts due to threats of violence as well as fear of contracting the disease, as the health care infrastructure is so poor in these West African countries. It has been argued that this distrust of the West will only increase when the US troops arrive, as they will bring with them connotations of further control or potential violence.

It is a deeper understanding of the cultural, social, and historical context surrounding medicine and disease-based beliefs in the different areas within Western Africa that is needed to reduce Ebola’s threat of becoming an international security issue. Thus far, the international community’s western-based response to this epidemic has increased resistance, hostility, and violence among the infected populations they are trying to reach. Practical measures such as better and quicker evaluations of NGO public health initiatives in foreign countries or greater transparency of funds and resources as the UN prepares to roll out its “emergency plan,” should be encouraged, rather than a flood of financial stimulus into countries with serious structural inequity.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29262968

http://www.vox.com/2014/9/17/6334943/why-is-the-military-being-sent-to-attack-ebola-virus/in/5712456

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-81406643/

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-81384979/

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