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Human Security Now

Interview with Amartya Sen
[Photo by Jon Chase, Harvard News Office]

Amartya Sen is the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Science. Former president of the International Economic Association and the Econometric Society, he has taught at Calcutta, Delhi, Oxford, Cambridge, the London School of Economics and Harvard.

The Commission on Human Security (CHS) was launched in June 2001 to prepare a report on human security issues and promote public understanding of the concept of human security and its use as an operational tool for policy formulation and implementation. The CHS is chaired by former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata and Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen. The CHS's final report was presented to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on May 1, 2003.

Amartya Sen answered the SGI Quarterly's questions about the Commission and its report. The interview, together with highlights of the report, are presented here.

SGI Quarterly: Discussions about human security have been around for decades. But the majority of people still see security in terms of national security. How do you think a broader understanding of human security can be communicated more widely?

War destroys human security (Iraq, 1991) [UNICEF/Schneider]

Amartya Sen: A broader understanding of human security is extremely important precisely because it affects human lives. The idea of what is called "national security" is somewhat more remote from human lives, in the sense that it is often defined in terms of military preparedness and other features of national policy. Defense can, of course, be important for the lives of people within a nation, and to the extent that this is so, that consideration can be fully covered within the idea of human security itself.

You say that the majority of people do see security in terms of national security. I am not sure of this. They are, in fact, concerned with the security of their own lives and of the lives of other people like them. The thing to emphasize is that this general concern has to be directly addressed, and any understanding of security in more remote terms (such as military security or so-called national security) can be integrated with it to the extent that this makes human life more secure.

Development as Freedom

SGIQ: You are well known for promoting the idea of "Development as Freedom." How do you view the relationship between human security and freedom?

AS: The idea behind my last book, Development as Freedom, is that freedom is the principal end of development as well as its primary means. The basic understanding here is that freedoms of different kinds (such as political liberty, social facilities, economic opportunity, etc.) are each individually important, but they also complement each other. Each kind of freedom serves as an end in itself and also as a means to the other freedoms.

The idea of freedom is very broad and deals with freedom from insecurity as well as freedom to enhance general living conditions and people's ability to do what they value doing and have reason to pursue. Human security is, thus, connected with one part of human freedom, and it is that part with which the report of the Commission on Human Security is specifically connected. In the context of human security we are especially concerned with "downside risks."

Indeed, even when overall progress is very positive, the threat of insecurity may still be present and serious. For example, even though South Korea had two decades of extremely rapid economic growth with much equity in the distribution of economic gains, when the East Asian economic crisis came in 1997, it turned out that a proportion of the population had remained extremely vulnerable, despite their having had participation in the general aggregative progress in the economy as a whole. The trouble is that when things go up and up, people often move up together, but when the downfall comes, they tend to fall extremely divided.

Vulnerability

Thus, the old idea of growth with equity does not provide an adequate guarantee of security when there are inescapable downturns. By focusing specifically on human security, the Commission's report extends the more "upbeat" pursuit of development, by paying specific attention to dangers of downturns and unanticipated declines. The idea of human security, thus, fits in well with the broader notion of human freedom, but focuses particularly on the question of vulnerability.

SGIQ: You experienced personally the partition of India and the plunging of the country into sectarian politics and violence. How do you think such dangerous cultural or religious separatism can be avoided in times of economic insecurity?

A Rwandan refugee in Zaire [UNHCR]

AS: You are right to be concerned about what can be done to prevent violence related to cultural and religious separatism. Indeed, that problem arises not only in times of economic insecurity but also through many other connections. For example, the communal violence in Gujarat last year came in a period of considerable economic expansion, which had gone on for several years, in that very state.

The issue of sectarian politics and violence has to be addressed directly. People don't get violent toward each other out of any natural propensity, but rather they are led into a bloody course of action by systematic poisoning of their minds. As Ogden Nash's poem claims: "Any kiddie in school can love like a fool,/But hating, my boy, is an art!" That art is cultivated systematically by sectarian instigators and promoters of disaffection and hatred. It is very important to confront this hate-mongering both by informed public discussion and by paying adequate attention to the curriculum of school education.

Shared Human Identity

By fostering a narrow view of people in sectarian terms, the cultivation of suspicion of others can cause tremendous harm to the minds of the young. This has happened in one country after another in recent years. We have to be vigilant in making sure that the school curriculum broadens children's minds, rather than narrowing them. The fact that our different identities connected with religion or other beliefs need not put us on a collision course against each other is a very important understanding that needs deliberate and determined cultivation. Also, our shared human identity is a feature of our existence that needs clearer and more forceful articulation.

SGIQ: Much of the concrete action that the Commission proposes overlaps with existing priorities for, say, arms control or increasing investment in education or public health. How do you think the Commission can actually make a difference?

AS: I am not sure that the proposals of the Commission really overlap so much with existing priorities. The main thing to recognize is that the focus of the Commission is on human beings, and the security with which we are concerned is specifically human security. Even though it is inescapable that some of the issues we have concentrated on, such as public health care, or expansion of school education, or arms control, would have also received attention in previous public discussions, the difference we are trying to make comes from our specific focus on human security.

This makes three differences in particular. First, it calls for a further understanding of different features of insecurity and vulnerability which relate to each other. For example, there is a very close connection between lack of basic education and the inability to make good use of public health facilities. Similarly, there is a complementarity between arms export (often sold by the richest countries in the world) to the poorer countries and the undermining of democracy and civil society in those poorer countries, and the two have to be addressed together. Also, even as school education is expanded, paying particular attention to the school curriculum (focusing on broadening the human mind rather than planting incendiary sectarianism) is especially important to complement the process, so as to reduce conflict and confront the cultivation of violence.

Second, we are focusing specifically on downside risks, and as such our motivating concern is more with vulnerability of the most precarious than with just overall aggregative progress. There is no conflict between the two perspectives, but we want to pay particular attention to the dangers that lurk (coming from conflict or from economic downturns) even when, by and large, things seem to be moving positively forward.

Integration

Third, even though there are many organizations that are promoting causes which coincide with, or are complementary to, the objectives pursued by the Commission, there is need for an organizational integration on which thought will have to be given. For example, on the subject of health care, there is the issue of health delivery systems, with which the World Health Organization and other parts of the UN organization are particularly concerned, but also issues of patent rights and trade, with which the World Trade Organization should be involved, such as the development of inexpensive drugs and their availability at low prices to consumers (often indigent sufferers of serious illnesses). The development and availability of inexpensive drugs has to be integrated with the expansion of health delivery systems so that the drugs are properly used and the results effectively monitored. We are asking the world community to look particularly at the interconnections that have to be taken into account in developing a fuller and more integrated approach to the insecurities that plague the lives of so much of humanity.

A classroom in Ethiopia [UNICEF/Steve Winter]

SGIQ: Many of our readers will want to know what they can do concretely to increase human security, as the global scale of the problems can be overwhelming. What advice can you offer?

AS: We believe that the effectiveness of our battle against human insecurity requires collaboration at different levels. Your readers will have much to contribute to this. First of all, focusing on the concern with vulnerability and insecurity can itself be valuable in bringing an important perspective to the attention of the world. We hope very much that there will be writings and interchanges in the public domain on the different issues raised by us in the report of the Commission.

Protection and Empowerment

Second, your readers are themselves involved in different walks of life, some in education, others in industry, still others with health care, journalism and other activities. In each of these fields there is a lot to be done that can promote the cause of greater human security in the world. If we are right in thinking that overcoming the problem of human security demands both "protection" (when people are too vulnerable to resist the forces that overwhelm them) and "empowerment" (when people, with the help of each other, can enhance their ability to withstand threatening developments), your readers may wish to see what they can do in pursuit of both of these objectives.

We live in one world, and our ability to look after ourselves and others depends greatly on how we understand the commonality of our problems and the challenges that we face together, as human beings, with diverse fortunes. With the rich tradition of social concern that the Soka Gakkai International is part of, your readers will, I believe, have a particularly constructive role to play in joining others in fighting against a major challenge of our times--the intense problem of human insecurity.

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