But not all nations have such advantage; actually many will struggle to keep abreast meeting the daily human needs. Many people from these nations find themselves trapped between migrating to other lands with resources or fighting their neighbors in order to obtain some assets. At the moment nations in the unindustrialized world are raging war upon each other for clean water sources, right of entry to commerce routes by land or sea, access to petroleum, fertile land, safe spaces free from natural catastrophes, etc. Understandably since today people don’t have the luxury of changing easily their geographical location, since most nations have gone through a demographic explosion in the last century, ominously reaffirming the famous prediction of Thomas Malthus on 1798 that population would outrun food supply
When violence erupts society reacts locally and internationally, often pressing decision makers to take immediate action to avoid civil order turning to havoc with potential ripple effects that could devastate entire regions. But to act, one needs a target and if deceived in the process the results may turn grim. Here is when the political debate enters in play when arguing the subject at stake, which varies from direct military siege to policing of the state limiting individual freedoms to prevention of conflict through early social interventions.
The Human Security Brief of 2006**, reporting on the status of worldwide conflicts, shows that since the end of the Cold War era, violent conflicts have been terminated or stopped mostly through intervention of strong activism and direct intervention of human and social organizations. Although the report is loaded with plenty of bad news on the numbers of civilian’s victims of violence, we get the hint on that prevention is worth it, since they help avoid or escalate conflict and violence. Several organizations are actually directly going to poor areas of the world and drilling wells, giving seeds for free, teaching manual skills to produce and redirect society from the otherwise unavoidable migration or even worse the confrontations, that tinted with ideological, political or religious believes, always have for an end obtaining an asset that will secure their people’s tomorrow.
If you ask me, my vote goes for a twist of the wrist towards prevention, knowing this signifies a different culture in the economy of war that is installed all over, involving directly or indirectly our jobs, capital interests, and who knows may be a our own secure futures.
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* Although many of Thomas Malthus predictions have been proved wrong, his general principles have influenced our understanding on the fluctuations of human groups and factors that accelerate or stop their growth. The principle of population was based on the idea that population if unchecked increases at a geometric rate (i.e. 2, 4, 8, 16, etc.) whereas the food supply grows at an arithmetic rate (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.).
** This Brief was produced by the Human Security Report Project (HSRP) located at the School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada.
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