ABSTRACT
Human security is the life-safety of individuals – its absolute minimum requirement is life, with death as the limiting condition. Modern polite society has bracketed discussion of life and death as unpleasant and even unspeakable, almost pornographic, though personal experience, popular culture, and religion manage to keep the subject as an immediate presence. One cannot discuss human security without confronting the fundamental mortality of all life. Who is responsible for the safety of individuals? The Christian asks: “Am I not my brother’s keeper?” And the sceptic replies, “Doesn’t one’s ‘brother’ have the responsibility for his own safety, particularly if that ‘brother’ is a total stranger?” Human security is enhanced by personal responsibility plus altruism, or at least helpful concern for others and by adding sponsorship of life to the scope of the state, death can be presumably postponed to the limits of natural longevity. No man is entirely helpless, although individual ability and resources to survive in difficult circumstances vary greatly. Prudence is the sense to avoid dangerous and life-threatening conditions, but as the 2004 tsunami demonstrated, millions were caught by surprise through no fault of their own and many thousands perished by an “Act of God.”
