Human Security VS State security

In previous readings, I’ve talked about the notion of Human Security VS State Security in passing. However, in an article published in the Herald of 5 November 2019, our dear Finance Minister Prof Ncube says the Ministry of Defence requires a whopping $25 Billion dollars in 2020. I will not mention the $32 Billion required by Home Affairs and that if we combine the budget for home affairs and that of the Ministry of Defence, it culminates into almost 50% of the funds required as illustrated in the picture. I have qualms with this position and consequently I am forced to pose the following tough questions; 1) Why does the Ministry of Defence require more money than the Ministry of Health (yet the Ministry of Health requires just $18 Billion) 2). Does this insinuate we are at war? Is anyone assuming that we are at the brink of going to war? If so against who? 3) Do we even require a standing army? This status quo has ignited my interest in the notions of security that the government has and what the citizens want.

Zimbabwe has no natural enemies (except for us citizens since our government views us as enemies), we are not at any risk of impending invasion from external enemies. So why do we need such a huge budget in the defence ministry. To extrapolate my worry, we have to keep in mind the fact that in January 2019 and August 2018, soldiers fired live bullets at citizens exercising their constitutional rights to demonstrate and petition. Today, there are 23 countries that have no active military force, including Costa Rica, Iceland, Panama, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and The Vatican. Maintaining an army is expensive in today's world and, for many of these countries, forgoing a military force can provide funds for other public services. This is also true for Zimbabwe given how poorly our economy is performing. Our nation’s wage bill is estimated between 80 to 90% of the State’s total revenue, surely cutting down on our armed forces recruitment would significantly lower the wage bill. Subsequently, less expenditure by the government would lead to decreased budget deficit.

The recourse for budget deficits is either to increase revenue or decrease spending. The former has been implemented such that the words of Winston Churchill clearly paint the picture in the Zimbabwean context “I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” The only option we have therefore is to decrease spending including our wage bill, travelling costs for the various missions and the entourage that go with them, trimming the government etc.

Apart from these issues, I am always mind boggled where some of these policies emanate from, one minute someone says we are implementing a free market economy, the next one they are implementing command agriculture based on communist ideologies of command/ planned economies. Seriously? Not to mention the cocktail of laws, regulations being unleashed through presidential powers, case in point these Statutory Instruments mushrooming everyday as if they are on steroids. No one wants to invest in a volatile and fragile economy were policies change overnight!! All of these things were summed up in 1949 by Winston Churchill in just one quote, “If you destroy a free market you create a black market, if you make ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.” These are basics economics, come on!!

Anyway, the issue is on human security. Protecting the borders through arming our army is nothing but a pantomime, the major preoccupation for our government should be safeguarding the welfare of citizens in our country. Does it really matter to have surface to air missiles when people are dying everyday due to lack of proper medication, health sundries such as gloves and a motivated health and social care workforce and languishing in abject poverty? Security should be more human centred since the primary reason why people pay tax to the government is in fact security. It is high time we understood that the threats that now people face are food, water, health etc. We are not under threat from invasion or war, what we really need right now is not a standing army with guns and intercontinental ballistic missiles, what we want is food on the table. That’s the security we want from our government. In the words of Amartya Sen, what we long for is we want to be free, “freedom from fear and freedom from want and freedom to life and personal dignity.” Suffice to say, liberation war heroes fought their generational fight that required guns and bombs and we should not hold on to that, rather let’s fight our generational fight against poverty, diseases, malnutrition, inequality, corruption etc which kill more people than warfare. These I’m sure do not need a standing army; they just need political will from our leaders.

May we be blessed.