A police officer walks past the Westgate mall in Nairobi on September 28, 2013. Photo/FILE
This week, an important security story
containing immense learning opportunities, was sacrificed at the altar
of mediocre commentary, oddly lascivious ogling, and consequent
trivialisation of the bigger lessons we should have derived from this
moment.
I am referring to the story of the policewoman whose picture appeared in the local daily in tight skirt.
Soon
after the picture was published and went viral, the discussion easily
split between those who took umbrage with its widespread and multiplying
commentary on the picture.
Not only did they appear
angered by the sexualising of the commentary, they in fact saw this as
the old strategy of treating female bodies as sexual objects almost in
the sense of the now familiar South African story of the Hottentot Venus
or Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman.
Other
commentators ignored or dismissed this concern and went on to ogle in a
manner that reveals the crudity of our mannerisms as a nation whenever
we are afforded a little anonymity.
Yet others accused the policewoman for simply being indecently and inappropriately dressed for her job.
Soon
enough, word came through that not only had the woman been reprimanded
by her seniors, but that they were planning to transfer her to a remote
station. This provoked protests of discrimination conducted either along
ethnic or gender lines.
PRIORITISING PREPAREDNESS
How
valuable are all these discussions and debates to our pressing personal
or national security issues? Quite frankly, important as some of the
issues ventilated may be on a normal day, they are sideshows when seen
in the context of a focus on security preparedness.
The
instance of a police woman in a tight skirt or an unfit potbellied
policeman performing a security function is an anomaly to any security
situation.
This is because the physical agility of the
two in the context of potential security emergency is compromised by
their inability to respond quickly or adequately.
This
could be due to wrong attire as in the case of the female officer or
lack of physical fitness on the part of the potbellied male officer
whose picture was quickly introduced to counter the original one.
Security
thinking requires prioritising preparedness in emergency situations.
Security agencies are called upon always to consider the many-sided
nature of security emergency and prepare for it.
This
is because emergency situations rarely happen as anticipated. This
explains why preparedness is at the core of security thinking.
Preparedness
demands visioning all possible scenarios and framing possible responses
to them. In security consciousness environments, security drills are
the norm, not isolated exceptions.
SECURITY TRUMPS GENDER
Security
situations are required to conform to some gendered thinking but not in
the sense in which those who sought to defend the policewoman thought
about it. To defend the tight fitting skirt by reference to the
potbellied male is an argument that compromises the overall security
environment.
This is because fitness of the male
officer is as critical as proper attire of the female officer. Whichever
way you look at it, if none of these two can respond immediately to a
security situation, it does not matter the explanation, people will get
hurt or die.
In other words, security trumps gender
where consideration of life is involved. The question that remains is
why, rather than focus on the core issue of preparedness that this
particular case suggests, we have taken to joking around with matters
security even as we continue to suffer the consequences of insecurity on
a daily basis.
Why do we not, as a nation, ask our
security thinkers and planners to prioritise things, to demand a return
to the basics so we can live knowing that we are prepared?
Any insecure eventuality should be the consequence of anything other than lack of preparation
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