Every few weeks the peaceful beauty of Margalla Hills is marred by a familiar and heavy sight: hundreds of rusty coloured shipping containers laid across our major routes. Huge Steel walls go up at night, in Faizabad, eventually at D-Chowk and on the Islamabad Highway, close to the heart of the city. There’s one thing that remains unchanged whether the capital sets to a rapid halt in politics or through security measures.
It is a standard practice of Pakistani urban society and a core strength—at least an everyday strength—and those often unpredictable disruptions that a family faces helps grease these wheels of informal “collective care”. In recent years, this neighborly effort has been complemented with the use of new communication technology such as the live traffic app, community WhatsApp groups and real-time updates of social media containing open motorways and bus stops. These are helpful tools indeed.
It’s important to acknowledge our law enforcement officers’ challenging duties. The work of the security service and law enforcement officers is strenuous and uptight work heavy on the hot asphalt for many hours and working under a lot of stress. They are the guards of state buildings and ensuring peace, essential activities for any national capital.
But if we analyse how the blockades are manifest, it will be clear that the real burden of security is borne internally, in silenced human costs that can’t be counted.
Now suppose a women at the end of her street early Tuesday morning… Her father is ill and has been coughing since midnight, she has a paper prescription for him. Four blocks away there’s the local pharmacy, but the street is blocked with steel and concrete heavy freight containers. There is no time to argue, and so she turns around and starts walking along a section of side streets that she doesn’t know. The additional miles, , lost hours and undirected terror is a lot to carry on her own.
Imagine a paramedic rushing through busy residential neighborhoods and having to squander precious minutes en route to the hospital while battling traffic, all while a patient is in critical condition. Consider the family who relies on the income of a daily wage worker or small business whose earnings will be lost when they are unable to get to work, or working parents who have to scramble around the middle of the morning to pick up their children when school is suddenly closed.
The nuance to be observed is this. The presence of policies of total road blocking in regular security operations causes communities to adapt in seconds.
This is not a matter of security officers against citizens. It’s the tale of two good habits building on one another subconsciously. Police officers work hard and obey orders to maintain the safety of the state’s infrastructure. Meanwhile, the everyday harshness is contoured with a certain grace by citizens, who do not make demands but bear the extra burden. The outcomes are the same and the needs for accessible civic infrastructure remain uncovered over and over again by individual resilience.
The term “public safety” itself has changed over the years. Municipalities’ security was envisaged to protect the state, and secure the citizens’ daily existence and movement. However, as time goes on it’s been common to have two different security planning and civic accessibility silos. One room is planned for security measures and another room was planned to offer public healthcare access, school commuting and commerce.
The concepts of safety and public movement need not contradictory. In what ways can we make our security plans better so that protecting our security helps protect the people who keep our society running—that is, the little guy every day?
First, we can incorporate a human impact perspective into Administrative Planning in practical ways that are human and serve the best interests of humanity:
To begin with, how can access be restricted to specific care areas during a deployment? For example we have monitored corridors where people can access certain sections through set up road blocks just as we have clear emergency lanes near the major hospitals such as the PIMS and the Polyclinic, and similarly we can set up monitored corridors for pedestrian access in suitable sections by setting up the necessary road blocks. They care about the safety of the caregivers, students, and medical staff, and will do so in a courteous and respectful manner, with the benefit of a brief security check at a designated gate on site. The only change was to walk the perimeter, converting a four-mile trip into a four-minute walk that didn’t affect perimeter security.
Second, how to communicate clear and real time information in advance? A situation in which a freight container closes down a road without warning must not happen. Current information can be sent out through instant text alerts, radio channels and straightforward digital mapping and communication systems, letting authorities know a day before open pedestrian areas, clinic operations, and safe routes. Preventing a day that would otherwise be difficult becomes impossible for any family with a house to work with without advance warning.Withoutwarning there is neither lifeboat whatsoever in any family with a house that makes a day difficult to possible, nor can there be.
Last but not least, how will human impact checks be incorporated into the security planning? Before releasing a container onto a primary roadway, rational inquiries can be made, such as, “How will residents in the area around a roadway receive medication? What is the nearest hospital with medical beds available? How will working parents be able to pick up their children?
The two objectives of protection of the state and protection of the citizen can be the same.Our security forces and citizens deserve a more honorable route than total blockades – one that is the care corridor, labeled ahead of time, and designed humanly.If a City elects to defend its infrastructure, and the quiet work of its population, it’s no longer a bastion of steel containers; it’s a listening capital that cares, and one that even truly endures.
