Are You Really Secure Behind your Boundary Walls? – George Arabbu

Today most Kenyans live under house arrest. The gated households have little to do with the ancient fortified cities or homesteads. Whilst the peoples of the past shared external walls and internal open spaces, the “homes” of today (read that as “houses”), alienate the next door person and in deed the neighborhood at large. In a bid to make households safe, we have put multiple “essentials” in place including watchman, “mbwa kali”, sophisticated alarm systems, live electric fences and grand masonry perimeter walls, to name but a few.

Insecurity being the chief suspect it can be well understood why we go to great lengths to imprison ourselves. No doubt it is desirable to be and feel safe at home. Seclusion from the outside world appears to be a good security measure. On the contrary isolation is the biggest incentive to merchants of insecurity. Isn’t an isolated person or place prime spots of scoundrels?

Look keenly into yesteryears; the lessons reveal that the gated communities watched over each other’s back by virtue of all being within the same wall. The traditional African homestead was spatially organized in such a way that there was one entry point to a fenced area, which opened onto a central courtyard. The houses were arranged around the quad with entrances facing it or the gate. The day to-day activities of a typical homestead, i.e. cooking, cleaning, children playing, adults talking, etc. took place in the courtyard. The common storage spaces were the kraals and the granaries. These were located also at the central yard. This quality of space was achieved through the concern for security and the need for all and sundry to be involved in surveillance.

Today the world is ironically considered a global village. We also argue that any one anywhere is within reach visually and audibly. However, the bitter truth is that we are so socially apart that situations of two families sharing a plot line barely knowing each other are abundant.

Not so long ago one’s predicament was everybody’s. We knew our neighbour’s cat’s name. We dashed into the lady next door’s kitchen to borrow a cup of sugar… Today and, God help us, one’s “shauri” is none of our business. The social rift that we have created can, safely, be concluded to be an important cause of the escalating insecurity. It is now commonplace to be robbed without anybody raising a finger, let alone hearing about it first hand. The stringent security measures we introduce in our houses not only keep intruders and doom peddlers out, but also friends and well-wishers.

Recent reports indicate that security business enterprises in Kenya are raking in more money day after day, night after night. Can money buy security and peace of mind? The fear of insecurity is worse than insecurity itself. While it is possible to move on after an encounter with insecurity, it takes longer to feel secure. If community surveillance is successfully installed it could serve homesteads better than high walls, watchmen and security dogs.

In residential planning terms the concept of defensible space entails that houses are designed so that every house can be monitored by someone in another. A person looking out of their window or balcony can easily see all the other houses in a given cluster. Further, the houses are arranged around a common open space which greets every visitor on arrival. Sounds more like the traditional African homestead, doesn’t it?

Within the defensible space cluster the individual households are separated by a minor boundary such as small a bush, shrubbery or a picket fence. Outside the cluster a major boundary such as a high wall can be erected. This effectively gates a greater number of people who can then associate on different levels and hence look out for each other’s welfare.

The writer is an architect practicing in Nairobi