It starts with one person.
In the case of the Ebola epidemic, it appears that it was a young, nameless two year old boy in Guinea. How he contracted Ebola no one seems to know, but what has been established is that the virus spread from him to others in his family and village, becoming the worst outbreak of Ebola in history. There were a few things that made this outbreak unusual. First, the location. Ebola seems to have originated in the area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the South Sudan. In this case the outbreak was miles away in West Africa. Second, the outbreak spread fairly rapidly.
What was not unusual, however, was the response from the global community. The global North has never taken Ebola very seriously. To be clear, scientists and health professionals have always taken it seriously and have understood the potentially catastrophic dangers associated with an outbreak. Yet for most of the rest of the global North, Ebola was a strange, deadly illness that existed in a place—Africa—that was full of strange and deadly illnesses.
To his credit, President Obama was one of the few leaders in the global North who recognized, fairly early, that the Ebola epidemic was something that had to be quickly addressed. His response, which has been somewhat controversial, was to deploy military personnel to assist in the crisis. This response was not entirely without justification given that there are immense logistical and security components to addressing the crisis. On the other hand, Cuba chose a different route and has deployed medical personnel to directly assist on the ground. Though there has been much rhetoric about the Ebola crisis, most nations seem to be taking the stand that they will hunker down and protect themselves rather than commit frontline support to the battle within West Africa.
The extent of the crisis is rooted in race, war and neo-liberalism. It is no accident that the epidemic has been particularly devastating in two countries that witnessed brutal civil wars. Liberia and Sierra Leone went through years of wars that evolved from militarized political conflicts to banditry-posing-as-revolution. In both countries the states all but collapsed and any sense of social trust between neighbors, villages and certainly of strangers was eroded. Guinea has never seemed to have recovered any sense of direction since the death of Sekou Toure and the coup that almost immediately followed his passing.
In each case, countries that have been the victims of colonial-originated underdevelopment have lacked the necessary resources in order to address systemic poverty and dire healthcare needs. Liberia, for instance, encountered the Ebola epidemic with only fifty doctors for more than 4 million people, according to Reuters. The extent of the epidemic, along with panic, has resulted in a situation where increasing numbers of people are dying of routine injuries because there are insufficient medical facilities to address their needs.
The extreme situation facing Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea is illustrative of a larger problem facing Africa. With the debt crisis of the 1970s and the rise of neo-liberalism and its corresponding approaches to the global South—such as “structural adjustment” and “poverty reduction”— Africa has continually been dissuaded from approaches to development that emphasize the public sector and government intervention. African countries have been leaned upon to repay onerous debt, debts which in many cases were forced upon them by global Northern states or international financial institutions. As has been stated time and again over the years, the demand that African states repay onerous debt has meant that valuable and limited resources that could otherwise go towards projects such as the rebuilding of healthcare systems have gone into further enriching the global North.
This factor makes the response of the global North to the Ebola crisis even more despicable. Rather than a continent that, due to some inherent flaw is dependent on the rest of the world, the reality is that the global North is actually dependent on Africa. The outflow of money from the continent, both legal and illicit, has been staggering raising the fundamental question of who is actually aiding whom?
Having condemned the continent to debt payments and a de-nationalized approach toward healthcare (and everything else) it is nothing short of insulting for the global North to sit back and treat the Ebola epidemic as a matter of the protection of their borders from the entrance of this virus.
Implicit in the response to the Ebola crisis is the matter of race. It would be difficult to imagine the sort of global response this epidemic has received were it taking place in Europe or North America. While it is true that global public opinion seems to be frequently more shaken by traumatic events, such as the 2006 Asian tsunami, as opposed to creeping catastrophes such as the Ebola epidemic or the HIV/AIDS pandemic, it is quite noteworthy that when such outbreaks appear to be restricted to ‘undesirable’ populations, e.g., Africans, Haitians, gay men, there is amazing capacity to engage in large-scale denial.
In that sense the global response to the Ebola epidemic cannot be viewed only in the context of this most recent outbreak but must go back, on the one hand, to the original outbreak in 1976, along with the response of the global North to other ‘challenges’ that have emerged from the Continent. Assuming that Ebola will be self-contained and will only be limited to the deaths of thousands of Africans may be viewed by many in the global North as sad, yet nevertheless acceptable.
With the expectation of that there could be an increase of 10,000 Ebola cases per week, along with a fatality rate of between 60-70%, there must be a fundamental reassessment of how to approach a crisis of this scale. It must be noted that there is no place in this discourse for panic. There is, however, a role for urgency. And it is here that the world can and should observe the actions of the Cuban government. With far fewer resources than any of the major countries of the global North, they have made what could be described as an ‘oversized’ commitment. This commitment, rooted in both Cuba’s long-term commitment to Africa along with their overall response to humanitarian crises, should be taken as a signal to the rest of the planet that the response to the epidemic must be akin to the response to an invasion. One does not await the enemy to land and secure their positions. One must move quickly and with deliberate speed. The tragedies associated with the HIV/AIDS pandemic should have taught us this years ago. But, as with HIV/AIDS, complacency and race seemed to get in the way of common sense, respect for science and urgency.
The clock is ticking.
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the host of The Global African on Telesur-English. He is a racial justice, labor and global justice activist and writer. He can be followed on Facebook, Twitter and at www.billfletcherjr.com.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
Donate
1 Comment
The actions of the Cuban government to the Ebola epidemic is very commendable and admirable. They serve as a role model of the role that nations should demonstrate in responding thoroughly and comprehensively to the urgency of this epidemic that is the gravest medical crisis in modern times. We must not panic and we should be inspired by Cuba’s ‘oversized’ commitment to Africa that is truly exemplary. Moreover, we must learn from Cuba’s commitment commitment, rooted in both that nation’s long-term commitment to Africa, including their overall response to humanitarian crises, that has been consistently effective in a very systematic way. Lastly, we must move quickly and decisively with deliberate speed. Yes, unfortunately, as with HIV/AIDS, complacency and race tragically appeared to obstruct common sense, respect for science and urgency that has had devastating consequences.