[Key words
and phrases: Infectious diseases, Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), inchoate
globalization, free trade, borders, emigration, immigration, aviation,
automobile, prognostication: trans-world train transport, accidents,
statistics, cordoning affected regions, repercussions, Senator, USA, Europe, West Africa, Liberia,
Guinea, Sierra Leone, air and waterborne diseases, humans, animals and birds as
vectors of diseases, effect on trade, education, agriculture, U.N.O.]
INTRODUCTION
The question
at stake is how we in one corner of the world could think of isolating
ourselves through restrictive migration policies so as to be insulated from
deadly infectious diseases when we are all members of the United Nations
Organization (UNO) working for the mutual good of all humankind. The truth is
we already have labor, trade, tourism, scientific and other treaties with
other nation states to exercise our freedom of movement, trade and many others. When our coveted home is being pushed down by gale, and that of our neighbor is left standing we often think of probable reasons. If we do not use our head, we could rush into conclusions at the spur of the moment that could come to haunt us in the future. When it concerns health and monetary matters many of us could do the impossible or rush into absurd ways to have them, namely, ignore treaties or abrogate them irrespective of the
consequences. Could we abrogate environmental treaties? Many do today and will
still do in the future. With this human behavior could we venture build
barriers in all our borders or cocoons to insulate us from contagious diseases
from the rest of humankind we have signed treaties with? These trigger further a
barrage of questions we shall attempt to answer below with real and
hypothetical situations.
Should we take lightly a disease or
diseases that could bring to a standstill the growth of human population as
Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) or epidemic variously called Ebola hemorrhagic fever
that has destroyed 4000 persons in Western Africa at the time of writing
(Monday, October-20-14)? Should it not be handled with utmost care and with the speed of
lightning with all the resources at our disposal? This virus multiplies at an
amazing rate, faster than the antibodies could cordon off or destroy. Based on the present experience of Ebola, should
we internationalize public health efforts? Should health be as vital as other factors of
production upon which we run our economies? Should the cost of curbing health
of the dimension of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in Western Africa be a
deterrent in our taking immediate action? No one in his right frame of mind can
underestimate that health affects our efficient trade, movement of commodities,
people, transfer of knowledge, and ways by which we could handle or solve future
outbreaks of diseases.
HEALTH EFFECT ON OUR ECONOMIES
Now another
crucial question is how we could isolate ourselves through restrictive migrating
policies by pretending that we could be self-sufficient if we decide to live in
a cocoon as suggested by some people in North America? If we adopt restrictive immigration policies
as it was the case in some countries when HIV/AIDS related diseases were
discovered, would we be certain that nothing would ever happen to our health
system and some of us would like to emigrate to other nation states? Would we be vexed if those countries we once
restricted from coming to seek haven at our shores retaliate and lock their
gates on our faces? Or have we foreseen that we would ever be on top of the
world and would never have calamities of any dimension that would necessitate
the help of our neighbors?
COOPERATE OR DIE ALONE
Let us not forget the previous World
Wars. We won those two world wars because of the cooperation of others and not
single-handedly. All being equal, we will win ISIS because of international
cooperation and not because we could shoulder it alone. The world belongs to all of us and
any good or evil that emanates from any part of it should be our concern. It is
true to set precedent but its pros and cons for now and in the future had to be
weighed in a rational and scientific way. Ebola does not kill as much as
malaria or automobiles accidents and cancer but we dread it for the way it
devours its victim with impunity within a short period of his/her infection. It
does not even kill as much as HIV/AIDS related diseases. Hitherto, some 13 million
have died from it with the vast majority being from Africa. That is more than
the total population of Africans who were brought to the New World as slaves.
Yet, we fear, rather dread death from Ebola more than even small pox or cholera,
cancers and tuberculosis (TB) that kill many as you are reading this treatise.
GROWTH OF POPULATION, PRODUCTIVITY,
MIGRATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF DISEASES
Our apparent
abundance in raw materials and wealth will be short-lived so long as our
population will grow at geometrical progression and our resources being
augmented at an arithmetical progression. This statement is made taking both
developed and developing nations of our world, the warring ones. If one in the 1940s told a US president that
they could owe China billions of dollars in trade deficits, they would have
bought that with a pinch of salt.
Let us
examine some statistics here on migration and spread of diseases. According to
the World Bank in 2000, around 4
million persons emigrate from their countries to others. Presently the
conservative estimate is that some 150 million persons live outside their
countries of birth and this number increases each year. There are people in
China, Africa and South America who sincerely believe that they are living in
hell in their countries of birth and given opportunities they would emigrate to
fertile ones today. Ten years ago I carried out studies in a West Africa state
and came to the conclusion that given opportunity, 8 in ten students would like
to leave their countries of origin for good to settle in Europe or North America. Many of
them pointed to appalling governance and a bleak economic future as their
reasons d’etre.
We cannot
forget refugees from Islamic countries, as glorified states as Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Lebanon, Mali, and Egypt. In Africa South of
the Sahara we have the Democratic Republic of Congo (D.R.C.), Central African
Republic, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, Somalia, and
Western Sahara. Serbia is another once upon a time peaceful country that is being
torn apart by internecine war. In 1975 there were approximately 2.5 million
refugees in the world that moved from their country to others. In turbulent
states like D.R.C., Turkey, Nigeria …many are displaced in their own countries. In
1973 there were some 20 million persons displaced within their countries in the
world. This figure has since quintupled in 2014. It is hard to get statistics
of some of these as governments of the day always want to present a bold face
that all was okay in their countries whereas human and economic rights were
abysmal.
DISTRIBUTION BY AIR TRANSPORT
The fastest
mean to transmit diseases by human vectors is by air transport. When it comes
to international transport by planes, in 1951 some 7 million persons flew
internationally. Aviation industry was still inchoate. It has since then
blossomed that 17 years later (1967), some 50 million flew. In 1993 some 500
million flew internationally. According to the FAA Aerospace Forecast Fiscal
Years 2012-2032, in 2011, 804.5 million flew; 815.3 in 2012 and in 2013 it grew
to circa 846 million passengers. In 2014 some circa 900 million will fly. By
2024 the Federal Aviation Authority in their report, http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/apl/aviation_forecasts/aerospace_forecasts/2012-2032/
talk of one billion passengers for that year. Irrespective of
intermittent aviation accidents, flying is still one of the safest means of
transport and it is likely to grow from strength to strength.
DISTRIBUTION BY LAND
We cannot
forget transport by automobiles, animal and human muscles. However, we would
like to prognosticate rail travelling of the future too as another likely
distributor of human diseases (see my proposed future Trans-world Railway
network in red below). Fossil fuel is fast dwindling and
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| MY SIMPLIFIED TRANS-WORLD RAILWAY LINE AS A FUTURE VECTOR OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES |
flight of the future will be expensive. If it were possible
to have intercontinental railway tracks, travelling by fast trains as had been
demonstrated in some European countries would be cheaper and preferable than
flying. Then alternative means of transport as ship cruising in the past could
be thought of. Intercontinental train
services would come one day where it could be possible to travel by train from
Australia to the US and from South America to Europe without touching the
ground. Similarly one could travel from Europe via Spain to Africa and the
Cairo to the Cape railway line planned by the British Colonial government of
the past could be realized. The Chinese are planning to liaise all African
cities with a good network of railway tracks in due course of time. Therefore,
if there is international cooperation, the trans-world railway could someday
come to fruition. The Channel Tunnel success by the British and French
Governments apart from being a typical example of international cooperation is
an encouraging glimmer of hope in this case for all of humankind. If that were to
be possible, the health of an old farmer in an African or South American or in
Siberia or Java jungle village would be our immediate concern in North America
and that of medics in Australia.
TRAVELING AND ACCIDENT STATISTICS
Those
developments would have their short comings, accidents or technical know-how.
Whatever, we cannot have a lovely rose without thorns. Today’s automobile crash
accidents though diminishing with improvement in automobile improved
technologies, care in driving and additional stringency as wearing of safety
belts was 35,244 in 2013 in the USA. That was slightly lower than 2012 with
33,561 which was still lower when compared to 52,627 in 1970. The number of
non-fatal automobile crashes each year in the US is 5,500,000. On average 80
persons are killed on US roads each day. These are lower when some third world
countries are considered where thousands are killed each day and there are no
solutions in sight. Five years ago 1.2 million persons were killed in automobile
accidents each year worldwide most were in third world countries. In consequent,
many prefer to walk it than to automobile it to their destinations because of senseless
road accidents.
TRAVELING AND QUARANTINE
With the
blossoming of airplane, automobile, motorcycle, bicycle and foot travel now in
the world, it is totally impossible to execute any national quarantine strategy
or strategies in the world even in conservative communist domains. Attempts to
do this in the Monrovian ward of West Point District a month ago was abandoned
owing to the agitation of the locals.
http://vibanflagbooksinternatinal.blogspot.ca/2014/08/ebola-up-date-west-point-tension-kiss.html. It should be pointed out that African or other artificial international
borders are totally porous. They are sealed when one is flying or using
motorized vehicles passing through customs or immigration posts. If one were to
walk, there would be nothing to halt one from crossing borders in Africa,
Europe and elsewhere. We will see below what happened when a section of a city
in West Africa was quarantined.
MANY
It will be
known that before Ebola tragedy grew out of all proportion in Liberia, some farsighted executives simply vanished from their countries. They flew out to neighboring countries and some to America and Europe because they had seen no
end in sight with their limited public health knowledge and resources. To them,
Ebola was an overwhelming enemy that could not be halted with the most
sophisticated weapons available. They vamoosed. If the fear of those executives
who vanished were to come true and it comes to quarantine, could it be possible
in the three affected countries in Western African, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra
Leone? Would they have the feeling that they were being abandoned to perish
without aids by the rest of the world? Let
us reiterate such repercussions? Would it be apocalyptic?
QUARANTINE TRIAL
My previous
assignment mentioned above discussed the case of some panic-stricken Monrovians
who were quarantined by their authorities in a rundown ward of West Point
District. They got panicky when starvation was penetrating. Some broke the
barriers and were badly injured. Eventually, the authorities gave in and those
with Ebola virus mingled with the healthy ones and that led to the exponential
spread of the virus even to areas of the city of Monrovia that were once scotch
free. Could the case of West Point replicate itself if the entire states were
cordoned off?
THE ECONOMICS OF AFRICAN WORLDS:
With the
emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases, globalization or the trend
geared towards integrating global economies would have serious medical costs.
Once upon a time the world of man in Africa was his tribe, which was then small
and ranged from 5,000 to millions strong. They were content with what was within
their world. There was minimal emigration or migration of population. If there
were infectious diseases that we know so much of today, they were confined
within those worlds, tribes or kingdoms unless they were airborne or waterborne
and neighboring tribes were not affected. Then they mostly had scattered
settlements, starry distributions of clusters of homes where close contacts
were rare and far between unless there were ceremonial occasions that
necessitated people coming together. Neither motorized vehicles nor planes had
they as in our modern cities. Thus unnecessary close contacts were naturally
inhibited.
When man
realized that he could specialize in the production of one commodity because he
had the raw materials for its production which its neighbor did not have, he
went ahead and perfected his production and had a relative advantage over his
neighbor. He produced more than he needed for he knew that he could exchange or
sell it to his neighbors who in turn paid better prices for it than he would
have sold locally within his tribe or world. That was the beginning of this
primitive microscopic globalization.
He could
specialize in the production of steel because he stumbled on quality iron ore
and his people capitalized on that to produce and perfected the production of
steel goods. On the other hand, the people living next to him perfected in the
production of food stuffs he needed because the climate and soils in their
world were favorable. As such, there was international division of labor. The result
was increase in production of commodities in both worlds. If they produced
surplus of their products, they needed bigger markets, namely their local
markets and those of their neighbors. They realized that productivity increased
and they had more and were motivated to produce more and more and even went
abroad to look for foreign markets.
MARKET INTELLIGENCE
In other to
be more productive, they learned the cultures and psychology of their clients.
We call this market intelligence. Those helped them in fostering their trade
and commerce. The buyers and suppliers were happy and interacted. Happiness was,
if all was equal. The world was not all that perfect. If tropical crops were
produced in one locality, it was because they had those special climatic and
soil factors that enabled them to produce those special crops that could not be
produce by people living in mountainous and temperate climates. The mountainous
inhabitants could rear cattle, goats, sheep and lamas, and many more that could
not survive in the tropical zones owning to tsetse flies and mosquitoes. The
forest dwellers were able to produce red oil, hard wood, fish and elephant
tusks that were not produced by the highland dwellers. The two communities
agreed to meet once a week to exchange their products at the zone where the rain forest and the temperate conditions abutted. Prices were agreed or fixed, based on the forces of demand and supply. One ton of cotton was exchanged for a
certain number of liters of palm oil. The mountain dweller agreed that one calf
was to be exchanged for also agreed tons of timber. They all were happy under
that Utopian state.
INCHOATE GLOBALIZATION OR DIVISION
OF
What we are
talking of here was globalization or international trade at its inchoate state. The people in the forested areas were
suffering from some diseases that had never been to the mountainous zones
because the temperate climates did not permit the growth of parasites that were
vectors of diseases to be transmitted or survived. They were therefore
healthier and happy. Similarly, the
foresters had their own diseases some of which they had from wild animals that
the mountain peoples had never heard of or seen. They started mixing; there was
intercourse in many ways. The first diseases the mountain people observe were
diarrhea, malaria, dengue fevers, tuberculosis, and many others that were not
inherently in their zones. They easily succumbed to them because their bodies
had not built immunities against them. They attributed all that to witchcraft that the forest dwellers were bringing to them as a ruse to wipe them out and
get all their lands and wealth. They had no clue of how these diseases were
transmitted from man to man or from animal to man or from humankind to animals
and vice versa. Many of them were dying. Other inhabitants from the mountain
regions suggested that they killed all the forest dwellers so that their
witches would stop bringing diseases to their people. Others suggested that
they should kill all of them thereby killing all the diseases and they would in
turn be free and healthy. Others suggested that they halt inter-world trade, call
it international trade which we now call globalization.
INTERMINABLE DELIBERATION WITHOUT
IMMEDIATE SOLUTIONS
· Many disagreed that if they killed
all the forest dwellers, they would not have the goods that they were bringing
to them and all of them could soon die from starvation, malnutrition.
· Another group suggested that they
stopped trading with them all together as when they interacted with them, they
brought in diseases.
· Other sectors of the population advanced
that if they stopped interacting with them, who would then replace the forest
dwellers and the production of their products. The reply was that they, the
mountain dwellers would send their surplus population there to produce the food
stuff the destroyed foresters were producing. [What they were thinking about
behind closed doors would have been punishable capital offence in a civilized
society].
· Then there were others who argued
that it took so long to acclimatize and that before their acclimatization and
acquiring the skills in the production of the products from the forest zones
most of them would have been dying.
· Another faction went on that if they
had survived in their little worlds without the foresters; they could survive
without them for the time they would be acclimatizing.
· There were others who argued that
they could not afford to live without the foresters because they were not as
numerous as they were then.
· Some continued that a cure for the
diseases was coming and that there might be Divine intervention and there was
no reason to be agitated.
· Many strongly remarked that before
their coming into contact with the foresters, they were dying too from road
accidents, lymphatic filariasis, mental diseases, HIV/AIDS related diseases,
TB, and pollution related diseases, malnutrition, child birth, and other
non-communicable diseases than what was coming from the forested zones. Some of
their diseases were equally as deadly as those of the forested zones. They
realized that in their zones girls were likely to die at the age of five and
that was the same in the mountain zones.
QUARANTINE AGAIN AND COUNTER ARGUMENT
· With such a bleak picture painted,
some suggested that the foresters be cordoned off and let no one move in or out
from the forested zones and they would ensure that their diseases were not
transmitted into their zones.
· When it came to the question of cordoning off West Africa, an American of
the Republican Party, Senator Ted Cruz who plans to run for the post of the US
presidency in 2016 reasoned on Sunday, October-19-14 that it would be
appropriated to stop anyone from the three West African countries concerned
from visiting or coming to the USA. He admitted that US citizens could go there
and return for humanitarian purposes. Then he was unable to explain if they too
would be immune from the attack of Ebola when the first persons to have brought
Ebola virus before they were cured were American health professionals (CNN).
· Others suggested that they could go
into the forested zones and cut off territories to produce what they wanted and
never interact with the locals there in which case they would ensure their very
survival. In the case of Liberia, one was seeing the Firestone rubber
plantation getting on, and he high quality iron mines digging deeper into the
soil for more iron ore irrespective of what was going on around them.
· There was no shortage of tangible
ideas. Others maintained that innovations which mostly emanated from the
mountain zones where they were not naturally blessed had come to the forested
zones to give room to some of the diseases that were never there before globalization
started. They cited the burning or cutting down of trees, that is deforestation
to have room for the rearing of cattle, expansion of fields for the production
of sugar cane that was used in the production of fuel for the running of
automobiles, trains, planes, heating of homes, and many more.
· The expansion of industries had meant
a high demand for water, more and more raw materials and the land was being
exploited in such a way that nothing was being put there in return or left for
future generations. The shortage of water led to the building of artificial
lakes, dykes, channel, irrigation and many more thus altering the ecosystems
and encouraging the growth of other parasitic diseases that were never there in
the first place, example being waterborne diseases. Animals and birds that
balanced the equation were killed off or driven away from the lands and it was having
drastic repercussion on all living creatures on earth. The ozone was being
depleted by a sudden increase in the production of carbon dioxide and other
poisonous gases thus creating room in the atmosphere for our very destruction, greenhouse effect.
· Many were in denial and advanced that
all those changes were already taking place before man peopled the world. They
pointed to earthquakes, eruptions with emission of gases, lightning causing
huge fires when man was not there and the world had still continued without
problems they alleged were there.
· The apparently interminable
discussions continued that those from the north had developed themselves and
when it now came to the turn of the forested people to the south they from the
north were conjuring all sorts of ruses from their bag to prohibit them from
advancing.
· The truth was that our progress
industrially, economically, and socially could be futile when we all could be
destroyed with our strife to become rich and live well overnight without
thinking of our future and the future of our world.
EXPORT AND IMPORT OF DISEASES,
GLOBALIZATION INFLUENCE AND ECOSYSTEM
The worlds
realized that they were exporting not only their products but diseases to other
climates or zones or to other people who were not used to handling their types
of diseases. There was globalization of population growth, urbanization, food
supply, ecological and climatic changes, inadequate hygiene created owing to
modernization of industries, agriculture, deforestation, inundation,
“degrassification,”and desertification. A muddled landscape of our making! As such, many of them were dying from what
they never had before. They died from the remains of our manufacturing industries.
Lands were filled with wastes and there was no room to take in more. Rats and
other creatures emerged to share towns and cities with man as never before. The
outcome were bubonic plagues, Ebola, cholera, typhoid, diarrhea, malaria,
diarrhea, lymphatic filarial, schistomiasis, malaria and dengue fevers,
malnutrition, parasitic diseases and other water borne diseases that fall among
the 90% top killers in the world, that were never there. Rivers were used with
impunity as never before and they were no longer overflowing their banks as
they flew in the past where they supply waters to the marshes used by birds and
other living species. In brief, they affected all their habitats or ecosystems
along their channels as never before.
Many
creatures even including man that had survived because of those ecosystems are become
endangered species. Man and animals and birds shipped to other worlds became
vectors of diseases. These transshipment had not been without consequences.
Why? Creatures introduced to areas that were not their natural habitats had to
adapt. Man in those zones was instead being affected. Yet man has striven on and
was even contented so long as he had a modern mansion with huge rooms than he
would ever use, drove five cars, and eat more than he was supposed to eat because
of his new-found wealth. He became an epicurean owing to excessive engorging of
food. As such he was sick and spends most of his new-found wealth on his health
problems. The question then asked is if it was worth it striving to be rich and
to explore and to enter uncharted territories where he is triggering or
bringing diseases that are even killing him and an entire generation.
PAST PERSPECTIVE
Do our fast modern means of transport help in the
spread of diseases? We saw this above and we will re-examine them here with some examples. The
transshipment of diseases around the world by man is not a present day
phenomenon. When Christopher Columbus had not come to America, the First Nation
Peoples, American-Indians were not suffering from certain diseases. When single
whites came and had intercourse with Indians, voila, they got Europeans
diseases some could not handle and many were dying like flies. Out of sympathy,
Bishop De Las Casas (1484-1566) then working in America suggested the bringing
in of Africans to work in mines, factories and plantations since one Africans
had the strength of some eight Indians and were resistant to diseases that were
killing Indians. There we had intercontinental slavery being fanned owing to
globalization that was then inchoate. Today we have ‘exotic’ animals being
shipped from SE Asia, Europe, African and South America to North America at a
fantastic rate. The stakeholders do not comprehend ecosystem, environmental
governance and that they are abrogating treaties a good number of countries
including the USA and Canada have signed banning the importation of the
so-called exotic animals for whatever reasons. Suddenly it is in vogue to keep
alien pets and when asked why the bison was nearly hunted to extinction in
North America you are laughed at as a hair hairsplitter.
You do not
have a modern girl growing up now without posing before deadly vectors as anaconda,
monkeys, and many more whose health conditions and diseases they carry we were still
dabble with and were not known and might never be known. Some persons humanize, 'bestialize' and hug those creatures believing that they are comfortable.
Methinks, if we were to go deep into their heads, they would tell us to live
them alone in the wilderness as it is their natural habitat and not the
artificial home of man. Some men in the tropics eat them as bush meat to their
demise when not properly prepared. This was seen as the prime source of Ebola
virus disease in man.
Man tends to
forgot that health was infectious as was happiness in the world. He could be
living in the mountain believing that he was happy as there were no mosquitoes
there and that was a lie. He suddenly realized that if he did not take care of
the forested persons, the specialized products and services that could only be
produced by the foresters, he himself would not only starve but he would not
survive. Interdependence was inevitable. Therefore, he had to do all in his
powers ascertain that the man of the forest was healthy. He realized that his
health depended on the health of the other forest dwellers living thousands of
miles away from him. This statement was echoed in black and white in my
previous write-up. I had not come across the following by John Eyles in 2002. “..the
health of every nation depends on the health of all others in not an empty
piety but an epidemiological fact.”
CLOSING REMARKS
The
disastrous upshot of restricting the movement of people can only be left to conjectures.
The restriction of movement of people, goods and services owning to diseases as
the case with Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in question, cholera, cause untold
damage to the economies not only of the countries affected but those of others
living even thousands of miles away. To say that the health sections of
Europeans, U.S citizens, Canadians, Australians, Russians, Chinese, Nigerians
and even developing countries is not being stretched is a hyperbole. In
Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Conakry, regions in the forefront of Ebola
today, many industries are at a standstill. Breweries that are usually best
sellers in Africa are closed. Heineken is closed in Sierra Leone, and others
are operating at the bottom line and lackadaisically. The streets that often
littered with cadavers are eerie. Agriculture, education, effect on other
diseases, distribution of food stuff, and the entire infra-structure is
affected. What looks like a hiccup since March 2014 when there was the outbreak
of Ebola in Guinea-Conakry hitherto will have resounding ramifications in time
to come.
Would these
three beleaguered states come out of it? Emerging from it, the three states
would come out but would they learn? If they have the head to learn and what
measures would they take to avoid future disasters and worldwide panicky of
this caliber? The first outcome of this pandemic virus in Ebola region of the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1976 taught health authorities there to
bury their victims immediately followed by burning down their homes and
possession without delays.
The “bidonvilles,”
shanty towns would have to be destroyed and re-planned or zoned with health and
health infrastructure being given priorities if a repeats of what we are seeing
in Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone and Liberia are not to be had. Towns and cities
in Africa are Europeans or colonial creations (see my article: http://vibanflagbooksinternatinal.blogspot.ca/2012/12/how-climatic-changes-affect-bamenda.html
If Africans want to live like Europeans, avoid infectious diseases as Ebola
virus disease (EVD), cholera and others; they must also do as others are doing
it successfully in SE Asia that started on the same footing with Africans; they
must have to toe the line. It will not be wrong to copy what successful
Japanese, Americans and Europeans have been doing and do avoid making mistakes
they made before they emerged with successful economic stories. Africans cannot
afford to continue to be the sick man of
the world in the 21 century. They will instead be repulsing instead of
attracting investors and job creation in their continent.
Good planning and health
infrastructure cannot be achieved by cutting lines. Good water supplies must be
a right for all and sundry; inculcation of hygiene studies in schools and
colleges are vitally important. There is no question of being tribal as literally there are
no Africans who had not been touched by modernization. It had to be thorough. Had Monrovians of the West Point wards
described in my previous article accepted the quarantine enforced by the
beleaguered Government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia without
crying wolf and ignoring false rumors of pseudo professors who wrote bogusly
that Ebola was a false European creation to halt the growth of their
population, it would not have been blown out of all proportion as we see it
today.
Finally, the
world belongs to all of us. All of us are now concerned over the health of West
Africans. It is because it should not be another African’s Grave Yard as once upon a time the Atlantic Ocean was in
the Middle Passage when that West Africa had long ceased from being called the White Man’s Grave with the discovery of
cures for malaria.
The truth is
modern international borders; particularly those of Africa were artificial
creation by foreigners for their economic interest. Present Africans states
were in the strict sense colonial European plantations. There will be a time in
the world when borders would be meaningless and that future generation would
look at borders as a curiosity, as we look at the Chinese Wall today from the
space ships, war trenches that surround old African towns, battlements and
castles in Europe and the deformed Berlin Wall. There was a time if one
suggested that intellectual property could be moved around the world a millions
times a day criss-crossing boundaries and no custom duties paid, someone would
have said that we were hallucinating. It is no longer an illusion but reality.
We are all members of one global village. The question at stake is how we could
isolate ourselves through restrictive migration policies in the modern world
when we are all members of the United Nations Organization (UNO) working for
the mutual good of all and sundry?
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