HALTING GLOBALIZATION, INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND MOVEMENT OF MAN TO CONTAIN INFECTIOUS DISEASES (THE CASE OF EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE)!

[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 

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 VAMOOSED

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 LABOR

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?

ISIS: Religion and Racism in the wake of ISIS' decapitation of American journalists, massacre of Christians, Iraqi Troops and Others

GENESIS WITH A PAGE FROM MY LIFE'S STORY

Two incidents happened in my life. One was when I was a student at London, UK. I was getting out from one of those magnificent Victorian Underground railway stations at Leicester Square locals call the Tube that made me vowed never to spit anywhere in the public. As I was stepping out of an elevator, I had an urge to spit sputum that had filled my mouth literally to the brim one gray winter morning. Least did I notice that there was a commuter below me as I had ‘hared’ way ahead on the top of an escalator. Then I spitted as often happened with players on the football pitches during the World Cup or other soccer tournaments. A ghost of wind blew so hard on my face and instead of my sputum falling on the ground before me it was taken by the wind current backwards. As if flying on an invisible straight track, it landed on a face of a gentleman behind me. The man, who was dressed to kill, bore the brunt of my streaky spittle on the bridge of his nose and his eyes. He quickly removed a handkerchief from his pocket, cleaned his face and proceeded as briskly as nothing has happened. My apprehension was that he would strike me in wrath, I apologetically spluttered. He did not bother but proceeded as fast as his legs could take him and vanished in the throng of commuters. My heart palpitated for five minutes. I felt cold sweat and guilt that I had transgressed. From that day, I vowed never ever to spit no matter its urgency in the public. Henceforth, I cultivated the habit of ever traveling with a white handkerchief in my pocket. You are asking the purpose of my narrative and its connection with the caption.

Picture: Removed.

The decapitation of the second US journalist, James Foley two days ago by the infamous 'Jihadi John' subsequently identified as Mohammed Emwazi, a looser from Kuwait who studied computing in West London University, London, UK. Public grief across America upon the news was too much to bear.

I will relate to you another incident that is contrary to the one aforementioned. This time I was now on a train travelling home from college and reading a local gutter press, the Sun News Paper to kill time. The carriage was packed full and there was no seat available but there was space for strap-handlers. A passenger entrained and upon seeing me reading the newspaper started hurling at me avalanche of vituperation. He carried on that I was a bureaucrat and that the money from the paper I bought was used to keep us backward in the third world. Instinct told me to ignore him. He came too close to my face and was barely two inches from the tip of my nose.  If I were easily agitated, it could have resulted in blowing him to smithereens for attacking me. I remained taciturn. At the next train station, he detrained as he had bused talking gibberish. We continued on our next leg of our journey and there and then the passengers who witnessed the episode but were reticent, turned round to me and praised me for excellent behavior. I had used my head and not my animalistic heart.

A WORD OF CAUTION

What are the purposes of my stories? There are a couple of cardinal things in the contemporary world that civilized peoples have to tackle if they want to leave this world a better place for the future generations. If these tasks are to be executed, they must use their heads and not their hearts or brutish instincts as in the case of Don Quixote to examine them. The first gentlemen left the train station a better haven, as he used his head instead of his heart. He had the right to persecute me for my spitting on him in the open to start with but he opted not to.

One does not shower one’s self with encomiums but I deserve one when the huge man verbally singled me out on the train carriage with 80 passengers for his vociferous abuses for reading a daily. My feelings were hurt. I was dark-skinned and he was white in an all-inclusive white carriage and I considered it racism. If not why did he not attack one of his kinds as many of us were reading assorted dailies? My taciturnity paid and I did not live to regret as he could have ended my life if I had defended myself.

The first point is the thriving religious wars, and the second is the sticky racism. The world can solve them now at an international peace table or bank them for the future generations. If there was an international forum by Europeans to see how best they could divide Africa and the world at large called the Berlin Conference convened by King Leopold of Belgium (in 1884-1885) so as not to get at each other’s throat, there could be one called up to resolve once and for all how global beliefs shall operate in peace and not in the present pieces we are witnessing. If the latter option is taken that would be a disaster in making for lack of reasoning will dominate the world that is governed by some principles that are archaic, démodé extracted from books written in the past by some men whom we are told were suffering from nervous diseases. If the doctrines they compounded based on the old tradition had to be accepted in the 21 century, there is an urgent need to upgrade every syllabus in its content. Sorting  them now at the peace table would be cheaper than to leave it to be sorted out on the battle fields as soon we will be battling it out with ISIS and their associates who have been literally interpreting the Quran verbatim and force-feeding it on their gullible disciples.

Picture removed. 

The beheading the American journalist Steven Joel Sotloff by a supposed South London accented British somewhere in Syria in spite of pleas to save his life.

Under some circumstances mankind resolve his grievances in the battle fields and we are no strangers to wars of grand proportions. The First and Second World wars are still fresh in our memories, unless we want to accentuate them with nuclear wars as Vladimir Putin the President of Russia flashes before our faces. Then the last world wars would be children’s play as it would be touch-button warfare. It would be short lived and there could be neither winners nor the vanquished.

CAUSES: DIFFERENCES IN VARIED ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS

It is true that the world has advanced so much for good within the last 200 years. We attribute much to the European positive and not negative advances; let us summarily call it the spread of capitalism and democracy, the age of positive reasoning. On the positive side, their successes have engendered jealousy among those whose aims or purposes of life had been different from those who were at the forefront of capitalism, the Westerners. The former group fall among the Caucasians groups particularly domiciling in Europe and the later the dark skinned or peoples who principally people the tropics and the Middle East.  The main reason is climatic. Where conditions did not need heavy works for productivity, there was little or no remarkable inventions. The inhabitants of such zones were docile and innovations technologies were not generally necessary. In consequence most inventions that flood the world emanate from the northern hemisphere with the Americans and Europeans leading.

The opposite was true of people who lived in areas where there were harsher climatic conditions, the presence of snow where food production had to be fast and the right quantity had to be ensured for the survival of man. The outcome could mean surviving the winter conditions or giving up the ghost. Many had to adopt and adapt to the conditions that prevailed. One of the ways was to be inventive and survival was ascertained. Whereas in the tropical zones where much labor was not necessarily exerted to have the food required, man did not invent lots of things that could accelerate his productivity.

Having made these remarks, it did not mean that the man of the tropic was less of a man than the one in the temperate lands or lands where climatic conditions were harsher. There was a time when those who lived in the temperate could not and they needed the helping hand from other communities they considered inferior by virtue of their colors or derrieres or nasal or buccal shapes. The helping hand was either coerced or bought. The former was needed and that led to what we now call the despicable slavery and slave trade that left an indelible stain in the history of the world. Vestiges of this still remain and occasionally surface due to naivety of those who have refused to learnt to learn the scientific truth or deliberation.

Shrewder groups that were not necessarily European Caucasians were fast to learn that if they copied those Europeans, they could make advances in their industries. They followed what the Europeans had done in the past, copying from others what could ameliorate their lives. Among these were the Japanese I earlier mentioned in my former chapter. Rather than fight the Europeans who were at the forefront of technological advancement, they buried their hatchets after their first failure and team up with them or copied their ways of life to foster their technological advances. Others emulated and have never advanced for they had not opened their doors widely to receptivity of what were Europeans’. Some had instead remained stagnant for they had refused to let go their obfuscating traditional values, many call religious beliefs. We are thinking here of Muslims and pockets of African traditions south of the Sahara and among the Indians in America, the first nation peoples and sizable groups in SE Asia. These form what we learned in the old geography of the past as primitive communities. Let us call it at this stage modernization paradigm. Others became jealous and confronted the Europeans in apparently interminable wars as the Europeans had fought them too in the past. Methinks the Europeans have progressed since the Industrial Revolution owing to peace that prevailed even though it was punctuated by intermittent skirmishes.

On the whole, there were some doctrines that helped them to progress, the pursuit of the Holy Bible that some young generations are questioning. Slavery too is mentioned and slaves were supposed to obey their earthly fathers as a paragon. The modern Christian church iron that out as there is no overt slavery and slave trade as was the case in the past and in the Old Testament. Although some persons may look at it as archaic philosophies being followed, it would be seen that most of the Western laws that have been responsible for peace in the world have been buttressed by the Holy Scriptures, the Holy Bible. These laws play cardinal roles in peace in most civilized and democratic societies in the world.

Disagree with me I will point out to you pockets of upheavals in the world and you will see that those societies are pivoted on Islamism. The irony is that Islam and Christianity emanate from desert areas but the former tend to be askew in the eyes of many not necessarily Christians but other followers of other religious beliefs.

Certain economic woes or general backwardness of others are attributed to religious beliefs. Often, instead of looking at the root causes of their economic predicaments, they sincerely believe that the way forward is to engage in quixotic fights against those outside their beliefs. The seasoned Islamic believers associate this to radical young believers. This begs for a question, viz, who initiate the children into Islam and if there are no catechisms handed by their mullahs that had to be followed by those to be initiated? A guiding principle assures uniformity of purpose and avoids discrepancies and infighting that had been going on in the Islamic faith where one faction believes that his version is the best and should not be question or denied.  Some of them truly believe that if they were to eliminate or destroy those who would not accept their doctrine, all their economic and divine woes would be solved. That is dogmatism that even Al-Mahdi Mohammed Ahmed was unable to enforce in the 19 century Sudan. No amount of preaching or explication enlightens them as they block their reasoning faculties. The outsider is looked upon as a pagan or untouchable. That cannot be allowed in the modern world. Therefore, as they are anchored in the past, they keep on warring as in the banana republics called Somalia, Northern Nigeria, Mali, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Malaysia, and you can fill in the gabs.

They the fanatical Muslims murder the sleep of civilized people around the world with their uncouth behavior in the name of fostering the work of God, Allah. That makes reasoning outsiders look at their philosophy or god as a worldly creation for epicurean living. Thus their heaven ends on earth as there is no God in the entire universe who would sanction the killing of one person for not accepting his ways. If there were such a god, we would christen him Lucifer, devil.

Most European states, USA and Canada do not sleep when an Islamic fundamentalist is near their doors as behind closed doors some Islamist followers call Christians and other religious believers other than theirs, infidels. Others do not hide their feelings and often burst out that they will retaliate. ...what they see as Israeli and Western intervention in their affairs. Yet if given chance most will come to live in London, New York and Canberra. Why? It is the freedom and Westernism that they love.  Their youths and others are brainwashed to follow their Quran stoically and literally accept where it is stated that if you behead an infidel, a Christian, Hindi, Buddhist, non-believer of any religion, you are doing the work of Allah and your remuneration would be going to heaven and be given twelve virgins as your wives to sir your children with them. Consequently, they do not care to die for their unjust cause, as they have been conditioned not to learn to learn to reason and be agreed and concluded.

Then there are many who have accepted these grudgingly and given opportunity they could part with them. Their alternatives are not necessarily democratic but draconian and demonic. There are many who rather than follow what others had in the past and even in the present succeeded turn round to butcher it in the belief that what others are doing decadence is. Given opportunity they would turn all mankind to follow archaic system of a tooth for a tat, an eye for an eye in their judgement as we read every day where there is Sharia laws being practiced. We learn in school that it was the Hammurabi law and today we have a version of it that emanate from the Middle East called the Sharia law. This follows the archaic rules of the past as laid down in the Quran that is followed by some 1.7 billion persons on earth. That is spine-chilling for such persons if they lay hands on weapons of mass destruction, they will destroy the entire world in the name of Islam.

I am not an alarmist but what people who can kill innocent American journalists, James Foley and Steven Joel Sotloff and threaten to kill a British journalist just to get the thrill out of it or make their point. They have the audacity to provocatively dazzle their decapitated heads and torsos to the whole world. It tells you that given opportunity their nuclear bomb and perfected Ebola virus could be unleashed on Time Square, Kurfuerstendamm Strasse, Oxford Street, Champs Elysees and you can finish the rest at your leisure.

·       They view non-believers of their faith as pagans and should be coerced to be followers as stipulated in their holy book, Quran. Is that true? Where is one's liberty or human right?

·       They view women as inferior creatures that had to be used for man’s pleasure and producers of children.

·       They therefore deny women education for fear that if they are educated they could rebel and ask for their liberty or become Amazons and turn round to rule them as Western Women

·       They proclaim fatwa on persons as Salman Rushdie who questioned even in the work of fiction their beliefs. You can castigate Christianity, you could debate but the Christians will not hang you as ISIS is presently hanging Christians in their caliphate.  

The point is that they could be allowed to do their things the way they like as their liberty, freedom that Westerners know.  Many of them still believe that the Moon that is a satellite of the Earth is a holy place and no one in living memory has ever been there and will ever land there. The achievement of the first American astronauts to land there is to many of them a work of fiction to befuddle their believers.

Then the world is far more sophisticated, more civilized and advanced than what it used to be and has in a way evolved from the days of darkness. It is no longer a ‘dark world’ but a bright blue world with a brighter future if all is done in a civilized way. Then how do we convince a people that there is civilization when all that we do to them is considered appalling paganism? When it is normal to behead journalists for simply reporting the truth about their ways, decapitate Christians as in Tunisia, Libya, Syria and homosexuals, as their way of retaliating to the USA, Westerners and their allies for saying to them that if is wrong to destroy a country that is democratic when they want to form their so-called Islamic State of Iraqi and Syria. (ISIS)? [We will see that after dictatorship come deadly chaos as witnessed by many in Africa and the Middle East. What is the lesson we learn from the support of dictators all over the world because they give us oil?]

They cannot accept justice because it was written in some old book or followed in the past by a group of person that the woman should ever be subordinate to a man and never be allowed to progress in life as man else she had all liberties of life and sundry. They had to wear head to toe garbs called Chador as a way to not make men kinky thus avoiding fornication. Women are never to be allowed to show their skin in the public. Women are not to venture out of their homes if not accompanied by relatives of the spouse. They have to accept sex at any time or place their men want even on the back of camels.  No persons are to watch televisions, not bloody Western music, not pictures or carvings of any sort to depict sceneries or other living things and so on. On Facebook their women are not allowed to show their faces. Those who do are violating their doctrine or trying to be unpitying.  To these, they would be killing our culture and creativity they even depend on. Do we deign with such folks?

In my other treatise, I underlined that to educate a woman is to educate the world. If the reverse was done, the world was being under-educated and under developed. Therefore, most Muslim world of 1.7 billion would be more backward in the future than in the world of other believers, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and so on where women are denied basic education, suppressed and oppressed. If half of 1.7 billion Muslims in the world are women and most of them are being denied access to basic education, imagine what would happen to the world if this despicable wedge was taken away from their route of life. Imagine what he multiplier effect would be. Education should not only be limited to reading their holy book, the Quran. It should not only be limited to Arabic but to all known languages in the world. If women are educated, the scientific progress of the entire world is ascertained and the leap of knowledge of mankind would be phenomenal for the mutual benefits of all and sundry.

A TRAVESTY OF CIVILIZATION

In the traditional Islamic societies, a religion of flesh, it was normal to give children and servants corporal punishment. It is still where Sharia law prevails. It was in vogue to beat women if they did not do what their masters wanted them to do, accepted dalliance wherever and whenever they wanted as we saw above. It was accepted to punish slaves severely as captives so that hell was taken out of them. It was normal to punish animals that even helped us in our drudgeries so severely that some died as men from our punishment as in the days of slavery. Those were days of barbarism when there was nothing called civilization in the world that we know of today. For this sort of behavior to continue in the modern world is preposterous and a travesty of civilization. In the Islamic societies that is still happening after attending mosque worship on Fridays. Hands of thieves are cut off for using them in stealing as put in the Quran and defaulters are stoned to death or decapitated as stated in their holy book. To Muslims, Westerners are not civilized and thanks to the Western laws that we have accepted and the fact that we all are accepting democracy where reasoning prevails and not using our hearts to dish out punishment when in fact we would have let go the culprit.

KLEPTOMANIA IS A DISEASE

In some tooth-for-tat societies, a man may be killed or lynched because he has stolen from his neighbor a bag of rice or a purse from a lady. To an outsider, the thief is a thief and deserves to save his imprisonment no matter what is happening to him. Nevertheless, to a reasoning man who uses his head, psychology, the person you call a thief might have been suffering from disease call kleptomania. Therefore instead of killing him or cutting off his limbs as in Sharia society (of the Sudan, Somalia, Chad, Central African Republic, some states in Northern Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Mali and Mauritania above all), as is the case in some hitherto barbaric societies that follow archaic system of law call the Sharia, he should have been taken to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. When treated, the man could come out to be so useful in his society and his family. To ISIS fanatics and their sympathizers, such persons deserve to be killed. To them, the man who poked his nose on me on the London Underground deserves to have been pistol-whipped. Similarly, my inadvertent spitting on a man’s face would have made them to whip me before a cheering crowd after their mosque services on Friday. Reasoning was presidential and no one was hurt in both instances. The quixotic attitude in that society has not ending. It is for that reason if ISIS is attacked, anyone from the attackers’ innocent citizens becomes their enemies. In that case they justify the killing of innocent Western journalists as their way of revenging the bombing of their ragtag army by the US Marine.

RACISM AS A RECRUITING POINT

Our second sticky point is racism many never want to admit exists.  If some Caucasians are to insist that they are the chosen race, and that all have to follow them it is then and then that dark-skinned peoples could leave the doors of their vengeance open and go in for the barbaric philosophies that they the dark skinned peoples had condemned in the past. To many of them, the Israeli bombing the Gaza strip in August 2014 as their way to redress the adopting and killing of three Jewish boys is seen from the racists view point. To them, the Jews are white and the Arabs are dark-skinned. To me, there are no differences between a Jew and an Arab as they are closer cousins who ever disagree to agree. You will see that the name Israeli is Arabic and not Amharic. You can see the closeness of these even culturally and linguistically. I am the dark skinned type and there was a time when West Africa or Africa at large was a harvesting jungle where both Arabs and Europeans unanimously hunted dark skinned Africans and transformed them into slaves, a lucrative trade that brought them huge wealth. [This statement is now for our history record and is not meant to foment interminable hatred as what surfaces in southern USA and other places.]

With what is taking place many questioning the purpose of human rights that Westerners talk about when it comes to dark skinned peoples, it became a restricted area. That is when the enemy may be in the house. The enemy this time could be even the Caucasians who will sympathize with the dark skinned and the Muslim and that is when there will be more darkness in the 1.7 million Muslims in the world than it had ever been and they would have more and more overt recruiting grounds.

When another incident as the killing of Michael Brown at Ferguson in Missouri by a White policeman last month will happen again, that will be a perfect opportunity to lure in more and more dark skinned peoples to Islamic extremists’ groups. They will see as have been seen glaringly racism in the killing of what they call an innocent African American youth which they said that no civilized person could accept. The reasoning is that if the Caucasian Police Officer who shot Michael Brown saw that he were white he would not have been so scared to the extent of pumping ten bullets into his body. Where is the solution? To make all white, to recruit more African Americans to patrol regions that are predominantly African American or to have a proportional mixture of African American and Caucasian police officers working in tandem. With what happened to Brown, most African Americans tend to see Caucasian police officers as racists, bad guys and that makes the work of an objective Caucasian police officer more difficult as not all of them are racists.

RECRUITMENT VACUUM CREATED

The knife welding British accented killer of American journalist in Syria appears to be from Brixton or Tooting-Bec South London and may still have his Muslim parents and close friends and relatives there [post note: identified as Jihadi John was a computer operation trained in East London]. These would be committing felony if they do not come forward to reveal this savage killer to the British authorities. What does your gut feelings tell you he is from? The knifing of a Briton army officer on the street of Woolwich, South London on 22 July 2005 could have been an alarm. The two killers spoke the with south London accent and had Nigeria connection. What were the findings of Mi5? The bitterness of jihadists towards the British government had been simmering there for the last twenty years. Many youths who were Rastafarian or Christians as their fore parents were prior to coming to England decided to be converted to Islam.  But what accelerated the spread of Islam in the Greater London some twenty years ago? One may suggest the high rate of unemployment among middle east immigrants and West Indians often attributed to racism. Then the Mullahs had a fertile vacuum where they felt they could fill in. Their proposition as that of Malcom X was that if all were Muslims that did not discriminate based on color, the dark skinned British, Pakistanis, Indian, Middle Easterners and Africans who were ever at the forefront of racism, jobs would have gone round and there would not have been unemployment problems. At close quarters’ study, these descendants of recent emigrants had to keep their homes in order. They fail to ask why immigrants like Chinese and East Europeans do not fall into this category. This is shelved for a future essay.

The once discriminated discriminates. Furthermore, the open-door policy of the UK government of allowing in more and more economic immigrants brought in more Muslims than any other group apart from Turks in Germany and Muslims from North Africa. When you visit today South London, or Tottenham in northern London you have the impression that you are in some part of the Middle East or SE Asia where eight out of ten persons walking along the streets are Asians and only two are Caucasians. The reverse was true 25 years ago. If these people set up industries they only employed people from their countries of origin and the language of work was and is still that of their country of origin. That is a different story of economic discrimination but is still related to the host country having to fear those they had opened their arms to embrace when they turn to hate them to the extent of planting bombs underground and along their streets and stabbing their army men going about their daily chores. Was it wrong that they brought in foreigners?

It was not all that simplistic. African British who had come in from the West Indies at the invitation of the British government as their rewards for assisting them during the Second War needed to do more to be integrated in the British Society. Many needed to be educated the proper way, to speak proper English instead of patois and to be assertive. Those of the second and third generations who passed through those processes benefited and made monumental leap in the society to the envy of some whites. Then there were others who rebelled and formed their cells as in Brixton and South and North London. They saw the police and the authorities as enemies and openly talked against them particularly if a black were killed by a white on the street and the white killer was not found and apprehended. The situation was exacerbated when out of thousands of London Metropolitan Police; there were literally no African British recruited. [Sorry most prefer to be called BLACKS as to them Africans are inferior as they could be polygamous and that to them is backwardness.  They consider themselves more civilized than the once upon a time un-enslaved Africans or continental Africans but they could sire children with mistresses or have mistresses. What is the difference? That is a different topic for another essay.] In the 1980s I met the first African British police man. He talked of racism he faced when he was patrolling the streets. He eventually left and joined a law firm. He was to me a maverick as he was to other whites he was policing. A black who joined the police force was considered by other blacks a sell-out. Then that eventually faltered and in the 1990s more and more joined the Metropolitan Police Force and the equation is gradually balancing unlike say in deep south USA.

EMPHASIS ON RAISON D’ETRE

With jobs not being found and only signing off the ‘dole’ as it was called many who attempted and were qualified could not get jobs as their white counterparts. Then it was an ideal situation for the Mullahs who were born and bred in London of Pakistani and Arabic or Bangladeshi descent to come it. They cajoled the brotherhood of man in the perpetually rioting Briton, and other Southern wards of London that Islam was the right religion for them that did not discriminate based on color. As in the USA, some African Americans were tempted to believe that Islam was more an African religion than Christianity. Let me tell them that Christianity is more African than Islam but all Middle East beliefs have their roots in Africa. The Old Testament tell you that the Jews were African and what is happening in traditional beliefs in West Africa will tell you who reads the Old Testament that it is taken verbatim from Africa. Many forget the Crossover Passage and why the Jews had to leave Africa for the Promised Land.  With fertile ground, the Mullahs recruited some Africans as you will see for those of you who have read the life story of Malcolm X. They recruited Africans and gave them food and they felt loved as never in some Anglican churches and the scenario and equation changed. The children who were born and bred as British turned round to hate their Christian nation and attribute the suffering of the Arabs in the Middle East to their mother country and Europe. Had they a point?

In the 1980s you could not identify a Muslim from their garbs on Oxford Street but in the 1990s they became vociferous and if one visited the Speakers Corners one got in contact with Islamic firebrands. They started forcing their women to clad in dark garbs that were used in Algeria by the women to smuggle arms to those fighting their enemies the French soldiers or colons. If one questioned why it was necessary to wear such under the scorching summer heat, one retorted to me:

“Why do you want to see the legs and faces of our women?”

I asked them why they see the faces and feet of our liberated women, yet they left their open for air and concealed their women as if they had leprosy.

“Why do you want to live here when it is not accepted to treat women as inferior second hand creatures?” I replied with a question.

They did not take my Socratic reply lightly and if we were in Iraq they could have set ISIS eliminators or cultural police on me and other standbys. Thank Jove the Speakers’ Corners was ever packed with uniformed and plain-clothed British Bobbies. I left the ranting crowd wondering what the future was to be like with those who were bent on converting all Anglicans to Muslims. I pondered hard when I attended St. Patrick church at Euston Square that used to be packed on Sundays with congregants of all ages and found but a handful of feeble aged. The Christian youths were praying for pounds, dollars and adoring their computers. The fall in attendance of some churches were sold and converted to residences and others were converted to mosques and that was frightening. Now you can start extrapolating your full picture of Islam in the West.

In London of the past some did not even bear their Muslim names and had two sets of names or eponyms. They would have Christian names they used in their shops or industries. Among their believers and friends, they had their true Muslim names. England was an epitome of civilization and political tolerance. One only saw that there was a sizable community of Muslims in London after the Friday prayers when they had left Regent Park mosque where most of them were being indoctrinated. Then with time other mosques were built in suburbia like Brixton and that opened more room for more recruits of African British particularly of West India origin. However many still dressed in the Western ways and there was no outward flamboyant display of desert gaudy gowns, chador in Arabic. They were not a threat even though a farsighted man would have previewed trouble when there used to be Tottenham and Brixton rioting but things opened when many were emboldened by 911. The banks and health services were that in the past were run by the Caucasian British were now in the hands of descendants of immigrants many of whom bore Arabic and Pakistani names. They had money that could support friends and relatives back home and could sponsor many to come and stay in the UK. That was new-found liberty and power as never had before.

WESTERNERS EXCEPTIONALLY TOLERANT

The British or the Church of England or the Catholics were open-minded and allowed these Muslims to build near their holy of holiest shrines or places of worship as described in my previous reports on this blog, whereas in Mecca Christians were not even allowed to visit. I was fast to conclude that the Westerners were too tolerant, docile because they were begging for Arabic oil and that when the oil would be finished one day, their colors would be shown. Others are reluctant to call ISIS sympathizers dreadful Muslims. Other Western leaders who are begging for votes and cash from those killers of innocent people are ready to kowtow to their dreadful mores, such as covering their faces to stand before judges, wearing gaudy clothes where bombs might be concealed as part of their religious garbs. The French allowed that to happen in Algeria during the colonial days and they turned out to be vessels of bombs, bullets and guns. 

I was appalled when I learn that some of the prestigious vintage homes in the West End of London, UK were already sold to Arabs and recently to strikingly rich Eastern Europeans and Russians who established before the noses of the Britons obscure cells. Native English were running away to the suburbia or countryside as the cost of living was astronomically high in London that many were unable to maintain the homes they had inherited from their parents. The situation was comparable in the USA to where when African Americans came in to the business district center (BDC) of cities the Whites moved to suburbs. Some housing agents ensured that African Americans did not settle where there were Whites in the suburbs by deliberately inflating housing prices when African Americans showed up as perspective buyers or falsely stating that the homes have been bought. As such economic factors drove away the Blacks and ensured that racists were kept apart in some parts of the USA. Blacks had no cash or collateral securities to buy cars that were necessary if they were to commute from the suburbs to the city centers where there were jobs. They had no choice but had to live in the city centers occupying homes, occasionally derelict that were once owned by Whites. This is the same scenario in downtown Johannesburg after apartheid (1994) in South Africa where some shopping centers are still exclusively for Africans. Whites went to the suburbs where Africans for lack of transport were unable to go there to do their shopping. This also happened in Harare, Zimbabwe as in the Cabbage Patch where only the rich Africans and Northerners could afford to shop there and African rank and file, indigenous Africans could not for they could not afford the luxury of driving to the suburbia. Frustrated Africans particularly those who had had Islamic influence prior to emigrating to the USA, Canada and Europe and Middle East immigrants who face unemployment and racism are tempted to be attracted by ISIS that is alleged to practice no overt racism as in some Western enclaves, That is a sad reality that we must endeavor to address. 

The thing is as clear, the winning of ISIS Islamic extremists in their brutish inculcation of Islam (Isis paganism the right term for it) is provisional. If they had emerged as a unifying force to amalgamate Syria and Iraq and if possible Jordan and Lebanon as they were in the Ottoman Empire before the Turks were defeated during the First World War, the West could have welcome it as some avenue for peace in the perpetually turbulent Middle East. Nevertheless,  no sensible person would accept this senseless killing or imposition of draconian Qur’anic laws or the idea of enforcing fanatical Islamic regime, the mistake of decapitation Westerners, Christians, massacring the surrendered Iraqi troops (17,000 of them) , their kinds who would not side with; the barefacedly parading the beheaded ghastly on the Internet and other media . In a way they have emboldened the ever cautious US President Barack Obama to galvanize the Westerners and moderate Arabs state to see to it that ISIS and their associates are destroyed with impunity wherever they are. They had not learned a lesson form Saddam Hussein’s regime.

COULD THERE BE PEACE

Finally, the Arabs never learn as when they would not let go the English in Sudan, then Mahdi Empire, Mahdi’s grave  that was a gathering point in the West bank of the Nile was dug up, and Mahdi their religious hero was taken and the skeleton vanished into the Nile. Mahdi’s people had decapitated the British Governor of British Sudan, Charles George Gordon on January 26, 1885. With Gordon were killed 10,000 civilians and members of the British garrison The English had to revenge and put a halt to the Arab madness. If combined Western forces will not defeat the Arabs ISIS with impunity the fanatics will always contemplate that they could shake a super power as USA to its core and the killing seen now will be just the tip of the iceberg.

Some stated that they join the forces because of the bombing of Israel of the Gaza strip in Palestine. The ISIS by fighting the Arabs, whether Christians, Sunnites  are taking away the pressure of Arabs who could have joined forces to solve local issues, poverty, lack of education, and how to live amicably with their cousins the Jews.

Charles George Gordon, The British Governor in Khartoum who was beheaded by Mahdi’s men, (Arabs) in Sudan 26 Jan., 1885. With him Mahdi and his men slaughtered 10,000 civilians and members of the garrison.

The Arabs retaliate the bombing by the American of ISIS by decapitating, journalists, Christians, Arabs of other Muslim denomination, women, children and many in line we are unable to authenticate. The Arabs who never see the flow of blood as appalling are likely to face the brunt of the British, American, and even the French troops and the other Arabs. They could be taught a lesson they deserve. If President Barack Obama were George Bush senior, the heads of the American would be restored back to their torsos in a matter of days. The ISIS who are the inheritors of Al Qaeda like Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria and Al Sabaab in Somalia bring their message through lightening fright and that is short lived and a sure way to kill Islam. They do not have a steady supply of arms they get from Turkey, confiscated Americans arms the Americans left in Iraq. They are being funded by some Arab states or individuals in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, even in Europe and North America. The point is those funding them could be tracked down and their businesses closed or impounded or money confiscated form the banks. They may have fighters and they may kill with impunity as is normal with the Arabs, they always like to see the flow of blood when they kill unlike the Americans or Westerners who want to kill it clean.

Now there is a crucial question we would like to pose. Do you see that each year the pilgrims congregate in Mecca and the Saudis who benefit enormously from this annual tourism is ever quiet whenever there are Muslim fanatics killing Christians and innocent people? The Saudis are in a stronger position to even excommunicate those who are trouble makers as ISIS but they chose not to do so. By insinuation they are participants in these atrocities. If there were a group of Anglicans or Catholic Christians murdering people in the present, the Bishop of Rome Pope Francis would make a statement denouncing them. We have the Al Sabaab in Somalia, the infamous Hamas, Taliban, and Al Qaeda in the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and we now have ISIS, Hamas and Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria. Other cells are still lurking in the horizon. Can we count how many times these have been shooed down by the Saudi Authorities? Do the Islamic authorities know that they look despicable as Ebola patients each time they appear gaudily dressed before civilized people because of their doctrine of doing Satanic works euphemistically calling it the work of Allah? Instead of their intellectuals in the West and elsewhere attempting to give rationale for their horrendous acts that could cause a major world war, they should head straight to Mecca, Saudi Arabia as a matter of urgency and convene an inclusive forum to bring out a new commonly acceptable 21st century catechism of Islam that must be followed; summarily banning fanaticism from all Islamic sects and faiths. 

Finally, could the Arabs or 1.7 billion Muslim believers around the world pledge that they will never kill non-believers or Christians or Buddhists or Hindus or whoever, as it is all wrong as I did vow never to spit in the open when I noticed that I had mistakenly spit my sputum on an English gentleman’s face? I yearn to kneel down before that man and sincerely apologize but will never ever meet him. He might have forgotten that dreadful but inadvertent act that had stocked on me hitherto like an incurable gangrene.

PS: Please, dear readers,  share this essay for the sake of peace. You do not require my permission for its academic review but it should be acknowledged. Addendum as from 1/2/2016: Read this and you will see how my prediction is coming true: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/somali-al-shabaab-militants-use-donald-trump-in-recruiting-film/ar-BBo7KFi?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignoutmd