The United States Flees; China Steps in to Help: A Developing Ebola Narrative

A narrative that is developing in Liberia about international responses to the Ebola outbreak is that while the United States is evacuating its citizens from the country, China is stepping in to help. This narrative is captured by the image below from the BBC:

Michael Brown and the Postmodern Condition

The Postmodern Condition is an influential text that announced what has come to be known as postmodernism/postmodernity. While description of what this condition entails is quite complex, one of its generally acknowledged manifestations is its challenge to metanarratives, that is, it challenge to big stories that purport to explain what is true, beautiful, and good. The beginnings of postmodernism, just like the beginnings of the modern period, is difficult to date. However, scholars seem agreed on the fact that the modern condition is a condition in which single narratives that purport to tell the truth about the world thrived. Under the postmodern condition, however, these single narratives are being challenged by other narratives so that knowledge of the world is not seen to be accessed only through a single way of knowing. In the postmodern context, therefore, truth is multiple rather than single. In the postmodern context, voices that had historically been silenced by the dominance of single narratives that purport to hold privileged access to the truth are now being raised.

That other voices should be heard in the marketplace of ideas has opened spaces for the marginalized but it has also led to a situation where knowing what the truth is has become quite elusive. The postmodern condition has therefore become a double-edged sword for the marginalized because it has opened spaces for marginalized voices to be heard but it has also made it possible for marginalized voices to be silenced through obfuscations and subterfuges. Which is where the Michael Brown case comes in.

Michael Brown is the young African American who was recently shot and killed by a policeman in Ferguson. So many narratives have been woven around what led to his death that the only fact that seems to stand now is that the boy is dead. The power that still determines what is truth even in the postmodern condition has gone to work weaving narratives that contest each other with the goal of insinuating that we cannot really know how the boy died. Classic postmodern imagination - the art of obfuscation. That is how power does its work now - it tells us that historically truth may not be known unless known on the terms of the powerful. Which is why what is going on in Ferguson is not only a struggle for justice but also a struggle to see if it is possible to know what it true, what is beautiful, and what is good. Ferguson is about negotiating the postmodern condition. Is there a truth here or are there only truths and unknowns. Who is going to determine what we know and how we know it?

More Survive Ebola

More people in Liberia continue to survive the deadly Ebola epidemic. Some pose for the press below.
 

United States Firm Hired to Cleanse Museveni's Image

Whenever African leaders have felt that their international image needs some cleansing from a barrage of criticism arising from their internal and external policies, they always go to firms in the United States. The latest African president to do that is Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, who recently hired the American firm Mercury Public Affairs, LLC, to cleanse his autocratic image. These things are supposed to be secrets, and they are always secrets in the dictator's home country. However, we often know about them through the American press. It is interesting how someone like Museveni would rail against the West and talk about African values in public while running to American firms for help to cleanse his sour public image. I wonder whether Barack Obama could hire a firm in Uganda to cleanse his international image.

"The Fear of Ebola is the Beginning of Wisdom"

"The fear of Ebola is the beginning of wisdom." This statement has recently gotten currency in West Africa as a means of drawing significant attention to the fear and devastation that the virus has generated in some West African countries. The statement is a paraphrase of Proverbs 9:10 and Psalm 111:10 that enjoins the fear for the Lord as the beginning of wisdom. However, it appears quite apposite in the case of the Ebola virus because fear of the virus leads to creative means to combat it - such as the greeting below. Where people used to shake hands, they now do other things.

Heroes of the Fight Against Ebola: Nurses and Doctors

The following statement captures the point:

"The emergency response must focus on four key areas.

First, we must support health workers who are the front line in fighting this epidemic. They have paid too great a price thus far with close to 100 workers having lost their lives attending to the sick. We need to deliver proper protective equipment, give them access to the necessary supplies, provide pay commensurate with their heroic work, and make available immediate high quality care should they fall ill. The World Bank Group last week announced $200 million to help contain the spread of Ebola, and some of this funding will be aimed at providing immediate support for the health workers."

If only politicians were at the frontlines of the fight against this virus as our nurses and doctors. Politicians often pontificate far from the scene of suffering.

Liberia Survived Wars; May Go Down to Ebola

See popular perception of government response to the ravages of the virus below.

Urbanization in Africa

See more from AllAfrica web site.

Limbe, Cameroon. Photo showing part of city and Atlantic Ocean. Photo by FlourishingAfrica.

 

Working the Dutch Fabric in Africa

Ebola Outbreak and the Price of Bad Health Care Systems in Africa

The current Ebola outbreak taking place in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Nigeria have been compounded by the bad health care systems available in these countries. The deaths that have been recorded so far have happened not just because the disease is deadly but rather because of insufficient means to help with its containment. Hospitals that were supposed to be places where such diseases are arrested instead became deathtraps for many and now some of these hospitals have been closed while Ebola patients are turned away from others to die of the disease in their villages. The spread of the disease has been enhanced by deadly rumors rather than facts because the health care system does not have an authoritative voice among the people. Even preachers like the popular Nigerian, T.  B. Joshua, who is noted for his healing ministry, has warned those infected with Ebola to stay away from his church. Thus, the health care system and even the spirituality on which many Africans have relied is now failing them. No wonder there is so much fear about the spread of the disease.

Ebola and the Myth of Africans Not Trusting Doctors

A narrative being promoted by Western media about the current Ebola outbreak in Africa is that part of the reason the virus is spreading is that Africans do not trust doctors. The reasons why those affected by this virus do not trust doctors are often not stated. However, the immediate reason why those affected by this virus do not trust doctors is that most of those who go for treatment at the medical centers now set up in various places in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea do not come out alive. Any rational person would regard with distrust any place were sick people go for healing but do not come out alive. A broader context to place this distrust of Western doctors, however, is the exploitative relation that often exists when the West comes into contact with Africa. This exploitative relation has often bred distrust even when people from Europe and America think that they have come to Africa to do good. Having lived in the West for a long time, I am myself not often quite trusted when I go back to Cameroon. This is especially the case when I take pictures of people and things. People often wonder about the kind of narrative I would weave with those pictures when I return to America. This historical distrust between Africa and the West has led to situations where medicine that might be helpful is sometimes rejected. In Nigerian, for example, polio vaccine was rejected by some because they believed that it was a Western ploy to sterilize Nigerians. This distrust is however not unfounded. It is only recently that President Barack Obama announced that the United States' CIA would no long use medical missions to spy on other countries. Whether this would be the case or not is not known. This distrust of the West has led communities suffering from Ebola to see Western medicine as somehow carrier of the virus. This distrust is therefore not irrational as some media reports in the United States seem to want to make it.

Simply saying that people who are affected by Ebola distrust doctors does not quite state the truth of the matter. If these people distrusted doctors, they would not be going to traditional healers in the community to seek help when they fall ill. They trust doctors but the ones who have currently set up medical posts in these localities still have to do more to merit the trust of the people.

American News Media and Hyperbole

The current Ebola crisis in parts of West Africa should be quite concerning to all but the level at which the American media blows the situation out of proportion seems to give the impression that the disease is ravaging everyone in West Africa. This tendency to hyperbolize events, to massage it for public consumption, as it is sometimes euphemistically put, sometimes leads America to take actions that it would have been better off not taking. The war in Iraq is a case in point. That is why Barack Obama reminded Americans in his news conference yesterday that people should not think that the conflicts going on in the world today are disproportionate to what has happened in the past. While these conflicts should be concerning, he indicated, Americans should not lose sense of proportion. The news media has been very influential in blowing things out of proportion by often presenting situations only from a single point of view - the point of view of disaster. This leads many Americans to be very uneducated about what is going on in other parts of the world. By talking about the Ebola virus as if it has ravaged all of West Africa, people have the impression that the situation is actually worse than it is. Now, this is not to say that the situation is not bad enough. However, it should be given its proper proportion. Perhaps it is in the nature of the news business to always want to blow things out of proportion in order to draw viewership. However, doing this carries the prize of giving people a false picture of the world. A good example of this happened today when the American doctor infected with the Ebola virus was brought to Emory hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. The way the media had been talking about his situation gave the impression that he was on his deathbed. However, when he arrived in Atlanta, he jumped out of the ambulance - to the surprise of everyone! Perhaps Americans should not get their information about other places around the world from the news media. Talking to people in regional hotspots may be more informational. Some forms of social media may serve this purpose better than journalists.