Talk of Ebola is now ubiquitous.
Preparations – or lack thereof – for the coming storm are being discussed in every major news media outlet in North America and around the world. Morally marginal questions, such as whether to cut off West Africa from the rest of the world, are garnering legitimacy in the mainstream narrative.
Of course, the threat of Ebola in wealthy countries, simply by virtue of reasonably robust public health and acute care infrastructures, remains infinitesimally lower to our populations relative to those in Africa. Yet public discussion now focuses markedly on the homefront as public anxiety builds. A similar reaction is found in other wealthy Western nations, just as the situation in Africa continues to degenerate.
This is nothing new. Africa has been perpetually ignored by Canada and other industrialized nations when oil, precious metals, or other resources are not at stake.
Yet the list of Africa's tribulations is horrifically long, complex, and incredibly tragic.
One crisis fuels the next, in turn setting the stage for yet more suffering. The HIV/AIDS pandemic, for example, has directly exacerbated chronic malnutrition levels – infected people have greater nutritional needs, and moreover sick people have a much harder time growing food.
Lack of food security leads to violent conflict which destroys much needed infrastructure to fight diseases like HIV and other preventable, easily treatable, but ultimately deadly infections. Conflict also dismembers fundamental institutions (like schools, public works, and so on), rendering already vulnerable societies even less capable of dealing with their predicaments.
And now we have Ebola. The deadly virus – kill rates historically have been as high as ninety percent though mortality during this present epidemic is situated at just over half of those infected – has plagued Africa in the past but nothing on the scale that we are witnessing today.
And, in keeping with past crisis patterns, Ebola is destabilizing West African economies and threatening to unleash disaster through other channels. This past week the United Nations World Food Programme warned of impending famine in the region and urged mobilization of food aid immediately.
Alarm bells have been ringing for months now – Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the global medical humanitarian organization, called for international support as far back as March.
But in order for Ebola to enter the consciousness of the industrialized West, involvement of non-Africans was required. This occurred in July with the infection of two US health care workers – who recovered after receiving the coveted but unproven anti-viral medication ZMapp – and a Spanish priest, who died despite receiving the same drug.
While Ebola soon became a household word, Western governments sought to reassure their populations of the low risk within their own borders. Simultaneously, agencies like MSF and the World Health Organization (WHO) screamed for more action, warning that the situation would only spiral downwards without rapid and substantial international intervention.
The global response remained glacial.
As predicted, the catastrophe did worsen and completely overwhelmed health care systems in several afflicted West African countries. More importantly for the Western public, the virus has now been transmitted within countries elsewhere in the world, including, at the time of writing, two cases in the United States.
Cue the panic.
Around the world, people and governments are now anxiously debating, analyzing, and criticizing their own readiness for Ebola's landfall. Meanwhile, in West Africa, a bad situation threatens to get much worse. A statement from the WHO last week suggested that the number of new cases could reach 10,000 per week by December, ten times the current incidence rate.
Coupled with increased mortality from now-collapsed health care systems as well as the spectre of widespread starvation, the region faces an unprecedented calamity.
People have every right to be concerned about their own well-being and what goes on within their own borders. No one disputes this. But utterly callous disregard for those beyond those borders is a devastating indictment on civil society.
In a place like Canada, which grandstands as a global leader –as absurd a claim as that may be – the muted response speaks volumes. While the WHO, the US-based Centre for Disease Control, MSF, and African governments have called for more boots on the ground, Canada actually removed its staff from Sierra Leone in late August, citing safety concerns.
It's true that Canada has pledged a total of $65 million in aid, after adding an additional $30 million last week. Thus far only $5 million has been spent. But even if the entire amount does flow to Africa (which is unlikely given the sieve-like pipeline of aid money in general), as the Liberian ambassador to Canada said at a recent rally, Canada could be doing so much more. Tellingly, Ambassador Jeremiah Sulunteh echoed others in advising that it was supplies, medication, and personnel that were most needed in the immediate future.
This has, of course, yet to transpire in a meaningful way.
Fortunately for Canada's collective conscience, we are not alone in our inertia – or our culpability.
Joanne Liu, the international president of MSF, is blunt in her assessment. “The reality is, we failed as an international community. It’s the 21st century. With all of what we’ve got in this world, how come we let things deteriorate to that level in West Africa?"
Sadly, Liu could have been talking about any number of tragedies on the African continent.
In the hallways of power, influence, and wealth, you can hear ghostly echoes from other humanitarian crises that did not – in some cases still do not – receive the support and assistance they require, resulting in the untimely deaths of untold millions of forgotten victims. This in an era of historically unprecedented material abundance.
Wealthy countries like Canada appear quite content to ignore such distant 'problems', that is unless these problems are perceived to be ours as well.
Canadian activist and former United Nations' Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS Stephen Lewis once called the lack of Western response to the carnage being sown in Africa by that pandemic "mass murder by complacency".
One cannot help but wonder if the same charge should be levelled today.