To understand the political dynamics of the burgeoning Ebola epidemic, it is necessary to see the crisis in the context of geopolitics and the history of colonialism and imperialism against Africa by the United States and Europe.
The recent spotlight on the failures of the U.S. government to anticipate and prepare for a crisis such as Ebola unmasks the fundamentally racist paradigm of the U.S. capitalists towards the people of Africa. This has continued currently with racist characterizations of African people by big corporate media giants such as Newsweek, Fox News and others
In spite of recent attempts by U.S. corporate media outlets to damper down the magnitude of the ongoing Ebola crisis, it remains clear that the epidemic has taken hold and continues to expand in West Africa, particularly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
According to the World Health Organization, there have been 13,700 officially registered cases as of the end of October, with about 5,000 deaths. Even though there is a drop in numbers in Liberia, the WHO warns this could be a temporary drop.
With a small number of infections now recorded in the U.S. and Spain, and new cases appearing in the countries in the West Africa region such as Senegal and Mali, there is no reason to conclude that the problem is simply going away. The current epidemic is by far the deadliest in history of Ebola viral infections and deaths.
A look at Ebola cases in Africa, as well as in the U.S., from a clinical/medical point of view shows that where the necessary tools are readily available to fight the disease, such as trained health care workers, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and so on, clinics, equipment, medications and protective measures for health care workers, and where early treatment of people who are symptomatic occurs, the mortality rates drop dramatically.
Even though the virus has been around for a long time, with periodic outbreaks, the world community, particularly the U.S, and its European allies, have done virtually nothing to prepare for the next time, even going so far as to drop research projects and shelve a promising vaccine because it did not fit into the revenue cycles of profit-hungry pharmaceuticals. This is criminal. The result is a human catastrophe that has killed thousands and portends to possibly soar out of control if the virus continues to cross borders in Africa and the world.
Even before the Ebola outbreak, health care in West Africa was weak and short on resources. Trained health care providers were sorely lacking. Basic infection control tools such as gloves, alcohol hand rubs, and soap and clean water were in short supply. Isolation rooms and sterilization equipment, vital to controlling infection, hardly existed. All these shortages still exist today.
The criminal legacy of imperialism
How could all this happen? A look at what Europe, and subsequently the United States have done to Africa over the past centuries clearly shows that colonialism, capitalism and imperialism have plundered and brutally exploited Africa in order to reap billions from the wealth of the continent.
Having begun making inroads as early as the late 17th century, the colonial powers of Europe met secretly to make deals on how they would avoid fighting each other for the spoils of conquest by dividing up the region among themselves. This included countries such as Portugal, Germany, France, Italy and Britain.
The Berlin Conference of 1884-85 produced what is called the General Act of the Berlin Conference, which amounts to the formalization outlining who among the European powers got what region of Africa to exploit and pillage. This is referred to sometimes as the “scramble for Africa.”
The illegal and outrageous Berlin agreement led to an intensification of colonial aggression against African countries, including genocide and the destruction of towns and villages and other infrastructure, all under brutal rule. The independence and autonomy of almost all African countries was eventually overwhelmed and wiped out. Later, after World War II, the United States increased its involvement on the continent, as is well known, to become the most dominant and super-oppressive player in the region.
In his great book, “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” by Walter Rodney, many important reasons for the current situation in Africa can be found.
As capitalism, a system based on profits and exploitation, took hold in Europe, Rodney explains, the incentive arose for the new capitalists to further develop means of increasing profits. This meant ways to expand globally in order to find new ways and places to conquer, and then exploit the resources and labor of people around the world, including Africa
Consequently, millions of African people were brutally kidnapped and sold into slavery, creating countless horrifying scenarios the world will never forget. Millions of others also were robbed of their wealth and forced to live miserably on their now-occupied lands under the relentless brutal yoke of colonialism and imperialism, just so the greedy invaders could enrich themselves and their class.
The system of capitalism, writes Rodney, in order to dominate and rule, “created its own irrationalities such as vicious white racism, and incredible poverty for the vast majority.”
How could Africa, with all its abundance of mineral wealth, unsurpassed history of the development of science, mathematics and analysis, be left so barren by the invading exploiters? Rodney traces the development of trade, colonial development, and imperialism as the source and cause of the extreme poverty that now can be seen in Africa, and which is so starkly seen during the current Ebola calamity:
“Throughout the period that Africa has participated in the capitalist economy, two factors have brought about underdevelopment. In the first place, the wealth created by African labor and from African resources was grabbed by the capitalist countries of Europe; and in the second place, restrictions were placed upon African capacity to make the maximum use of its economic potential.
“This,” explains Rodney, “is why Africa has realized so little of its potential and why so much of its present wealth goes outside of the continent.”
This is why, also, a disastrous epidemic has begun and threatens not only Africa but the world. The solution to the Ebola crisis lays in the ability to have all the necessary equipment and trained staff to treat, isolate and contain the outbreak. Unless measures are taken by the wealthiest countries to provide the resources—supplies, medicine, organization, and health care workers—it will not be possible to bring the crisis under control. “It’s only money,” one might say, but the dictates of capitalism are not inclined to simply provide funds. Capitalists are generally also not willing to shell out funds when maximum profits are not factored into the equation.
Change through struggle
The criminal role of the United States government and the mega corporations that it works for have been witnessed by the entire world over recent weeks encompassing the evolving epidemic. The greatly touted U.S. health care for-profit system has shown itself to be completely unable to handle the situation.
On the other hand, socialist Cuba has won the hearts and minds of people across the world for the self-sacrifice and solidarity shown by its medical personnel, and its superior medical pathways of excellence in providing care and treatment to those who are sick and at risk of being sick. Even the imperialist media in the United States—The NY Times and the Wall Street Journal—have been forced to recognize and openly praise Cuba’s outstanding intervention in West Africa.
People in West Africa are struggling to respond and to defend their communities, with large numbers steping forward to get involved with “the process” of defeating the disease.
In the United States, Spain and elsewhere, workers are organizing to demand that hospitals and government agencies do whatever is necessary, spend whatever is required in dollars, to protect workers and support public health. One of the largest nurses’ unions in the U.S., the National Nurses United has mobilized thousands of nurses to rally and sign petitions demanding action by the government and for-profit health corporations to provide the needed resources to make sure the disease does not spread. The union is calling strikes at hospitals across the United States on November 12, as part of a national day of action, to demand that all necessary funds are provided to ensure that all workers, patients and their families are protected from exposure.
Courageous workers, such as Registered Nurse Kaci Hickox of Maine, who recently returned from West Africa where she was providing care to patients with Ebola, have been harassed and discriminated against upon returning home. Hickox, in fact, has tested negative for the Ebola virus and is symptom free. Placed under virtual house arrest for 21 days by the state of Maine, she has risked being arrested and has defied attempts to “quarantine” her after she bravely and selflessly traveled to West Africa to help the process.
Completely fear-based, such so-called quarantine measures, mandated by non-medical politicians, ignore health science analysis. In a flagrant violation of civil rights, they treat health care workers and communities at risk as criminals, and punish people by putting them on lock-down in their homes for no scientific reason.
Beyond the great immediate need to unite with all those who are struggling to secure the necessary materials and resources to curtail the spread of Ebola, lays the need to recognize that the inadequacies and fragility of the West African health care system is a direct result of centuries of plunder and exploitation by foreign invaders from Europe and the United States.
Solidarity, especially international solidarity, is what will be required to win real peace with justice and security for people everywhere, including for workers and oppressed peoples living inside the borders of the United States. Let’s get organized!
