With the Ebola virus “spreading like wildfire” in Liberia, “devouring
everything in its path,” Brownie Samukai, the state’s defense minister, went on
to tell the U.N. Security Council on September 9, 2014 that “Liberia is facing
a serious threat to its national existence.”[1]
With more than half of the epidemic’s deaths in that state—1,224 out of at
least 2,2296 in West Africa as of September 6, 2014—and new cases “increasing
exponentially,” the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that “the demands
of the Ebola outbreak have completely outstripped the government’s and partners’
capacity to respond.”[2]
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that the illness had
severely handicapped the mining, agriculture, and service sectors of the state’s
economy.[3]
Quite understandably, pleas for the government to do more peeled like
frightened bells across the state. “The patients are hungry, they are starving.
No food, no water,” a terrified woman told journalists. “The government needs
to do more. Let Ellen Johnson Sirleaf do more!”[4]
Even if valid, such blame is hypocritical to the extent that the people
themselves had been refusing to do what is necessary to stop such a virus from
spreading.
Concerning the validity of woman’s charge that the
government was not doing nearly enough, Samukai pointed out that the “already
weak health infrastructure” was overwhelmed.[5]
That is to say, the government had to deal with an already-insufficient
healthcare system. Why insufficient? Two theories of development give different
answers. According to dependencia, or dependency theory, the infrastructure of
a colony is oriented to getting commodities out to the colonizer rather than to
developing an internal, web-like system. Roads of a coastal colony, for
example, are prioritized that go from the interior to the coast, where ships
can pick up the goods and transport them to the core economy (e.g., Europe).
The colonists and even their successors cannot be blamed for the lack of
internally-oriented infrastructure, yet at some point after a sufficient amount
of time as a sovereign state the lack of any progress is surely blameworthy.
The modernization theory says that what holds a developing
country back is not its colonial infrastructure, but, rather, things like
tradition and ignorance that a people stubbornly cling to even when offered a
better way. Superstition, for example, may keep people from working on certain
days while tradition has it that a person should stop working as soon as he or
she has enough for subsistence living. This inverse of the Protestant work
ethic can keep capital from accumulating to the point that reinvestment can
broaden an agrarian economy to include manufacturing industries. Rigidly
sticking with the custom that puts child labor above education, a people can
keep its young from becoming professionals, business entrepreneurs, and
managers. Quite understandably, executives of foreign corporations are hesitant
to start operations where such a base labor pool exists and reinforces itself.
Taken together dependencia and modernization theory can
account for the weak health infrastructure in Liberia and other former colonies
in Africa. Health-care of the natives had not been a priority of the
colonizers. Additionally, education and investment, as well as even foreign
direct investment, may be lacking even though they would contribute much to
building a sound healthcare system.
Applied to the Ebola outbreak, we can look beyond the
government and healthcare infrastructure to apply modernization theory to the
people themselves. The funeral custom, for example, of touching the body the
deceased friend or relative is great for the virus, which spreads by touch rather
than air. Even so, the African who have this tradition stubbornly and/or
ignorantly held to it even as the epidemic was spreading. Additionally, villagers
took to hiding sick residents rather than allowing visiting healthcare workers
to take the infected people to makeshift treating facilities out of fear that people
go to die at such places; meanwhile, the villagers themselves could become
infected. In some cases, villagers even attacked the visitors, stubbornly
ignoring their pleas.
Scared villagers in Liberia stand far away from the healthcare worker, even as they risk getting the virus by rubbing up against each other--ignoring the worker's pleas. (Image Source: The Washington Post)
Simply maintaining a distance from other people, rather than
continuing to touch them, would have done a lot to smite the Ebola. Especially
sordid is the assumption that the healthcare workers and government officials
don’t know what they are talking about, especially if the person also assumes
that he or she cannot be wrong—such as in knowing
that touching a dead body brings with it benefits that can keep the person
healthy or safe. Ignorance that cannot be wrong, backed up by tradition, can
indeed be a silent killer, the odor of which can only be pleasing to the Ebola
virus. Blaming the government rings hollow from such a putrid drum, even if
officials could be doing a better job in mopping up the mess.
[1]
Abby Ohlheiser, “Ebola
Is ‘Devouring Everything in Its Path.’ Could It Lead to Liberia’s Collapse?”
The Washington Post, September 11,
2014.
[2]
WTO, “Ebola
Situation in Liberia: Non-Conventional Interventions Needed,” September 8,
2014; Elahe Izadi, “Ebola
Death Toll Rises to 2,296 as Liberia Struggles to Keep Up,” The Washington Post, September 9, 2014.
[3]
Anna Yukhananov, “IMF
Says Ebola Hits Economic Growth in West Africa,” Reuters, September 11,
2014.
[4]
Abby Ohlheiser, “Ebola.”
[5]
Ibid.
