Ebola – stop the intellectual arrogance

Initially, I thought the call by some people that we should bathe with slat solution was silly. But I kept an ear to the ground to understand why people suggested as much. Some also asked for people to eat Bitterkola, as a cure to or prevention from the dreaded Ebola disease. But the reaction we […]

Initially, I thought the call by some people that we should bathe with slat solution was silly. But I kept an ear to the ground to understand why people suggested as much. Some also asked for people to eat Bitterkola, as a cure to or prevention from the dreaded Ebola disease.
But the reaction we have had from some of our intellectuals calls for concern. We are having people dismiss the attempt by our people to save their own lives with a wave of the hand and much condescension. That is not the way to carry people along and to endear them to new – even if more efficient – ways of doing things. So to the ‘intellectuals’, especially medical doctors, and the NGOs, I have this message:
If you must insist that Bitterkola doesn’t cure or prevent Ebola, what we need from you is PROOF. Some science. Put some of those theories you learnt in school to use. Tell us, in plain language, the chemical composition of Ebola, and that of Bitterkola, and explain why they cannot react to each other. For now, we all seem to be waiting for foreigners to solve this problem for us and that is not good enough.
If you think bathing with salt and drinking some more, cannot cure or prevent Ebola, state your case in a clear and logical manner how the two chemical components don’t relate and cannot counter each other. Then tell us a little more on the harm that drinking salt solutions or bathing with it can cause our people. You can extend your advocacy by telling our people how and why they must keep their environments clean and wash their hands constantly etc.
I just cannot but marvel about us. The government hardly cares about the environment in their town planning efforts. There are many streets in plush areas without any plans for drainages. If you live in the poorer areas, you probably sleep on sewages – covered by a thin plank. No one feels consternation, as Mama Puts serve food next to dumping grounds and open sewers. We since lost our sense of smell. Nothing irritates us. Our big men and middle class, try and create for themselves, in their cool homes, conditions better than the Ritz Carlton of New York. But, once they step out of their homes, the rest is jagajaga. Meanwhile your drivers, maiguards, house girls and houseboys, emerge from those infested ratholes every morning, and drive your lovely children to school. Or help you babysit all day.
Don’t get into this overdrive about hand sanitizers, and remain there. This is potentially a period of great societal and environmental change. Let us seize it for long-lasting effect. We need to all live like proper humans, elevating our humanity. Our people also need to know that every animal in the bush is not for killing and eating. Let us educate them about why the white man categorizes some animals as ‘endangered species’, and why those animals should be protected. For every such animal has something to add to the ecosystem. Our ancestors hardly thought about this. But there was an abundance of animals in the jungle then. Today, civilization, and concrete jungles, have tilted the balance greatly.
But before you take your position on Kolanut, Bitterkola, Salt water or any such local ‘remedies’, ask yourself these questions:
1. Do you know that every remedy that white man brings, is based on trial and error?
2. If the white man derived their own remedy from any of these local ingredients and polished it up and gave it some name with a Z, V or X in it, would that then be acceptable, unquestionable, such as something done by God himself?
3. Do you know that when quinine was used to treat malaria, the same white man bought loads of bitter kola from here? How many of such remedies did we bring up then through our local scientists?
4. Do you know, that Kolanut is an integral part of CocaCola and Pepsicola, at least when they were started by pharmacists, the former as ‘head medicine’ and the latter as ‘stomach (peptic) medicine”?
5. Is there any possibility that as claimed by some, and because the symptoms are exactly the same (nausea, vomiting, bleeding, weakness etc), that some of what presents could be Radiation Sickness (caused by the dumping of toxic wastes in Africa), and therefore such could be prevented by increasing iodine intake (iodized salt in this instance)?
6. What percentage probability would you put on the radiation thing being a problem in Africa, given we have had Koko dumping, Cote Divoire dumping and other toxic waste dumping that have gone unnoticed? And what about the 100% correlation between the symptoms of Ebola and Radiation? Is that not uncanny?
7. Do you know that as per international conventions in shipping, the only unprotected space for the dumping of toxic and nuclear wastes is in East and West African waters? That even South Africa managed to protect its waters starting from 2009 or so? And that willynilly, European and American waters are no go areas for dumping toxic wastes? Do you know that even sewage from ships can only be dumped in these same waters and none else around the world?
8. Do you know that WE, so-called educated, are the problems with our continent, not only for believing that it is only the white man that can ‘discover’ anything about Africa (like they ‘discovered’ River Niger, Kilimanjaro and lake Victoria), but in not helping to standardize and document our own people’ s efforts, rather we dismiss and insult them? Why is it that EVERYTHING we ‘know’ about Ebola is what the white man said it is? How come we believe EVERYTHING they say, unquestioningly? How come we have no input whatsoever? How come the white man ‘discovered’ Ebola in Africa in 1976, and since then, we have not discovered ANYTHING about Ebola, or indeed anything else, ourselves? Are we merely floating through space with our degrees?
9. Do you know that the problem with African science and medicine is simply the standardisations? Our medicines are not properly analyzed, labelled as per contents, and usually have no dosage? Do you know this is your failing?
I thought bathing with salt water before 5am sounded stupid, because of the timeline put on it. And because they alleged that Ebola was ‘a spiritual problem’. But I would not dismiss our people’s efforts in such a rude manner. Even though I’m not a scientist, but I would notice the efforts of our people. But even if I cannot do that, what I will never do, is take our people’s little thread of hope away. We killed millions through HIV AIDS in that manner. Everyone has a right to hang on to life, through whatever means they understand. For every specie of living thing on earth, that is found surviving today, must have devised means of circumventing the vicissitudes of life, by ADAPTING, by devising medicine, migrating etc. That includes living through worse diseases than Ebola, HIV/AIDS and whatnot, over many millennia. In other words, no matter how ‘bush’, how ‘archaic’, how clueless, a specie looks and acts, the fact that it still exist today, means we should respect them. It is the same argument we are using to convince our own people that not ever ‘bush meat’ is for ‘chop’!
Am i communicating?