Im sharing this for a lot of reasons: a) people need to be aware and be kept up to date about the suffering that fellow inhabitants of this Earth are facing every day. I dont mean to sound morbid or impart upon others a despondency that I feel every single day when I read the news about Ebola in West Africa. What I mean to do is ensure that we dont become complacent just because we are far away from the epicenter of suffering. After all there are ~7 billion people on this planet nobody is truly alone and nobody should behave like they are. b) the top comment on this piece has angered me beyond comprehension. The myopic, heavily biased, and reeking of privilege point of view expressed here makes me wonder how people like this are sharing a planet with the brave souls in West Africa, and all those who have devoted their time and efforts to stop the spread of this disease. However it also makes me want to bring this opinion to light and dispel it. All I want to say to Bernard Paulsen is: Educate yourself. The first Ebola outbreak (1976) was in North East Africa and today, 38 years later, we find it in West Africa. What this means is not that African people are over-populating (that is a different issue and correlation does NOT mean causation) but rather that there exists in Africa deep systemic inadequacies in healthcare that are broadly and deeply rooted in its colonial past and that should not be forgotten or confused for another issue altogether. These inadequacies can only be absolved through education and innovation not misplaced blaming. It is comments and presumptions exactly like this one, based on an individuals own background or beliefs, that create false perceptions and in turn a stagnancy among those who have the potential to make a difference. Its easy to point fingers and place the blame on a larger cause but it is also lazy and marks a decline in humanity. As Dr. Farmer has often and very aptly put it The really costly failures, often result from failures of the imagination
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 21:16:51 +0000
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