I love it when someone challenges what I take for granted and makes me think again. Here's a real find by Lucie Lecomte: A thoughtful and thought-provoking post on the blog Salone Heartbeat: The War Against Ebola Must Immediately End. Excerpt, with the author's bolding:
Who first referred to the Ebola outbreak as a war? The nation has to find that individual and quarantine them before embarking on a witch-hunt against those with Ebola. It was a huge mistake to reference Sierra Leone’s drive toward restraining the Ebola virus as a war.
War brings hostilities, fighting, confrontation, conflict, and struggle. Therefore, the warfare language the nation’s leadership has used has everything to do with the results they have gotten so far. Looking at how those who have succumbed to Ebola are buried, they are treated as casualties of war instead of victims of Ebola. The Koroma government can fight from now until dooms day, but it does not have the wherewithal to win a war against an unseen deadly virulent Ebola virus.
I have spent several Christmas Holidays in Sierra Leone since the Rebel War ended. Every time the young people would fire bangers and use other fireworks for the Christmas festivities, panic overpowers the adults in the compound where I stayed. Those who found fun exploding Chinese fireworks never knew the drastic effects of their naive behavior on others.
The terror, fright, and horrors of everything Sierra Leoneans experienced during the painful ten years of warfare would resurface. Those who survived the rebel war would tell stories of their agonizing ordeal every time a banger went off. To declare openly a “War against Ebola” reopened unhealed wounds. The government thoughtlessly brought back a past the people believed the nation had agreed never to repeat.
A few years back, a friend took a reputable US music group to Sierra Leone. Even though they sang great songs, because “Rebel” was in their name, young Sierra Leoneans never warmed up to them. The ‘rebel’ in their name evoked the sad memories of a war the people would rather forget.
On the other hand, young Sierra Leoneans were cheerfully calling themselves “My Nigger.” The members of the visiting US group knowing the connotations the N-word carried found it odious. They could not believe the hilarity with which youngsters in Sierra Leone referred to themselves as Niggers.
Words have a way of shaping our understanding, perception, and effect things things have on us. Knowing this, a prudent leader would have found a clever way to address the Ebola outbreak as a crisis without openly declaring it a war.
Victims of Ebola are not enemy combants. They are our flesh and blood, who deserve dignity in life, as well as in death. When strangers bury fellow Sierra Leoneans without saying a prayer, because a war has been declared against the virus that killed them, does not bring good omen to the nation. Do we think our Sierra Leonean ancestors are in high spirits to welcome unceremoniously fellow citizens in body bags sprayed with Chlorine, Clorox, or Bleach?
The APC government has no reason being surprised that the people are not forthcoming with their infected and affected relatives.
While the wealthy nations like to justify some high level of commitment as a "war," it may be that it's only because war has got us where we are today. You might say violence is the only language we understand. And sometimes it's culturally and politically effective to label a major overseas project as a war. But in this case, given the war-shattered cultures of Sierra Leone and Liberia, a "war on Ebola" is like telling an Iraq veteran, "We're declaring war on your PTSD!"
