What happens in the bush does not stay in the bush: notes on globalization

In London, Paris and New York City, among other global cities, what people eat in the remote villages of Guinea matters today.

The ebola virus, which so far has ravaged 700 lives in West Africa, is said to have originated in Guinea, the epicenter being the southern town of Gueckedou primarily because folks were eating bush meat contaminated with the virus. 

As The Guardian reports, bush meat or meat from wild animals have been banned in Guinean towns, the practice of eating said meat continues in the far flung villages, where residents refuse to give up on their traditional diet.

A favorite bush meat for the villagers of Nongoha, for instance, is fruit bat; unfortunately the ebola virus has chosen the fruit bat as one of its temporary habitats. The urgings of medical workers in these villages notwithstanding, Nongohans insist on eating fruit bat meat and see those who bring in modern scientific warnings against their traditional diet as evil witches wanting to upend a way of life.

A village spokesperson observed that inexplicable diseases and deaths are common in this part of the world, and the virus isn't perceived as a threat because it can't be seen. Had it been an airplane or a drone, the villagers would have shot it down as an enemy.

But should the rest of the world be imperiled on account of a way of life in a small village in Guinea? After all, we are not all living inside the head of Margaret Mead.

In a pre-globalized or less interconnected world, what the Nongohans ate wouldn't have mattered at all; the Western world could care less if they ate their way into death or disease. Now the (ill) effect of a Nongohan diet isn't confined to the Nongohans but can spread globally, especially to those Western enclaves where there is a significant African diaspora. Despite the efforts of authorities, ebola has been transmitted from bush meat to Guineans to Liberians to citizens of Sierra Leone. A few human bodies stand in the way of its transmission to London, New York or Paris. 

Either the Nongohans should stop eating bush meat or travelers from the continent of Africa ought to be carefully screened before they hop on a Westbound plane. 

The Western public discourse on ebola is, as expected, tainted with colonial-era xenophobia and racism, but how much rationalism and objectivity can be permitted when a deadly virus can go global at the drop of a hat?

While it's okay to chide the Western hysteria about the virus, it's also important to educate villagers of West Africa that it's no longer okay to risk death over "tradition", because the cost of eating a fruit bat salad ( a salad comprised of rodent and wild antelope meat) would be borne by many more than just those who chomp on these bush delicacies in the bushes. 

In globalization what happens in the bush does not stay in the bush anymore. Should the Nongohan's not become a little less local and a bit more global in the realm of responsibility?