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?

Birth of a nation

The title of the NYT video caught my attention because of the nature of the activity indicated by it.

Can a nation be literally "built" from grounds up? 

The "nation" in question here is South Sudan, which, in 2011 seceded from North Sudan and has since been inducted into the hall of nations as the globe's 191st country. 

The contents of the video suggest yet another activity, that of rearing, because a caption describes South Sudan as the world's "newest" country, thereby creating the image of a newborn in my mind. I'm thinking maybe the dominantly white folks (sounded like a bunch of Americans and Europeans to me) who sit around tables inside rooms that look like they've been hijacked from a P.S. in New York City, are discussing the challenges of raising South Sudan properly. What if the "baby" grows up to be an unruly "adult" and create regional mayhem.

(The white folks, by the way, are United Nations officials).

There is a moment toward the end of the video, when a UN representative apprises the group of an infringement by the nascent nation: It is said that the president of South Sudan has just received a call from Barak Obama because the South Sudanese army had tried to invade its Northern counterpart. Obama, we assume, has scolded the South Sudanese for violating the terms of agreement.

As I watched the video, I was impressed by contrasting attitudes of the UN officials discussing, very bureaucratically, the building of South Sudan, and of the Sudanese locals who walk on foot, explaining to the South Sudanese citizens the meaning of the nation and what citizenship rights, rituals and responsibilities are to be shouldered by them.

The South Sudanese are also asked about their feelings.

While the seemingly wealthier and more educated, and thus English-speaking, Sudanese are shown to celebrate abstract values like patriotism and the symbolical richness of the flag (a guy wraps the flag around his portly body), the poorer speak of food, land and livelihood. The latter can't be done without, while patriotism is of secondary significance.

I was touched by the woman who, upon being asked, how she "feels" about coming back to her "homeland" (after remaining in exile), says that in the undivided Sudan she had land, cattle and a house, but in the "new" nation she has nothing. So much for patriotism and belonging in the abstract!

I am reminded of the wholly abstract concept of the nation as propounded by sociologist Benedict Anderson in his 1991 book Imagined Communities. Anderson had contended that a nation transcends being merely a geographical and physical entity; it is imagined into being by those who live in it.

The million dollar question is whether the war-torn, poor and psychically-ravaged-by years of civil war- citizens of this newly birthed nation will have the mental luxury to exert their imaginations thus.

Or, will South Sudan, whose capital city has tentatively been chosen--Juba--effloresce into a full-fledged nation in the imagination of its residents?

Berate my professors

The Wall Street Journal writes of Notinmycountry.org, a website dedicated to the exposure and shaming of corrupt university professors and administrators.

Innovative!