Landscape shifts dramatically for Africans as Covid-19 winds howl
The moment the world realised Covid-19 was a global pandemic, human intuition got everyone counting on everyone in fighting the virus. As the deaths being reported mounted globally the world was thrown into deep mourning. You would have expected the world to unite in sympathy.
Before long, the space took an ugly turn. Donald Trump, the president of the US, a man with no sense of occasion, took the first shot when he publicly called Covid-19 a Chinese virus. The Chinese government did not bother to respond.
Seeing that the Chinese were not bothered, Trump soon put his mouth where his money was — the World Health Organisation. The US was the the top benefactor of the WHO for decades. Trump accused the WHO of being a Chinese ally and withdrew US funding.
Trump, frustrated at the impotency of his shots at China and the WHO, then took an unceremonious low shot at the person of WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He accused Ghebreyesus of being an incompetent Chinese agent who did not have the health of the world at heart. This attack on the person of
Ghebreyesus was quickly interpreted as a racial attack.
Trump appeared to embrace being called a racist. He managed to lure followers by a social media post, under the verified account of the WHO on Twitter, which declared that so far there was no evidence of human to human transmission of Covid19. The tweet was a blow to the WHO.
The Chinese — who were commended by the world for keeping their cool in the face of Trump’s provocations — were soon to lose all credibility when disturbing images of racial discrimination against Africans found their way into the public eye.
The world had more or less unanimously agreed that Covid-19 had started in China and out of natural circumstances. How would the Chinese dare turn it around and start accusing Africans in China of bringing in and spreading the virus?
Africans were inhumanely banned from public spaces and locked out of their rented accommodation, with not even hotels taking them in. This was a blatant attack on human dignity, a right enshrined in the UN Bill of Rights. African ambassadors in China wrote to the country’s foreign minister complaining about the discrimination against Africans.
As the politics became thicker by day and event, the world kept losing lives to the pandemic. A call went out for assistance in cash or kind in fighting the pandemic. Philanthropists heeded the call.
Bill Gates, the world’s second richest man, has poured money into good works in Africa through his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is not hesitant to give some of his vast wealth to the humanitarian cause. The foundation is hugely praised for its role in the fight against malaria. According to their website they have invested close to $3bn (about R50bn) in the fight against malaria. The work of the foundation is done under the supervision of the
WHO. Gates in his personal capacity showed up to the world through an interview with Trevor Noah, a darling of our Rainbow Nation. In the interview Gates spoke of seven potential vaccines that need to be tested quickly before more lives are lost. The vaccines are meant to assist Africa. The world, including Africa, was relieved at a sign of progress.
However, at least one group in Africa was suspicious of Gates’s intentions. To them it was not about Covid-19. Gates is active in the fight to contain population growth. To him and those around him it is a crisis and should be stopped urgently. To the suspicious group, Gates wanted to take advantage of Covid-19 to “vaccinate” population growth in Africa.
They asked why the vaccine would only to be administered in Africa, not in the US, which by now tops the number of Covid-19 deaths for any single country at 108,062 as of Wednesday. To this suspicious group Africa is not the immediate concern, it is the US. Since I have known the work of Bill and Melinda Gates in health in Africa, this was the first time I had seen such open disapproval of their initiatives.
The lobby against Gates was soon to get the upper hand in the debate through the assistance of a cabal of French doctors who, without shame, ignorantly suggested Covid-19 vaccines should be tested in Africa, nowhere else. The suggestion was diabolical and grossly offensive to say the least. The world was shocked to hear such unpleasant and distasteful remarks from members of a profession regarded as humanitarian. The public quickly correlated these remarks with Gates’s vaccine project.
Indeed the world has moved from where it was in the past decade. Who would have thought that today the US will fail to direct operations at WHO?
Who would have thought Gates, one of the world’s most powerful men, would today face such resistance from Africans? For so long China was looked upon by Africans as an ally. Maybe Covid-19 has revealed the true colours of both.
China’s honeymoon in Africa may be over.
Tinashe Mutema is an economics graduate and an accounting student at the University of Fort Hare. He writes in his personal capacity.
The world had more or less unanimously agreed that Covid-19 had started in China and out of natural circumstances