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I'd like to recommend (without endorsing the opinions therein) this contrarian article I read about malaria, poverty, and Western attitudes towards Africa: htt

by jfb 15y ago

I'd like to recommend (without endorsing the opinions therein) this contrarian article I read about malaria, poverty, and Western attitudes towards Africa: http://www.guernicamag.com/features/2273/pogue_1_15_11 http://www.guernicamag.com/features/2273/pogue_1_15_11 I found it fascinating, as someone with the intent of (eventually) studying disease ecology, in particular, that of malaria in West Africa. It's a thoughtful and well argued essay, but not in the end entirely convincing to me. But it deserves to be more widely distributed, I think. PS: Thanks to Instapaper, which made retrieving this article a matter of seconds. Interesting how one's expectations of the rate of information retrieval have evolved, speaking as a 40-yr old who well remembers waiting around weeks at times for books or journals to be delivered to the Reg.

ianb 15y ago
I think there's something very patronizing and morally inconsistent about the kind of argument that is described in that article. Underlying its argument is a belief that the lives of all the people who die aren't important, that these deaths are somehow the proper and natural balance. In some ways it may echo the cultures themselves; when life is precarious and lost for no outward reason (such as by a disease like malaria) then individual life loses some of its meaning, people value not only each other but even themselves less. Medically there's a tone of what-doesn't-kill-you-makes-you-stronger, which is kind of bullshit. Malaria might not kill native adults very often, but it is not harmless. And economically, the argument is similarly patronizing. After going on about the native immunity many people have, it then talks about how economic disruption is causing migrations, leading to people (not just whites) who don't have the immunity to be exposed. The response: people should stay in their place. That the prerequisite for solving any problem is to revert to traditional structures and strengthen those structures (the same basic argument is made about poverty and many other African problems). The idea that Africans may in fact wish to have control of their own personal destiny is disregarded -- that if conditions were better, if economic forces were less manipulative, people might still want to migrate, because the drive to better one's life persists even when life is okay.
- jfb 15y ago
  I don't disagree. But I think the correlation between urbanization and malaria is one that would be very interesting to analyze, particularly where rural people are primarily cattle herders (and as such have beef for the Anopheles to feed on).

by jfb 15y ago

ianb 15y ago

I think there's something very patronizing and morally inconsistent about the kind of argument that is described in that article. Underlying its argument is a belief that the lives of all the people who die aren't important, that these deaths are somehow the proper and natural balance. In some ways it may echo the cultures themselves; when life is precarious and lost for no outward reason (such as by a disease like malaria) then individual life loses some of its meaning, people value not only each other but even themselves less. Medically there's a tone of what-doesn't-kill-you-makes-you-stronger, which is kind of bullshit. Malaria might not kill native adults very often, but it is not harmless. And economically, the argument is similarly patronizing. After going on about the native immunity many people have, it then talks about how economic disruption is causing migrations, leading to people (not just whites) who don't have the immunity to be exposed. The response: people should stay in their place. That the prerequisite for solving any problem is to revert to traditional structures and strengthen those structures (the same basic argument is made about poverty and many other African problems). The idea that Africans may in fact wish to have control of their own personal destiny is disregarded -- that if conditions were better, if economic forces were less manipulative, people might still want to migrate, because the drive to better one's life persists even when life is okay.

jfb 15y ago
I don't disagree. But I think the correlation between urbanization and malaria is one that would be very interesting to analyze, particularly where rural people are primarily cattle herders (and as such have beef for the Anopheles to feed on).