Like most family conversations globally nowadays, at some point ours turn inevitably to the corona crisis. Even when you’re sick of talking about it, it just slips in.
It’s everywhere. It’s the lead or second story of every newscast. It’s empty schoolyards that would otherwise be bustling with children this time of year. And how could I not mention first, as the most obvious reminder of the coronavirus’s omnipresence in our lives, that everyone is wearing a mask.
I’ve written extensively about the impact of Covid-19 on Africa, and I’ve made sure to send the family in the US links to pieces I’ve written, which keeps our dialogue going. They thus regularly send me articles and news stories about Covid-19 that they think would be of interest. My daughter recently sent me a piece from the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Science Journal that got my attention. The title is “The pandemic appears to have spared Africa so far. Scientists are struggling to explain why”.
The title echoes one of the points I’ve made from the beginning of the outbreak, which is that while it’s all right for Africa to be guided by the West as it deals with the challenges posed by the coronavirus, African leaders should be sensitive to the continent’s unique concerns and challenges. Africa doesn’t need to accept blindly Western answers for dealing with the corona crisis. The continent should ask its own questions.
There are a number of reasons why. The corona crisis has become so politicised in the West that there is not much rational discussion. Like everything in the age of Donald Trump, Covid-19 has become just another — though possibly the most devastating — polarising issue. Even in Germany the corona-debate has been contaminated by the “right wing-left wing” divide.
Then there is the resource gap that makes it practically impossible for Africa to “copycat” Western responses without devastating consequences. Every African country that has implemented Western lockdown measures has to be feeling me on this point.
More to the point of the Science Journal piece, given the horrible situation in which we find ourselves due to the reaction to Covid-19, all of the world’s assumptions, even scientific ones, should be re-examined. The political dynamics in the West are so crazy not much leadership will come from those quarters soon.
Africa has to take the lead in this discussion. The continent should do it now because there’s no time to waste. As the flu season is fast approaching in the US, they will have the “normal” flu to contend with. The scientists tell us Covid-19 will still be around, and who knows whether or when another novel coronavirus will appear?
The possibility of a substantive discussion about Covid-19 taking place in the US before the presidential election in November is slim to none. The situation in the US is so polarised there is a possibility that a serious discussion will not take place until after the presidential inauguration in January. For better or worse, the US defines the narrative for the rest of the West. The world cannot wait for this stuff to sort itself out. Time is of the essence.
Convene forum
First on Africa’s to do list is for the continent to take the lead in steering the world away from another lockdown. The present reality, as well as the findings in the Science Journal’s update, suggests such a step is unnecessary for Africa, and given the damage to the global economy caused by this lockdown, another one will be in no-one’s best interest.
Generally, in these sorts of crises the West convenes, the rest conform. Maybe it is Africa’s time to convene the necessary international forum to map a strategy for greater co-operation when the next virus comes along. Addis Ababa and Dar es Salaam have long, distinguished histories as meeting places for gatherings of such weight. This is an opportunity for the AU to prove its mettle.
For African countries that copycatted Western strategies the effect was devastating. For those countries that dared ask their own questions and chart their own courses the damage from Covid-19 has been limited. Tanzania did not institute a lockdown and its economy is growing. The economies of countries such as SA, which followed the Western path, are shrinking at such a rate there is no telling how bad it will get or how long it will last.
The stakes are too high for Africa to take a back seat and risk the West driving the rest of the world over another economic cliff. Africa has legitimate postcoronavirus questions of its own that deserve answers from its own leaders and should be heard and respected by the world at large.
• Stith, a former US envoy to Tanzania, is author of the upcoming book on Covid-19 and Africa 'A View from the Other Side: Locked Down in SA’.
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