Boris Johnson’s apartheid travel ban. That’s what I want to write about today.
I also want to say:
OMICRON is apparently VERY contagious and I agree that we must be super careful.
A NOTE BEFORE YOU READ
I have travelled to the UK, Europe, the US, Canada, Singapore and in Africa more than 60 times. I define myself as a citizen of the world.
And YES, I am on my high horse.
Here in South Africa, it feels like this: An empty taxicab drew up, and out got December – to borrow from Churchill’s original quote.
I was all for Boris Johnson, especially once I read his brilliant book, The Churchill Factor, some years ago. That was until he banned South Africans from the UK. This after South African scientists identified Beta and helped the UK to identify the Alpha variant – according to Dr. Tulio de Oliveira from Stellenbosch University in an interview with the New Yorker. And again, alerting the world, first, of OMICRON.
In the same 24 hours that South Africa reported more than 2,000 new cases, the UK reported more than 20 times as many: 50,091 Covid cases, and 160 deaths. The UK government’s Office for National Statistics reported that one in 50 people had Covid last week. That’s about ONE MILLION people.
And suddenly I am back in the Boer War that ended in defeat for us around 1902, enabling the UK & its Empire to extract everything of value from our land while helping the whites [like myself] to reign over the black majority for a further 60 years before they left. Boris Johnson’s announcement made my blood boil and all I could think was; I’m white, but colonialism is fucking us. And I am in good company using strong language, because this morning I spoke to my 87-year-old father-in-law. In the more than 30 years I have known him I cannot recall him using a swear word, yet his remark about this apartheid travel ban was that he is ‘pissed off’. Even our mild-mannered President got hot under the collar!
The British Prime Minister has done massive damage to our relationship and he should be wise to consider this from Dr Ayoade Olatunbosun-Alakija, the co-chair of the African Union’s Africa Vaccine Delivery Alliance:
“There is now evidence that this variant was circulating in the Netherlands before it was officially identified in South Africa. Travel bans are an important way to contain the transmission of Covid-19, but in this instance the measure is merely performative, given that the variant is already on several continents. What we’re left with is the assumption that the ban is as discriminatory and racist as Africa’s inequitable access to vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics.”
AND THE AMERICANS?! Well they are making such a spectacle of themselves over coronavirus that not even us here in Southern Africa take them seriously or defer to them when talking coronavirus, except for Dr Fauci. Currently a soon-to-be-published book by the former President’s Chief of Staff discloses how Trump lied to the world for about a week after he had tested positive. He participated in a presidential debate with his 78-year-old opponent who were standing a mere few meters from him and in an enclosed studio. He flew on Air Force One and in his helicopters and held public rallies and events. This disclosure prompted Fred Wellman, a retired Army helicopter pilot with 22 years of service, to remark that Meadows’ timeline proves Trump’s character.
“To find out now that he went to the events knowing he had tested positive for COVID and refused to wear a mask or allow the guests to wear them shows the absolute depth of his moral depravity and lack of any respect for anyone or anything but how he looks,” Wellman said.
And it seems that many religious Americans are anti-vax, notwithstanding that many of them have died of coronavirus. This week Marcus Lamb – founder and Chief Spiritual Guide of Daystar, the largest Anti-Vaccine Christian TV Network in the US died of coronavirus. This is what his son had to say about it: “There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a spiritual attack from the enemy,” Jonathan Lamb said of his father’s COVID-19 infection during a November 23 broadcast on the network. Amen.
Even their own leading medical lights, like Professor Redlener, Head of Pandemic Resource and Response Initiative at Columbia University says travel bans are not the answer. This view is supported by Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations. Prof. Redlener also proposes that we stop talking about booster jabs and make a minimum of 3 vaccinations the standard for everyone. Now there is a sensible man!
THANK YOU’S & THE SOLUTION
December is the season of THANK YOU’S – so I just want to say to the British Prime Minister; Thanks for exposing your arrogance when dealing with your former colonies. We now better understand your government’s fundamental disregard for us here in Southern Africa. For our jobs. For our hungry families without income this holiday season. For the virtual wall you have erected, making it impossible for even the well-off amongst us to be with our families. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that money cannot buy togetherness.
But humanity needs TOGETHERNESS in our fight against this global pandemic, not more arbitrary fences & borders. That’s how we will solve this.
But let us turn our faces to the beauty that is all around us. That will calm the spirit and cleanse the soul. This quote goes a long way in nudging me back to the season of giving & receiving:
“Wherever you are, at any moment, try and find something beautiful. A face, a line out of a poem, the clouds out of a window, some graffiti, a wind farm. Beauty cleans the mind.” - Matt Haig