Vaccines; time to blame Africans for racism

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On Youtube is a clip showing our very own Ms Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAIDS, putting in a strong case against racism embedded in global policies and rules. This was at the World Economic Forum Annual meeting in Davos. She says, … a year and a half since the first doses of Covid were delivered, (sic) 75 percent of the people in high income countries which are favorably white are fully vaccinated but only 13 percent of the people in lower income countries mostly brown and black are vaccinated. Wouldn’t you call that racism? You might not. You might say it is greed and profit, but lets examine it further. The companies that have this life saving health technology have refused to share the rights and recipes with the countries in the global south.

You could say it is greed. But what about their governments which put hundreds of billions of dollars into the innovation; who are not leveraging that money and bringing that technology so that others can produce for themselves, isnt that racism?South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa has called it vaccine apartheid. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called it a pattern that replicates slavery and colonial era racial hierarchies. Some global policies and rules have embedded racism in them and have outcomes that are racist. Africans were told by the pharmaceutical companies who refused to share their technology that the vaccine was too complicated for Africans to make, that is why they were not sharing it. Is that not racism?

If at all there is a list of occurrences in history that offered humanity great life changing insights, then Covid-19 pandemic ranks high on that list. We stayed at home. No work. No school. We washed our hands all the time. Covered our mouths and waited with great trepidation. Cardinal rules of science were put to the sword especially like the one that makes one resistant to a virus when theyre exposed to it. We had to keep far away from it or we died.

So when the panacea was discovered in the form of vaccines which were produced in unbelievably record time, the world accepted them with open hands. These ones were granted an indulgence because the world was desperate. So the norm that most vaccines take decades of protocols regarding research, trial and approval before being administered to human beings, was set aside. The world was like the proverbial hungry man to whom even bitter things taste sweet. There was a huge debate about who and how to access these vaccines. Those who speak for especially Sub Saharan Africa (where some of the poorest people on earth are found,) talked of a right to vaccines as an issue of morality.

Many in the North saw it as business. You invest and reap accordingly. For instance a company like Coca Cola or Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) and MacDonalds have secret recipes that have made theirs top brands. Do they simply grant access to poor countries or companies simply because the latter have many hungry and poor people? For the sake of context, hunger alone kills more people annually than Covid-19 did and still does. If they refused when asked, would we call that racism?

The greatest challenge in my view is that African countries and many former colonies have made the history of suffering their main bargaining chip. They use it to procure sympathy as the neglected poorer cousin. When Africa fought for independence about six decades ago, the argument was that we had been exploited enough by the colonialists – who are now producing vaccines which we are not. That colonialism was premised on racism yet all human beings were born equal. It was now time to prove that we could stand shoulder to shoulder on the global stage and take care of ourselves.

Then almost everything got messed up and we ran back to the former colonialist for economic aid. The narrative changed. With a brave face we still say that we are equal but only have challenges -originating from colonialism. The world that is better off must help us to get onto our feet then we shall move on. Just like that we are sinking further and further into debt and the whole myth of independence as a reality has vanished. Now we have adopted a misguided sense of entitlement that is causing serious distortions that have a far reaching effect on matters of governance. As independent countries we have set up a state which is facilitated by taxes and of course aid. Most of this is squandered and stolen by our leaders and their acolytes and safely kept in banks and invested in the North.

The countries from whom we are demanding access to vaccines, have invested in education, research and development. Every year we churn out very competent graduates in many important fields like agriculture, medicine and engineering. Instead of facilitating them, we look for foreign investors and pamper them to run simple units like vegetable markets. When we fall sick, we who want to be given patent rights to produce complex vaccines, will not go to a local hospital but will fly to the North that has the capacity to handle complicated ailments.

Our own, end up either frustrated or leaving for greener pastures where they are valued and facilitated to engage in innovation and progress for the sake of humanity. We then turn around and demand that we should have access to the fruits of their investment on moral grounds .In so doing we have shielded the real culprits from criticism and action. What is the purpose of the African leader if he cannot care for his people? It is them who we should be asking for vaccines. If they fail to provide, then we come up with a mechanism to remove them and have competent people instead.

Inadvertently, the passionate, prominent, personalities who go around the globe advocating for African countries to get free access to the intellectual property of other counties are doing a disservice to Africans. They are ironically propagating a notion that Africans are too inferior to innovate so they must be given. Aid and access to vaccines is a short term solution. Byanyima should be asking President Cyril Ramaposa why he leads a country with able bodied people, universities and resources but is not producing vaccines like the whites in the North yet we are all racially equal.

Ignoring our own and failing to facilitate them to help us be independent is the real racism, the real apartheid. Being denied access to what we have not worked for is not racism, it is tough love. Whoever loves Africans should start blaming African leaders for their racial condensations and disdain towards blacks.

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