BS: Ebola and the Missionaries

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 Oct 14 - 07:01 AM

Racism sez we can decide for Africans from this bastion of well-meaning White Privilege.

Really?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Musket
Date: 12 Oct 14 - 05:06 AM

Ok. Try this.

Bury your dead and rely on God to make sure the virus is destroyed and contained.


Sorry Joe. Tact and approach, not respect for non clinical factors. This is a clinical issue. Persuading and trying to get people to understand the risks rather than compromise. Compromise is as effective as not bothering in the first place.

Slightly academic as there are no cremetoriums in many of the affected areas, and hermetically sealed body bags are not always available. Hence an outbreak that dies out if localised is getting out of control as the index patients cross each other's paths, geographically speaking.

Burying, whilst the only practical solution for putting bodies to rest merely incubates the next outbreak.

It's a problem, but a practical one. The religious angle would be a factor if cremation were an option, but open pyres can exacerbate not destroy, and cremation facilities are not always available. Burial is the only option for many, regardless of religious considerations.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Oct 14 - 03:50 AM

Mrr says: Is religion why people bury their dead at all? All bodies need to be cremated immediately.

Oh, I'm sure that local burial practices could be considered religious, and therefore suspect. So, yes, that then gives enlightened Americans and Europeans the right to barge in and tell the indigenous people how they must behave when they grieve for their dead.

Somehow....that just doesn't seem right. There ought to be a better, more respectful way.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 06:33 PM

Is religion why people bury their dead at all? All bodies need to be cremated immediately.

This is the thread about whether religion is in the way of the reponse to the current outbreak.

There is a separate thread for other ebola issues.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Musket
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 01:17 PM

Just been reading a briefing by Prof Lyndsey Davies, who I used to know as our regional director of public health, now advising HMG.

We cannot rely on it dying out as it has in the past, but the impetus to find a vaccine or other protection is far greater now. Drug companies have better incentive to get there. Interesting point.

Far too late for some and the combination of commercial indifference to third world health issues combined with religious interference (HIV retrovirals kill you, inoculations are a route for genocide etc) are a huge issue and the realisation of the globalisation of these issues is getting complacent interests to sit up.

It isn't just Africa. Tuberculosis was becoming rare here, yet the multi drug resistant strain has led to far more negative pressure side rooms in hospitals being fitted, a crude but telling statistic. We are global, his problems are our problems.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 01:08 PM

Is religion why people bury their dead at all? All bodies need to be cremated immediately.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 12:13 PM

It has only just started.
It is exponential.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 11:37 AM

Ebola Virus as terrible as it may seem, has effected a far smaller number of people than tuberculosis and malaria, which may kill a thousand or more a day in
Africa. And both are treatable and preventable.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 06:26 AM

Climate change may not be news, as far as the mass media is concerned, but note that the three main parties, in the UK, virtually ignored it at their recent party conferences.

Just imagine, though, how deadly a disease like Ebola will be in a world devastated by floods, droughts, crop failures, rising sea levels and ferocious cross-border and internecine wars fought over dwindling resources.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: akenaton
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 05:41 AM

Quite so Keith.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 05:34 AM

Climate change is a great threat, but it is an ongoing situation not news.
Ebola and IS are an acute crisis. That makes news.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: akenaton
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 05:21 AM

Missionaries are a problem. I have a friend in the armed forces, who is a present posted out to train and educate missionaries on the dangers associated with Ebola from a security viewpoint.
It is apparently very difficult to convince these well meaning people of the dangers, not only to themselves but to national security.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 05:11 AM

This is a dreadful disease and obviously needs to be contained. Nevertheless, I suspect that its long term impact will be as nothing compared to the impact of climate change resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. This will, of course, devastate poorer countries, like the W. African states being affected by Ebola now, first but it will get everyone on the planet eventually.

It's interesting (if that's the right word!) that the mass media and western political establishments are presently agonising over Ebola and ignoring climate change. In her recent book, 'This Changes Everything' the Canadian journalist Naomi Klein shows that the increasing release of CO2 emissions and the tardy responses to the growing danger of catastrophic climate change can be directly attributed to the prevailing economic dogma of the neo-liberal free market. The mass media and western political establishments are presently 'slaves' to this dogma and probably welcome the diversion provided by Ebola.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Musket
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 02:22 AM

Starvation in Biafra wasn't contagious. You couldn't catch it in Western countries.

Previous Ebola breakouts have died down as quickly as they started, often before WHO agents could identify index patients. This time, the strain appears to be rather hardy and resistant to our natural body defences.

Add in the ease of international travel, as per many flu issues and this time the world has to look at it differently. Whilst deploring tardiness, the "wait and see" philosophy was borne of experience not racism.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 11:16 PM

Oops wrong thread for that question my fault sorry. Definitely see the other Ebola thread.

The way to stop it is to waltz in and not LET them care for the ill or dead, which is an awful thing to do to people, and takes a huge number of other people going in and isolating people who love and need each oher from each other.

Yet it must me done.

Is religion in the way, is the question for this thread. I apologize for forgetting that myself, let's uncreep, shall we?

Blicky to other thread for the other issues.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 09:37 PM

I think it has to do with the majority of people who are affected not having much influence (money, power). I don't know if the "world response to this" is "so slow" or reporting of it is. I also don't know if it's the "world response" or that of the US that's being questioned. I suspect WHO were on this from the beginning, but there has never been a lot "the world" could do if it got involved.

The most effective thing that might have helped control the spread of the disease would have been people not touching the bodies of the sick or dead, or objects contaminated with their body fluids. Telling people they can't care for their loved ones or perform the traditional burial rituals obviously isn't that effective. It would have been more effective than anything else, but people first would have had to believe changing the way they did these serious and sacred things would have kept the sickness from spreading.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: GUEST,#
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 07:12 PM

I think most people don't see this outbreak as an emergency. Four thousand deaths means nothing these days. In the days of Biafra, about 1 1/2 million people in the Ibo breakaway state starved to death (1967-9). What is a few thousand people compared to that or many other starvations? I don't mean to sound cold about it, but it's the only reason I can think of. We just don't care.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Greg F.
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 07:08 PM

See "Anybody else watching Ebola break out?" thread, Date: 04 Oct 14 - 03:07 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: wysiwyg
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 07:06 PM

Racism.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 06:52 PM

Why is the world response to this so slow, do you think?

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: GUEST,#
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 06:39 PM

"Re. The identification of Ebola, had there been an existing name among the locals it would have been used."

It was named after the Ebola River in 1976.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Musket
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 06:01 PM

A comic on UK telly last night said that The US were considering invading Ebola..

😏

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 01:43 PM

Diseases get renamed for good scientific and medical reasons. Each local community may have a different name for a particular malady. That is a situation that would certainly hamper medical research. It is fairly common in the scientific community to have a common name for the same thing..makes perfect sense.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 01:24 PM

Re. The identification of Ebola, had there been an existing name among the locals it would have been used.

Nonsense, though that is an aside. There was malaria before white folks got there, it's called malaria, not any of the native terms for it. There was sleeping sickness before white folks started calling it Trypanosomiasis. We never take the native words for diseases, we name them usually for the place *we* first found it, like ebola and dengue, or we make up a white person's word for it, like Onchocerciasis.

But that is an aside. Thinking that just because white people have heard of it now means it was just discovered is old-fashioned. To be kind.

Kinda like thinking art started in Europe because white folks hadn't found any cave paintings outside Europe yet...

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Musket
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 01:21 PM

Religion is a two way street. I have good memories of faith based charities working alongside infrastructure rebuilding when I did some voluntary work, designing manufacturing equipment for hand use in non urban areas.

On the other hand, I recall seeing two charities in a village in Kenya where a third charity I was involved with was working on irrigation. the two faith charities were concentrating on building a church and mosque at opposite ends of the village, on the basis that their work can bring membership expansion. Iy was the missionary clause I found less than altruistic, not to mention the judgement side..

Most people in the affected areas are superstitious and faith based care may well be a comfort to them.

Local government / local chief / patients can hear nuns praying?? Are you sure it was the radio? I didn't think The Daily Ma*l ran a radio channel??

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Rumncoke
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 01:09 PM

I was listening to the radio in the car a few weeks back and heard how the religious order of nursing nuns in a hospital - I think in Africa, was told by the local government to stop holding prayer meetings in the middle of the day as it was not acceptable as patients could hear them.

The local chief asked that the meetings be allowed to continue, as the patients would rather have some, any, religious observance rather than nothing at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 12:48 PM

Everyone deserves a bashing when they fuck up. However, It seems acceptable to make huge generalizations about some religious groups. I find those kind of sweeping statements offensive, about any group.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Greg F.
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 12:32 PM

Christian bashing is the last bastion of acceptable stupidity.

Wrong.

Muslim bashing is the last bastion of acceptable stupidity.

And "Christians"[sic] deserve a rough ride when they fuck up.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 12:24 PM

I find this a very strange thread indeed. Why are missionaries an "issue"? I have read quite a bit on this story and nowhere have I found any reference to this.
In fact, I find the concept of even asking such a thing about those who are risking their own well being, offensive.
As for christians getting a rough ride here, it is true, they do. Christian bashing is the last bastion of acceptable stupidity..talk about stereotyping...

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 05:58 AM

Christians get a rough ride on here.
Their provision of medical aid to the poorest of the poor, risking their own lives and forsaking a safe and comfortable life at home, is worthy of a mention.

Re. The identification of Ebola, had there been an existing name among the locals it would have been used.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 08:43 PM

I'm pretty sure anyone helping with Ebola has their hands full just dealing with it, whatever personal belief system may be getting them through it. I think Racism is a far more dangerous dynamic there (and worldwide esp in the USA) than any proselytizing may be.

I think we who choose not to engage Ebola personally from safe US space-- where our health system has developed thanks to stolen/undonated Black cadavers-- don't get to judge those who are engaging it.

Check out the book 'Medical Apartheid.'

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 05:06 PM

Quakers won't proselytise either, so we can exclude both those groups from what are commonly considered "missionaries" whose "job" it is to promote "Christianity"[sic] .

As for Doctors Without Borders, I couldn't agree more, Ebbie.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 04:40 PM

So far, no need for separate thread on a religious element of the problem, I see.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 04:27 PM

I grew up as one of the 'plain people'. Those days are long past- more than 60 years past, in fact - but to this day I donate to and admire the Mennonite charity groups. #1: I know they are not going to gouge the recipients. #2: They are conscientious and will do their best. #3: If there is money involved, it will be rightly allocated, even if there happens to be no formal accounting. #4: They won't proselytise or allow their efforts to be contingent upon anyone's religious beliefs or racial happenstance.

They and 'Doctors without Borders' are among my heroes.

So far as I know, the Mennonite group is not involved in the current crisis but at a certain point they may well be.

Subject: RE: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 03:51 PM

A difficult question, since one must evaluate the work of many groups, some with medical doctors in the forefront (Seventh Day Adventists) and others with only moderate to minimal training in health procedures.

I can't see that a thread which lumps all groups together has any value.

Subject: BS: Ebola and the Missionaries
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 02:35 PM

No, not a new band, but do we need a separate thread for the issue of Are the missionaries doing more harm than good in the current outbreak of Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea? I am the first, as you know, to ask this type of question, but don't want the thread on the breakout itself to get sidetracked.

So my question to the forum is, IS this a sidetrack, in which case let's post stuff about that here, instead of there?

Or is this part of the main story, in which case, never mind and we can close this thread afte we reach that consensus?

I think both issues are hugely important.