Saving the Tree for the Forest: Lessons from Pandemics for Postcolonial Indigeneity in South Africa

Abstract

With pandemics set to become a more frequent occurrence, it is becoming increasingly important for us not just to look at how best to be prepared for the interconnected viral age, but also to understand the underlying causes of the increased emergence of new biological threats for native/indigenous communities in the highly globalized world. Over the course of the last century, painful lessons have been presented to us on how to combat pandemics for indigenous people, although, often, those lessons were learnt on the back of how not to combat a pandemic. With the scars of South Africa’s initial botched handling of the HIV/Aids pandemic still affecting the lives of millions of South Africans, it is a cause for concern to see that US President Donald Trump not only severed ties with the World Health Organisation but is also threatening funding to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. If anything was learnt from the way former South African President Thabo Mbeki mismanaged South Africa’s HIV/Aids response, it is that viruses do not play politics, they thrive on it. Yet, once the scale of the HIV/Aids crisis in South Africa forced a change in the government’s response, an effective strategy to combat the virus, was possible, however, that change could not undo the damage done to the lives of millions of HIV positive people. Infections that would have been prevented had the government not embarked on a curious powerplay. That the scope of the spread of COVID-19 could not have been predicted is true, however, equally true, and of greater consequence, is that viruses are contagious, that our modern systems of transport are tailor made to aid their spread at great speed, and that eventually, a virus, such as COVID-19 will emerge and inflict great human and economic cost. That we cannot know beforehand which virus would cause this is of little concern. If the same mistakes are repeated, we will find that the economic costs of combatting viruses after the fact come at a greater cost than creating the resources to combat them. But perhaps the best policy that we can adopt to protect ourselves from the increased emergence of new viruses, is to protect nature from us. By understanding the connection between our ever-expanding destruction of nature for economic purposes compromising indigenous value systems, we may yet find that we will save more by protecting nature, than by investing in vaccine development as suiting the requirements of indigenous communities.