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Coronavirus: when Africa denounces the “white disease”

2020-03-29T12:09:30.769Z


The spread of the infection reveals latent xenophobia in some countries and communities.


Secretary of State Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, bluntly admitted this last Wednesday on FranceInfo: " indeed [in certain regions of the world, note] Westerners are perceived today as being a home of Covid-19 ". The second from Jean-Yves Le Drian to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs allowed himself a slight euphemism to qualify the fear of French people waiting to be repatriated, admitting to having noticed " sometimes a feeling of security fear ".

Among the regions most affected by this mistrust, Africa, which sees the coronavirus settle on its soil, with around 40 affected countries, against only one a month ago. According to a report drawn up by AFP from official sources, Saturday March 28, the continent registered 117 deaths for 3897 cases. While the epidemic, combined with the lack of sanitation facilities is causing concern, many eyes are turning to Europeans accused of having imported the disease and created the conditions for a new crisis.

Violent acts ” recorded by the UN in Senegal

The first country to have displayed reflections of mistrust, Senegal, where accusations specifically targeting France are flourishing. As of March 4, shamelessly forcing the statistics, the daily L'Évidence argued that the (two) cases of coronavirus were " all foreigners " and headlined on the " coronization " of France by Senegal, after the " economic colonization ”, which itself had succeeded the“ slave trade ”.

Front page of the daily L'Évidence on March 4. Evidence / Twitter

On social networks, a conspiratorial video has also garnered great success since the beginning of the month: entitled "the coronavirus is made in France" and shot by a Frenchman, it accuses the Institut Pasteur of having invented the virus to sell better his vaccine. And beyond words and incantations, aggressive acts are already to be deplored, if we are to believe a United Nations document published on March 18 and entitled " Criminal activities, consequences of Covid-19 ". He says that the organization has identified " a number of incidents of stigmatization of expatriates whether they are employed by the United Nations or not: intimidation and verbal threats, sometimes followed by violent acts ". " Some of these acts took place in broad daylight, sometimes under the eyes of security agents who did not react ", continues the opinion, which asked personnel based in Senegal and The Gambia to avoid any displacement non-essential and " extreme vigilance ", among other safety advice.

Read also: Conspiracy hysteria accelerates around the coronavirus

More generally, part of the public opinion oscillates between xenophobic reflex and simple denial of the pandemic risk. An ignorance which makes the control measures particularly uncertain: while President Macky Sall had prohibited gatherings as of March 14, the Imam of the Great Mosque of Dakar, Sérigne Alioune Moussa Samb, opposed the measure, stressing that Friday prayer is a precept of Islam. Friday, March 20, rallies were held, including Touba, holy city of the Muslim brotherhood of Mourides but also the first epicenter of cases of coronavirus. The religious leader participated, as well as Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne, who is none other than the secretary general of the presidency and ex-prime minister of the country. In the Layene Muslim community, protests also arose after the arrest of an imam who braved the closure of the mosques. After consultation, various pilgrimages were however canceled. But these challenges to central authority would have to do with the very legitimacy of the state, a colonial structure, according to Bakary Sambe, professor-researcher at the University of Saint-Louis. In an interview with Jeune Afrique the specialist in religious questions declares that the resistances say " indeed something of the dispersion of the poles of legitimacy in Senegal, and [reveal] a form of constant suspicion of the religious masses vis-à-vis the state, seen as a continuation of the colonial state. "

Fear of confinement impossible to face economically

Same findings in several other countries. Insults in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, incidents against press correspondents in Ethiopia ... In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a Frenchman detained for more than a week testified to Le Figaro of a " climate of insecurity " and even considers his life " in danger ". I had to stay here three days for professional reasons. Since the borders were closed, we have been abandoned by looters and attackers of all kinds, ”explains the man, the father of a two-month-old baby in France. " Here, people coming back from Europe, white or black, we are called the Coronaviruses ".

Already in 2014, during the epidemic of the Ebola virus, which had killed more than 10,000 victims, part of the population of Liberia and Guinea declared their anger against " the invention of the whites ", and seven people had been coldly murdered by Guinean villagers during a mission to raise awareness of the risks of the disease. This time, if the racial distinction between importers of the virus and " innocent " victims is not always made, the existence of a specific racism against whites and Asians is however attested. According to the media Voice Of Africa, " attacks and insults on foreigners, especially white or Chinese, have increased significantly " in the past week. The U.S. Embassy in Yaoundé has itself observed an increase in verbal attacks, including online, stone throwing and beatings on expatriate vehicles. " When you listen to the French president, he says that France is at war. Like the American president. Let them fight their war outside Africa, ”said Ebenezer, a 29-year-old Cameroonian who claims that the virus was created by the United States or China, and admits to having joined the attacks. Cameroonian Minister of Health Manaouda Malachie notably called for calm earlier this week.

Read also: Coronavirus: a "financial package" will be mobilized for Africa (French Minister)

However, public authorities are not always the last to fall into the most simplistic theories. On March 14, when the coronavirus was wreaking havoc in Europe, the Zimbabwean Defense Minister Oppah Muchinguri declared that “ the coronavirus is the work of God who punishes the countries that have imposed sanctions (…) They are locked up at home and their economy is suffering as they have made ours suffer ”.

Read also: After China and Europe, Africa is gradually opting for containment

Chinese power is moreover less targeted than the former colonizing countries and more broadly the large nations of international regulation, with which African countries often have problems. In addition, China is more widely present in certain countries and offers its knowledge of the fight against the virus. For Jean-Christophe Rufin, in Le Parisien , the Chinese can " very quickly mobilize spectacular aid ". Western aid seems to have less effective relays. In view of a doubling of the health crisis by a crisis of even greater magnitude, the head of French diplomacy Jean-Yves Le Drian nevertheless announced last Tuesday March 24 that a " real financial package " would be mobilized to help the most vulnerable countries.

The African feverishness reflected by the epidermal reactions is finally explained by an underlying phenomenon: fear, beyond the virus itself, of curfew or containment measures which are regularly decreed. Significant traffic restrictions endanger the livelihoods of many Africans who have to work for food every day and cannot afford to " see it coming ." " It's going to be terrible, people will no longer be able to work and bring food back ," complained recently to AFP Bernado Ndombele Mila, an unemployed worker from Luanda, the Angolan capital, expressing the anxiety of hundreds of millions of Africans facing a major crisis.

Read also: The fads of the “decolonial” lobby

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2020-03-29

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