Security in the Age of Ebola

Batanes in the northern Philippines wakes up to rooster crows from Formosa, but the neighboring folks cannot legally exchange chicken without the consent of Manila and Taipei. Sovereign borders are a creation of the nation-states that folks of Batanes ignored until Portugal and Spain, later China and Japan, made them pay attention to it. We know that European imperial forces fought over territories in the Pacific in the 18th and 19th centuries, leaving Spanish and German worldviews in Chamorro and Carolinian lifestyles.

For all the socialist bluster of Russia and the democratic aspirations of the United States, the reason the Kims are shooting at each other across the 38th is because of the two Koreas’ alliances with the aforementioned entities. With the U.S. inheriting the mantle of British imperialism, it took the high road of “American exceptionalism” and “manifest destiny,” while taking advantage of the cheap labor and accessible resources of their good will’s recipients.

The former USSR had the good sense not to hang around NoKor. The invisible hand behind South Korea and Japan heretofore have markings that read: USFK and USFJ. Meanwhile, every one is taught to sing “Michael row your boat ashore.”

American business already knows war is profitable, and with the biggest military budget in the world, we are not about to give up conflict earnings. NATO and SEATO were not set up so folks can hold hands around the table and sing Kumbaya! We are no more interested in protecting Kurds in Kudani than blasting the bejesus out of the Islamic State.

Fishermen in an atoll close to the Philippines alerted their Chinese counterparts that the “police are coming” and that they should make themselves scarce. There was never any of “this atoll, this island is ours” when it came to fishing.

While living in Majuro in the Marshall Islands, we had Taiwanese fishing boats dock to replenish provisions. Boats from Japan go “whaling” in Oceania—Tasmania to the Aloha lands of the Pacific including Tahiti. Though engaged in catching the depleted resource of sharks and whale, dolphin that swim with the tuna, the fisherman were never called to account for their ethical norms.

Humankind rules over all earth creatures, with a social stratification developed in the last 6K years, rated according to race (pale top, dark bottom) and pedigreed schooling (Ha’vard and Harrow will do) on the one hand, and today, one’s money-making ability in the nation-state of one’s patrimony on the other.

Survival is, however, Mother Nature’s prerogative, and in the evolutionary process, a critical ingredient in the transmittal of genetic information are little creatures “at the edge of life” too small for microscopes but may be filtered to be recognized and catalogued, particulates called viruses. Parasitical, they live off their hosts; viruses by themselves are harmless until they start messing up with their hosts.

In the “civilized” understanding of how life is sustained on Earth, human chutzpah takes precedence over all living organisms in the food chain. Only when we have pandemic occurrences of diseases are we reminded that our pre-eminence is more humbug than innate skill.

Emergencies like the outbreak of viruses do not recognize nation-states. Ebola from West Africa now alarms the world, with the little critters playing games with Texas Health Presbyterian and Carlos III in Spain. Meanwhile, the tropical virus causing dengue wreaks havoc in China this year. Two mysterious viruses are infecting Columbia and Colorado girls. Though down with the ordinary sneeze in Dong Bei cold, it is still my immunity to a virus that determines my response to the added carbon in the air.

Genetic engineering, a cutting edge of our scientific endeavor, has been suggested to cause this viral proliferation, a consequence of our messing up with Mother Nature’s processes. Regardless, viruses are not aberrations. Our bodies are full of them, and our primary posture to defend ourselves from it is more from the kneejerk response to threat from the religion of fear rather than the science of health.

Immunity develops in healthy bodies that co-exist with germs and viruses. Vaccines have short-term effect as the adaptation process often results in stronger strain we are supposed to be protected from. No, the human specie needs to mutate so that it can be healthy enough to live with germs and viruses rather than be obsessed with secure boundaries, most particularly the imagined ones like those developed by nation-states, as if a virus and germ would stop just because there is a political line in place!

In a recent trip to North America, friends and kin alike spent most of their time and resources in defense of their way of life, accent on “defense.” Ninety percent in the expenditure vs. Ebola is combating fear. Our preoccupation with boundary security needs to mutate! Fear constricts the mind! Health is living sans fear. In our hands, not in the fear of the Ebola, lies destiny!