By Denrele Animasaun

“If one has to refer to any of the parties as a terrorist state, one might refer to the Israeli government, because they are the people who are slaughtering defenceless and innocent Arabs in the occupied [Palestinian] territories, and we don’t regard that as acceptable.” (Nelson Mandela, 1990)

My 11 year old daughter is a budding diplomat. Like all children they see everything in clear terms, it is either one thing or the other. She said some years back, about the Israel and Palestine situation: that “mum, it’s simple; can’t they just divide the area and stop the fighting”

I wish I had her diplomatic dexterity and the conviction that it is that simple. But then, adults (I mean, politicians) make everything complicated.  At present, she (my daughter) has refused to watch the news as in her words it is “depressing and there is too much killing.” I assure you, I  am not  deliberately exposing her to the news but these children are aware of what’s  going  on  around them  and it does impact the way  they make sense of the world.

We can ill afford to breed more of the same hatred and intolerance and war mongering generation. This is how this nightmare continues.  The children did not ask to be dragged into a thousand war grudges and they definitely were not born with hating people they did not know.

Recently the UK and the rest of Europe marked the 100 year of the beginning of the First World War that resulted in millions killed for a war that they weren’t responsible for. They were pushed into the war on the orders of their countries who   were convinced they were doing this for king, country and freedom. Historians remain unconvinced the First World War was a just war in terms of wiping millions out. So the Israeli onslaught is another that in years to come, the young people will be wondering what they are fighting for and why real peace was not pursued at all cost.

What we have witnessed in the last couple of weeks has been excessive and wanton slaughter of children, women, the young and old. Let us get one thing straight, I am not anti-Semitic and I do believe the state of Israel and Palestine have the right to exist.

The present Israeli government is thirsty for war as it instructs its young reservists to go all out and squeeze the strip full of people into a much tighter corner; bombing indiscriminately; promoting racial discrimination and ethnic cleansing. In the meantime, the rest of the world looks languorously or make inane protestations that obviously Israel chooses to ignore.

There is no way the bombing of hospitals and schools under the UN  an  oversight and  no way  can  it  be  justified  and, of course they do not stop  other than say that they will  investigate.  Those Israeli that choose to voice their concerns are quickly berated or threatened with all sorts by the hard liners.

This heinous activities is a grand crime against  humanity  as it  seems that Israel does not  want Palestine and they use their favoured  position  with the world powers to justify the mass and discriminating  obliteration of the Palestinian  people.

About time governments and its people stand up for humanity and justice that, so that they might get all parties to work towards real peace.
“What we know is that Israel has weapons of mass destruction. Nobody talks about that. Why should there be one standard for one country, especially because it is black, and another one for another country, Israel, that is white.” (Nelson Mandela, 2002)

Ebola: We must value lives
“You can’t prevent what you can’t predict.” — K.M. Mac Aulay
In the UK, Britain increases aid from £2m to £5m as the cabinet’s Cobra emergency committee met to put in place protocol to manage potential Ebola causalities. In fact they have often practised such scenarios as a matter of routine; the specialist medics and personnel have practised this should such epidemic visit these shores.  UK, like most advanced countries, are always on the alert for such disasters.

This could be misinterpreted by outsiders as “wishing bad thing …”but it is a fact of life in these times and as they say;” you fail to prepare then, you must prepare to fail”. This we see in some of the countries, it is usually took them unaware and it made them vulnerable. They are that ill equipped and ill prepared for such potentially dangerous epidemic. This is a valuable lesson to be learnt once the disease has been contained or under control.

We need to value the lives and health of our people; we cannot demand other countries to help us when we ignore the welfare of our people. Health is a priority not a luxury but alas, it seems this is the case in most African countries.

In Spain, a military repatriated its citizen, Miguel Parajels, 75, a priest who have been in one of the hotspots in Liberia, where he has been taking care of Ebola stricken patient. They have brought him under heavy presence back to Spain to receive treatment. The stricken Spanish priest became the   first person brought to Europe for treatment.

In contrast, the African patients in these stricken countries where sick people, suspected of having Ebola are now left on the street, without treatment .It is very distressing to see it reported in the news that we treat our people in such appalling way. There is so much distrust in treatment as we were told that many patients were removed by their relatives from quarantined sites and in turn infected others and this is the way the disease spreads. So on top of poor infrastructure, under-resource, ignorance and fear seem to fuel the disease.

Presently, Liberia and Sierra Leone have declared a state of emergency; with hundreds of soldiers setting up roadblocks to stop rural residents reaching the cities as health experts discuss using untested drugs to stem the 900-strong death toll.

So things seems to  move in Abuja  where in  a dedicated conference, the Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, explained that the first known Nigerian had  died from Ebola, adding however that the first death in the country was the index case which is  the imported case from Liberia. And with that a further five cases are being treated on an isolation ward in Lagos.

With the plan he stated that an incident manager would lead a six-man inter-agency team drawn from the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), the US CDC, WHO, UNICEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to Lagos to complete the setting up of the centre.

The minister also announced the appointment of a Director of Communication and Community Mobilisation from the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Professor. O. Onajole. He would be based in Lagos. He added: “We are embarking on recruiting additional health personnel to strengthen the team that is currently managing the situation in Lagos. And that they are “making arrangements to procure isolation tents to quicken the pace of providing isolation wards in all the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Terrority (FCT)”.