Greed

Whether it’s happening in Bosnia, Afghanistan, or anywhere else for that matter, wars undoubtedly cause a lot of disruption. They disrupt the peace, destroy buildings and hurt families, just to name a few. Joe Sacco, the journalist, author and cartoonist of “Safe Area Gorazde,” tries to accurately reflect the heartache brought forth from the war. In many instances, he does a great job. It is easy to see the suffering that goes on in this war-torn place. Sacco does an excellent job a showing the transformation that happens to the victims. For example, he explains that neighbors who used to be friends are now enemies. While the neighbors of opposite descent are facing similar problems, notably the lack of security, the fear of what to come, and the loss of a stable home, they act as though they cannot understand their old neighbors. They have become strangers to each other. Yet, ironically, they share more in common with each other than they would like to admit. Unfortunately, Joe Sacco is not wrong in his illustration of some of the suffering.

Yet, among the description of the pains of these war victims, Joe Sacco points out something very interesting. It is something that a stranger to war life would not predict or even believe. It is greed. When Sacco recounts his stories of the people in Gorazde, he includes the part about the desires of the victims. They want jeans, cigarettes, and almost everything under the sun. Money is no object, because there is nothing to buy in Gorazde and relatives often send money. Pain, suffering and loss of identity are all aspects of Joe Sacco’s description of Gorazde that are easy to believe, but greed? That was a little harder to grasp.

At first glance, greed just does not make any sense. Why would these people who are faced with constant violence and fear want useless goods like jeans? Shouldn’t they be begging for peace rather than goods? What about a safe exit; isn’t that more intriguing? Don’t they understand that stocking up on material objects will not matter once there are dead? They cannot really be suffering if they are infatuated by greed instead of safety.

Stepping back, the desire for goods no longer sounds that preposterous. If victims are trapped in a ruined city with little to do besides hope for a safe ending, it is not unreasonable that their minds might leap to safer places. They might fantasize about a world without bombings, a world without war. Presumably, if the area that they were imagining were not plagued by constant warfare, it might have a dearth of goods that is no longer available in Gorazde. It might have jeans and food. Maybe, then, thinking about goods is just a way to keep hoping for a future. Maybe it is a way to momentarily step away from the violence that is tarring the city apart.

In fact, at this point, I don’t know if Joe Sacco’s claim that these victims are filled a desire for material goods is unique to Gorazde, or is something that steps beyond this little area. However, it appears to affect other cities in Bosnia. In the movie “Welcome to Sarajevo,” there appears to be a similar desire for goods. When the lead journalist, Michael Henderson, returns to Sarajevo, the driver, Risto Bavic, admits that he has an insatiable desire for dental floss. Later, he explains that recently he has been having many yearnings for goods. So, it is possible to assume that this greed is an element of the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995. Maybe it is even common in other war-torn areas.

After overcoming the initial shock of the ever present greed, accepting that maybe greed simply is not that bad of a coping mechanism, and realizing that it was present in other areas beside Gorazde, I have come to wonder if greed symbolizes something even more powerful. Maybe it reflects our desire to ignore reality. Regardless of whether we are in a developing or a developed world, we have this insatiable desire to acquire meaningless material objects. We want the latest iPod, the newest computer or whatever else the present fad may be. Yet, in doing so, we often ignore the world around us. We create a consumer society to create a fascade of whatever ills that may be affecting us. War is just an extension of our greed or, maybe, it just sounds so unreal or too real in this case.

As we have already established previously in this blog, Tuberculosis has become increasingly more deadly because of the MDR strain of TB. This mutation of the disease makes it almost impossible, or at least very difficult, to treat. Yet, tuberculosis is not the only disease that is adapting to the aggressive human Treat-All mentality. Recently, infections like the Staph infection have popped into the headlines becauses of the new powerful resistant forms.

The community-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staph Infection is causing a lot of problems recently. According to the Health and Human Services Department and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in "Scientists Identify Factor Key to Severity of Community-Associated methicillin-Resistant Steph Infections," the "S. aureaus disease is a global public health concern because some strains, including community-associated methicillin resistant S. aureays, have developed resistance to existing antibiotics." As a result, "the newly described proteins in drug-resistant strains of the Staphylococus aureus bacterium attract and then destroy protective human white blood cells."

Thus, it has become evident that tuberculosis is not the only disease facing difficulties right now. Mutations are occuring at increasingly fast rates. As a result, strains are become ever more difficult to treat. I would not be surprised if once treatable diseases become incurable. Life sure looks great.

Scared of Bacteria?

Bacteria are bad, or so we may have thought. Well, actually leading scientists and other researchers are slowly reaching the conclusion that maybe bacteria are not as bad as we initially thought. In fact, we use bacteria a lot.

Bacteria are an essential part of human life. According to Jeneen Interlandi and Jerry Adler, “bacteria seem adjust levels of the hormones ghrlein and letpin, which regulate appetite and metabolism. Similarly, “the intestinal bacteria are a marvel, a virtual organ of the body which just happens to have its own DNA.” In fact, according to a study done at Duke University, the human appendix “serves as a reservoir of beneficial microbes which can decolonize the gut after is emptied by diseases such as cholera or dysentery.” In all regards, bacteria constitute “an essential step in the development of a healthy immune system.”

Yet, society often ignores the benefit. Increasingly, there is an effort to rid ourselves of the bacteria. Today, people “cover the dirt on the floor of the hut, banish the farm animals to distant feedlot, and treat an ear infection with penicillin” and the list goes on. According to Sachs, “Modern sanitation is a good thing, and pavement is a good thing, but they keep kids at a distance from microbes.” This in turn tips “the immune system in the direction of overreaction, either to outside stimuli or even to the body’s own cells. The result is allergies or asthma.” Are you still scared of bacteria?

Our approach towards bacteria has evolved over the last century. According to Jerry Adler and Jeneen Interlandi, the authors of “Killing Germs May Be Hazardous to Your Health,” “most of the last century is dominated by the paradigm of Total Warfare.”It seems like we as a society attempt to treat any and everything. Even the mildest infections seem to get treatment. “We try to kill them off with antibiotics and hand sanitizers.”

In some regards, this Fix-All-Society is good. It often helps prevent some infections. For example, during the SARS outbreak at the start of the millennium, using Purel was thought to be the appropriate course of action.

Yet, as we find more and more supplements for every infection, the strains of bacteria also evolve. To our misfortune, this is not a good thing. In fact, the bacteria mutate into super-bugs, becoming even harder to kill. For example, “When penicillin began to lose its effectiveness against staph, doctors turned to methicillin, but then MRSA appeared … ranging threat that can strike almost anyone… To be sure, MRSA is a scary infection, fast-moving and tricky to diagnose.” Our approach has become like a vicious cycle, killing the weak and helping the strong.

What does this approach to disease reflect in our society? To some, it is an attempt to gain power in this increasingly complex world. Nancy Tomes, the author of “The Gospel of Germs,” says that she “can’t protect [herself] from bin Laden, but [she] can rid [her]self of germs.” This may be true now. Yet, there is no way of promising that it will be true later. Despite our desire to control every little aspect of life, whether that means killing microbes or even producing human life, we are not powerful enough to truly live with the responsibility of our actions.

What About the General Public?

Though we have established in previous blog posts that neither the initial patient nor the authorities pose as logical culprits for the spread of Tuberculosis, we have ignored another important player: the general public. If this blog has presented anything useful, it is that the spread of disease is a complicated issue to pinpoint the exact culprit.
If we really cannot full-heartedly blame neither the infected nor the authorities, could we blame the general public? First of all, let’s define the term “general public.” In this case, let’s use it to encompass not only the active members of society, but even the seemingly innocent and banal bystanders that for this case happen to be experiencing some bad luck and are in the a potentially dangerous situation. Simply put, the term basically encompasses everybody.
Well, this is a fairly large group of people if I do say so myself. Yet, by framing the term “general public,” to encompass such a large group of people, well no one can truly be exempt. Then, by these standards, the culprit must be in the group. Well, one would think.

The Irony of Fighting Globalization

Where have Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakash been all of these years? The authors of “From Global to Local: Beyoun Neoliberalism to the International of Hope,” present a convincing argument that shows the problems associated with Globalization. Globalization, once a popular fad, is causing a powerful local fight for flight.

No one anymore wants to be global. Whether that means that globalization is going to be criticized from the locals or even the once-global-leaders, there is going to be distrust. “Even the most single-minded and ambitious free trade advocates cannot fail to recognize the social and human costs of the politics they are promoting.” No one can truly think global. Even organizations that claim to be global cannot be global. They have to have a home base somewhere, and that in turn helps shape their outlook. “Global proposals are necessarily parochial: they inevitably express the specific vision and interests of a small group of people, even when they are supposedly formulated in the interest of humanity.”

Few can deny that globalization is not always the best force in society. Global solutions cannot solve the local problems. This is especially true for the case of TB. When a global effort to banish TB from local societies, especially in developing countries, was established, the plan backfired. Doctors did not prescribe the correct dosage and the patients did not take the full treatment plan. This in turn caused the infectious disease to become even more powerful than even before. With the mutation of the strain to become MDR-TB, no drugs could cure the disease.

However, the efforts to reduce the force of globalization in the past have not encountered much success. Esteva and Prakash claim that “until now, … most of the social movements of campaigns trying to resist the new “global” phenomena have proven to be highly ineffective. Some of them are even counterproductive.” The problem is that humans are limited. Local forces are tiny compared to the massive global strength that sits as the opposition. Before, there seemed little hope of reducing the force of globalization.

Now, there is hope. Everywhere around the globe, there is a general push towards acting locally as opposed to globally. Esteva and Prakash claim that people “are trying to abandon the global thinking with which “industrial eaters” enter their local grocery stores: buying “goods” from any and every part of the earth, motivated solely by the desire to get the “best” return for their dollar.” In order to fight the global force, opponents fight with understanding. There is now a generally thirst for local knowledge. People want to know where their food comes from, and learning that the food is not local has started to pose a greater threat than ever before. Local forces can act together. “The local peoples often need outside allies to create a critical mass of political opposition capable of stopping those forces.” Though the coalition of local forces is not always as powerful as that of the global leaders, it is a start.

Globalization is something that needs to be changed. It is moving society in a direction that is abysmal. These authors make such a good argument. Ironically, it will need a global force of local organizations the fight the global power.

Rethinking the Initial Culprit

Tuberculosis is not always like the common cold. Some people who have tuberculosis do not always know that they have it. According to the CBC News article “Tuberculosis: Anatomy of a Killer,” “Most people don’t even realize they are infected. They don’t feel sick and don’t show any symptoms. In fact, 90 to 95 per cent of people who get infected never get sick.”

This changes everything. If we were to blame the spread of the disease on the people who spread the disease, this accusation would be unfair. Taking the benefit of the doubt, maybe the initial patients did not know that they were endangering the lives of others. Maybe they were totally unaware of the potential implications of their actions.

Yet, if we were to take the benefit of the doubt and assume that the patients are innocent, who then is to blame? Well, this requires a different look all together. Perhaps we could accuse the authorities for the spread. The term “authorities” is very broad. It could refer to the people who maintain the order, such as law enforcement agents. In all respect, law-enforcement agents could have supplied better infection-prevention procedures. On the other hand, it could refer to the people who have the authority to protect the public. In this case, the term would broaden to encompass people in the scientific field as well. People often hold scientists accountable for creating harmful drugs. But, should scientists also be blamed for not creating the appropriate treatment plan? The term “scientific field” would refer to not only scientists, but also the people who help distribute the treatment plan as well. What about globalization? Has this earth-shrinking process, what I like to refer to as “Modern Imperialism,” brought others to the forefront as well? Surely we cannot forget the people who helped encourage the global expansion and later the distribution of drugs into third world countries. Taking this general principal, we still have not found a logical culprit for the spread of TB.