Of Coronavirus and Africa: The Illusion of Disbelief

(By Reuben Abati) - Corona Chronicles

… Throughout known history, whenever man faces a crisis of such unknowable nature, his tendency is to resort to religion, faith, and ego. … Religion … is precisely what many fall back upon in a season of distress and so it has been. As Corona Virus arrived in Africa, and made its landing in a few countries, the people trooped to places of religious worship in typical default response. Africans, victims of Karl Marx’s often wrongly contextualized statement that “religion is the opium of the people” usually blame God for everything. They regard God as the ultimate solution, indeed as the know-it-all-Being, the invocation of whose name can provide all answers to everything on earth. Richard Swinburne, a theist argues in his book – Is There A God? (Oxford University Press, 2010), that whereas the existence of God is “the ultimate brute fact”, human beings also have “obligations” or what he calls “supererogatory good actions” or “moral truths” to which they must abide even as they profess their love for God.

Africans often mix this up. As the Corona Virus pestilence spreads in the continent from one or two cases to over 1, 500 cases and over 50 deaths, more of the people rely on the assurances of Pastors and Imams who promise a cure or advertise the possibility of it. In Ghana, one Prophet said he had found an anointing oil to cure Corona Virus, and the Chief Imam of the same country reportedly announced that all Muslims are now free to consume alcohol to combat Corona Virus. While Europeans and Asians are in quarantine, Africans rush for anointing oil, alcohol and herbal solutions. When Trump [erroneously and carelessly] proclaimed chloroquine as cure, they obeyed him robotically. In Nigeria, pastors and all sorts have come up with passages in the Bible to justify the pestilence and how the cure is spiritual.
Corona Virus vigils and special deliverance programmes have since been announced across communities. The people ignore science and reason and decide to follow religion. It is the most scandalous part of the experience so far in Nigeria. The matter was put to the test just this last Sunday.

By Friday, the Federal Government of Nigeria had announced that no church or mosque or any event at all should have a congregation of more than 50 persons. To our utter surprise, the Friday prayer worship was held in mosques across the country. Every announcement that Jumat prayers had been shut down in Iran and the entire Middle East, and that Nigerians should do the same, fell on deaf ears. The people insisted that it is at a time like this that the people need God. The Christians repeated the offence on Sunday. Lagos and Ogun state governments had to call out Task Forces to disperse church services which violated the official directive that every one should observe social distancing. In Lagos, event centres were sealed off, bars and restaurants were shut down. What is it about our people? 

There is a video now making the rounds on social media about how some persons in Zimbabwe had to be caned to get them out of church on Sunday. Nobody caned people in Nigeria. But given the fact that nobody has any right to endanger the lives of others or even commit suicide, I am recommending that this week, should any strong-headed person refuse to obey the directives on social distancing, either on Friday or Sunday, such persons should be physically whipped by Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies. Nigeria has recorded up to 40 cases of Corona Virus with one death. That was how it started in China, Italy, Iran, the US and the UK. Nigeria should not become the epicenter of Corona Virus in Africa, just because some people believe that God will do it. The painful truth is that many Nigerians, Muslim and Christians alike, including the educated, suffer from the “Jerusalem syndrome.” This is the biggest threat to all efforts so far to contain the spread of Corona Virus. The Jerusalem syndrome is a form of mental disorder, a kind of delusion, the pain that believers inflict on themselves. Extremely religious people behave as if they want the world to come to an end, in line with their expectations and tantrums. They should not be allowed to put all of us at risk. 

Christopher Hitchens who likes to identify as a libertarian anti-theist, is the author of a book titled “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” (London: Atlantic Books, 2007). He argues in Chapter Two of the book that “Religion Kills” and in Chapter Four he writes: “A Note on Health to Which Religion can be Hazardous”. It is perhaps not an accident that in South Korea, the most affected group is a religious congregation. Italy, the home of the Vatican, is the epicenter of the pestilence in Europe and has since displaced Wuhan as the global epicenter. 

Friedrich Nietzsche before eventually proclaiming the Death of God (1882), wrote about what he called the “futility of an illusion”, that is the illusion that religion can save humanity, or the futility of illusions that we embrace in order to make life possible. Sigmund Freud in 1927 wrote a similar book about The Future of an lllusion. Today, we are in the age of illusions. There have been too many illusions especially around the subject of the Corona Virus. People ignore the reality and embrace illusions. They want to live but they ignore the biggest threat of the decade. … Nigeria must follow up all existing measures with strict sanctions for those who continue to embrace the illusion that Corona Virus is a foreign virus. It is not. The pestilence is here. 

For a fact: Nigeria has adopted a number of measures: schools have been shut down, airports have been closed, state governments have responded, some steps have been taken to protect the economy and businesses (not far-reaching enough), but the big missing link, I insist, is the absence of sanctions for those who continue to argue that the pestilence means nothing because they believe “something” will protect them. That something may feed their illusions, but it may not protect others. It is because of such persons that Nigeria should impose strict, enforceable sanctions. As we have seen, Corona Virus is not a respecter of boundaries, nations, persons, status, faith or size. What is missing is what Nietzsche calls the “gymnastics of the will”, the will to confront a wicked problem with reason and common sense. Rwanda, Ghana and South Africa are doing much better than other African countries. Nigeria has the largest population in the continent. It carries a much heavier burden of its own and for the sub-region, if not the continent. We need more purposeful leadership, and a greater sense of urgency. ...

– Abati is a respected columnist and scholar