Intertwined destinies

The story came down to me this way: in 1936, my mother contended she heard (on the radio through an Amharic translator?) the appeal by Ethiopian monarch Haile Selassie before the League of Nations for assistance against a murderous Italian invasion. The great European powers at Geneva -- France and Britain -- had pledged to protect the integrity of Ethiopia. They offered this black African ruler no help. Selassie insisted "it is international morality that is at stake ..." The dignified presence of this small man convinced my mother that someday a war would have to be fought against European fascists and Nazis. (I suspect this family story contained some hindsight, but Mother was definitely supportive of U.S. intervention in Europe long before Pearl Harbor, so there's probably also some truth.)

I thought about this history today when I read the response of another Ethiopian to Donald Trump's attack on his international organization.

“How difficult is it for humans to unite to fight a common enemy that’s killing people indiscriminately?” [Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director-general,] asked. “Can’t we understand that the divisions and cracks between us are to the advantage of the virus?”

Tedros warned that in most of the world, “the virus is not under control; it’s getting worse.” And he pointed out that the health systems of some of the world’s wealthiest countries have been upended, whereas nations of more modest means have had success.

“This once-in-a-century pandemic has hammered home a critical lesson: When it comes to health, our destinies are intertwined ...”

Washington Post

Certainly the W.H.O. is imperfect. But if humans hope to survive and thrive in the environment humans have made on this planet, we'll have to learn that what Dr. Tedros is saying makes sense -- and that what Donald Trump is doing makes none.