Nightingale was a Munyoro, if you disagree go argue with your mother

School children in Uganda, and indeed in many countries across Africa, are taught about an amazing woman called Florence Nightingale. If you google her name, it appears alongside such luminaries as Marie Curie and Mother Teresa, and not surprisingly; the ‘lady with the lamp’, as she was fondly referred to, is considered the mother of nursing. 

Her exploits arose in the Crimean War fought in the Ottoman Empire between October 1853 and February 1856. Soldiers were more likely to die in hospitals where they were receiving treatment for their wounds, than from the war front itself, due to the poor hygiene that led to infections. Ms Nightingale became a folklore heroine by improving sanitation in the wards, reducing infections and the mortality rate of injured soldiers. 

What school children in Uganda, and indeed in many countries across Africa, aren’t taught is that as early as the 1600s medical workers in Bunyoro Kitara kingdom and doubtless in other kingdoms of the day, had already discovered the perils of poor hygiene and sanitation to recuperating patients.  

Thus as they conducted their surgical procedures, from basic sewing up of wounds to caesarean section deliveries, they sanitised the tools of their trade by putting them in fire to kill germs and stop them from spreading from one patient to another. 

That history does not honour the medicine men and women of ancient African kingdoms but does so for those who stumbled or borrowed over similar knowledge hundreds of years later, can be explained away by cultural violence in pedagogy and epistemology (we can take a  brief google break here). What is inexplicable is that half a millennium later, the entire African race and continent is waiting on the generosity of foreign nations in order to access the vaccine against the coronavirus disease. To the best of my knowledge, none of the 54 African countries has been able to create, manufacture or even reverse-engineer a vaccine as an antidote to the pandemic.

One might argue that the sudden emergence of this particular strain of the coronavirus and the unprecedented sums of money thrown at vaccine development was always going to give Western nations a head-start. But there are at least two counter arguments to that.

The first is that Africa has a long and painful history of disease and disease-causing germs that thrive in our hot and humid environs. Malaria, Ebola, HIV,  Zika, et cetera have been public health emergencies across the continent; the logical deduction is that we should have become experts at understanding and fighting viruses, including building the capacity to produce vaccines and cures.  The second, and perhaps most important reason, is that we have been conditioned to outsource our agency to outsiders, be they former colonial masters, or even multilateral organisations. 

Pick an African leader at random and ask them about the best infantry fighting vehicle or medium-range attack helicopter and they will probably chalk off the specs off-head, including prices, suppliers and delivery times.  Then ask about the cost of a high-end medical laboratory, pharmaceutical plant or ways in which intellectual property laws need to be rewritten to allow generic production of medicines and you are likely to trigger sharp and sudden dental cavities whose pain deters the production of any answers.  This reflects a generational problem, of leaders stuck in past thinking in which threat assessments prioritise traditional risks, such as attacks from neighbouring states or unhappy natives in a distant enclave. 

But it also reflects a failure to appreciate that there was a time Africans had cutting-edge technology and knowledge, and the need to reinvent and reinvest in that capacity. A leader who knows that his people once had superior medical knowledge is more likely to find ways to rediscover that culture of innovation and self-sufficiency. This might involve ‘borrowing back better’ technology and knowledge that have since been lost to or advanced by others. 

 This is what Asian countries, with whom we shared poverty and now import from, are doing. Leaders who believe that others are innately smarter or pre-destined to be better, will continue to ask for donations of vaccines. 

 To reimagine the present and future world, our leaders must remember that the original Florence Nightingale was a Munyoro, Muganda, or Ndebele – and tell anyone who disagrees to go and argue with their mother.

Mr Kalinaki is a journalist and  poor man’s freedom fighter. 

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Twitter: @Kalinaki