Global Futures Initiative

Why did citizens of wealthy countries care so little? One likely explanation is that people in higher income countries were less concerned about diseases that would be unlikely to affect them. Had there been a clear and direct interest, they would have responded long ago. 

Dr. Jim Yong Kim, the president of the World Bank Group, offered another explanation when he spoke last week at Georgetown University.  He framed peoples’ disinterest as a problem of time:  those who are better off assume that eventually all people will have similar health standards but lack a sense of urgency and care about the situation today. Martin Luther King famously said that “…such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time and a strangely irrational notion that there is something in the flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. …. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people."

We in 2015 face a situation similar to 2009. Dr. Kim proposes a “Pandemic Emergency Facility” that would be a promising weapon against the spread of disease. However, concern about the Ebola epidemic in West Africa is fading from people’s consciousness. Soon we will simply be “between the headlines” gliding towards indifference.

How can the failure of another pandemic response proposal be averted?

What is needed is a far higher fundamental interest in the health of those living in countries with inadequate health systems. A citizen sentiment and a “sense of urgency” such as that which brought slavery to an end is needed and it should involve the collective political engagement of many.

I believe that the world’s religions have a strong potential to foster this interest in the plight of others. An anecdote: About 71 years ago, my 19-year-old German grandfather was taken prisoner of war by French Armed Forces. He was shipped to the French countryside, to become a farm hand. The farmer was named François Geymond. Though the local population treated him abysmally, François treated my grandfather well and they ultimately became in a life-long friends. Recalling this remarkable experience, my grandfather emphasized that though the two men did not share a language or culture, their shared Catholicism served as common ground and informed François’s concern for his well-being. This story shows the sense of concern for others that religion can inspire.

Concern for others is at the core of many of the largest religions. The prophet Muhammad was legendarily concerned for the plight of the poor and since Vatican II, Catholicism emphasizes caring about the less fortunate. Religious engagement can help build that much needed sense of urgency that could encourage world leaders not to forget this time as Ebola fades from the headlines. It simply requires that religious leaders double down on highlighting the importance of being concerned for those whose health is most endangered by pandemics; the poor. 

Max Funke (SFS'16) is a junior in Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, majoring in Science, Technology and International Affairs.