How many more opportunities will be given Jean Marie Le Pen (founder and honorary President of the French far-right wing National Front) to provoke chaos and feed a turmoil of plain racism and ignorance whenever he opens his mouth?
Jean Marie Le Pen states that "there is a demographic explosion in the world and a risk of submersion. A replacement (of the national population) is under way... Monsieur Ebola can solve the problem in three months." He then added that the French population is at risk of being replaced by immigrants, a tendency that can be seen throughout Europe and can be seen as a cataclysm, an invasion that has only started. Then he states that most of the so called invaders are Muslims, talks about the tendency in Islamic groups for conquering, and that numbers can pose a future threat.
I dont want to discuss politics here. We all know where policies are driving us to in Europe as in the rest of the World. We all know the positives and negatives of globalisation, and we all know that all cultures need to give and take in promoting world peace and harmony. If we are to live in peace there is a lot of work to do in offering everyone not only conditions for a better living, but also in feeding the notion that a better life standard comes with responsibilities. I wont go as far as Martin Luther King when saying that there will come a time we will all live as brothers. That is just so not going to happen in the coming 10 centuries! I think that what we have to promote is the idea that even though you might not see someone as your brother (and that is perfectly acceptable, dont beat yourself over that) you have to see it as an individual with the same HUMAN rights as you. Bear in mind that I am not talking about SOCIAL rights, but human rights. Social rights should be acquired, given to you when you embrace the pre-determined behaviour of a social group that, as a group, provides for the society as a whole. Human rights are inherited as your parents cells fuse. That is, at least, my opinion.
What I want to analyse is just some parts of Le Pens statement that might concern this blog as a science platform.
a) There is a demographic explosion in the world.
The human population has grown about ten-fold over the past 300 years and nearly four-fold in just the last century. However, there are signs that in our times the human population explosion is actually decreasing in rate, and several researchers assume that a decline will occur. [1]
[1]
b) Ebola can solve the immigration problem in three months.
I need to use the words of two, can I call them experts?, in the studies of Environmental sustainability and Epidemics; Professor Melissa Leach and Amanda Teckman. I strongly beg you to read Professor Leachs interview concerning Ebola and Lassa, seen under the eye of the local populations, accessing here.
[2]
Amanda Teckman very wisely states that the greatest problem concerning Ebola is the possibility of the virus being used as a bioterrorist weapon. Her article entitled "The bioterrorist threat of Ebola in East Africa and implications for Global Health and Security" opens the discussion with a very sensitive point that has been neglected so far. She writes "Ebolas epidemiological makeup creates circumstances in which could spread quickly to ALL parts of the globe". [3] Not only Africa, but also France, Monsieur Le Pen. And she proceeds clarifying that "Global health and security are currently compromised because a vaccine has not been discovered to prevent and treat the virus and deter bioviolence". Unless Le Pen is planning to go all bioterrorist and attack Africans with Ebola on a scale and unprecedented thinking, preparation and focused aim, I see no logic in his words, if they were ever to be logical at all in the first place.
[1] The Encyclopaedia of Earth, Human population explosion, [http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/153596/], last visit on the 22nd May 2014, last update on the 26th of February 2014.
[2] World Health Organisation, Time to put Ebola in context, [http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/7/10-030710/en/], last visit on the 22nd of May 2014, last update on July 2010.
[3] Teckman, A (2013). "The bioterrorist threat of Ebola in East Africa and implications for global health and security". Global Policy Essay, pp. 1-15.
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