In some western media news reports, Africa is always portrayed as the Dark Continent with backward people, but with the present spread of Ebola on the continent, there is a great health concern globally. The so-called advanced, civilized countries cannot function economically without the natural resources from Africa. Therefore, if the Ebola virus spreads throughout the entire African continent, the industrialized countries will suffer financial losses. They need the natural resources from Africa for manufacturing purposes and large profits.
However, on the other hand, there is scientific and historical proof that life began in Africa and all people of the world originated from Africa. But in this present era of our history, Africa is still being exploited by the rich countries of Europe and Asia, while the majority of continental Africans are suffering due to various factors, including traditions that the Africans are not willing to give up.
As a person of African origin myself, I sometimes feel the Africans' pain and suffering. However, the African continent is very big and the people have diverse cultures that keep them divided, while those of us in the diaspora are as divided in a similar way. However, it is a fact that when people are united, they cannot be defeated. Unfortunately, we as African people globally are the least united among all the different races and, for that reason, we are divided.
In terms of religious practices, apart from traditional African spirituality that we have deep within us, we find ourselves involved in the conflict where the major religions of the world are vying for control. In addition, while we find ourselves religiously divided, we think that the religious belief that we embrace is more important than race. For example, we can see the bloodshed and violence in Northern Nigeria, Somalia and the Central African Republic, where continental Africans are killing each other based on religious differences.
In addition, although we are divided as a people, we still have that African spirituality mixed up in the adapted religions that we follow willingly or were imposed on us by our colonial masters. On the African continent, there are African people who do not identify themselves as Africans because of their religion. Some of them claim to be Arabs and Jews, while denying the African DNA that makes them racially black African.
On the other hand, in some parts of the African continent, the situation is horrible, due to manmade destruction, when big foreign business corporations get involved in the exploitation of natural resources. Other times, the destruction is created by tribal conflicts that some Africans are not willing to abandon.
However, the interesting thing is that whatever is happening on the African continent will always affect the entire world. Africa is the cradle of human civilization and it has a vast amount of natural resources. Without the natural resources exploited from Africa by industrialized countries such as Britain, United States, France and China, the world economy would be different and there would be no United Nations control by the European Union and the United States.
Additionally, whenever there is some kind of new disease in Africa that becomes an epidemic, most of us, as people of African origin, always think it is some kind of biological warfare being spread on the continent by scientists from the developed countries. In addition, although we are the least united as a race, this is the only issue we always share a common opinion on. Most of the time we tend to believe that our former colonizers are still conspiring against us. We are still suspicious of our former colonizers because of the Atlantic slave trade that took place for 400 years.
In conclusion, presently as Ebola takes a toll on a few countries in West Africa and some persons who became infected traveled from the infected areas in Africa to Europe and the United States as healthy carriers, the disease is creating a sort of worldwide panic. People are frightened that Ebola will spread globally and kill hundreds of thousands, as in the days when smallpox was an epidemic. However, those countries that are very much advanced in medical science and creating vaccines for diseases that can stop a worldwide epidemic, are sending some of their best doctors and scientists to those African countries, to treat those who are infected patients with the disease and to stop the virus from spreading. Therefore, whether it is good news of natural resources or bad news about Ebola, Africa is always the beginning of everything. The African continent is the genesis and every other thing outside Africa is an exodus from Africa, like Ebola.
o Hudson George has a bachelor of arts degree in social science from York University, Toronto, Canada. He has been writing since his early teenage years and now contributes letters and articles to a number of Caribbean newspapers.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian