Analysis by Rickey Singh

NOT SINCE suffering a cardiac arrest some 18 years ago that necessitated surgery, have I been compelled to be bed-ridden for more than a week earlier this month, and counting.

It was a bitter experience to result from that feared viral disease with the long, ugly 12-letter name of chickungunya, transmitted by infected mosquitoes. What some prefer to shortlist as ‘chickv’ has triggered anxieties across this nation, and others in our Region, and we are on constant alert for ‘enemy number one’—mosquitoes.
The pain has been excruciating and my dear wife rallied with customary love and tender care, as we await the blood test result. At the same time, I remain intrigued by a casual observation from a very caring doctor who witnessed my blood test.
She had noted that though manifestations of my illness could be likened to chickungunya, close monitoring was still occurring of a similar viral disease that’s yet to be definitively identified with a name.
Well, thank God, it is not the dreaded Ebola disease that’s on the rampage across Africa and spawning growing fears among nations, including those of the developed, rich and powerful bloc of states.
If there is a common message for all of us—here in this country and across the Caribbean homeland—in relation to the horrible chickungunya disease and the terrifying, deadly Ebola killer, it could well be to cultivate a more caring attitude towards those around us to be of some help in this time of spreading, nerve racking, challenging health problem.
God knows that for all their wealth and military might, the rich and powerful western nations may well have, paradoxically, trapped themselves into a political cul-de-sac by their initial exuberance to launch a “coalition of willing” countries to bombard targets of the ISIS Islamist combatants in Iraq and Syria.
These jihadists, who see themselves as “liberators” from the “infidels of the West,” have, among their big, dependable funders, some of the very countries and governments of the Middle East that continue to multiply chaotic choices for superpower U.S.A. and its allies as they make a farce of the so-called ‘war against terrorism.”
‘Rebuilding’ Gaza?
To make matters worse, if not more laughable, the U.S.A., Israel, Palestine and their allies last week in Cairo brokered a new aid deal with donor nations, committing themselves to pledges totalling some US$5.4B to “rebuild” Gaza!
Yes, to “rebuild” Gaza—after the recent systematic bombing destruction by Israel’s military force, and worse, without anything in place that could be referenced as a new approach for the long elusive but most desirable two-state solution. This is the sort of political madness that fosters cynicism, and worse.
The western powers and Israel have got to be kidding—from no solution in sight in the war against well armed, well funded and highly committed ISIS jihadists, to a now new “donors pledge” to reconstruct what Israel so systematically and callously destroyed in Gaza—but with no reference to the vital concept of a two-state solution that requires Israelis and Palestinians living side by side within defined borders as independent member states of the United Nations.

OBAMA’S CHALLENGE
This columnist has no doubt that President Barack Obama is sincere in his public assurances of seeking a world free from international terrorism, hunger, poverty and diseases. What, however, seems sadly lacking is tangible evidence of any serious, sustained initiative to transform ‘assurances’ into realities.
For all his admirable intellectual profile and capacity to court ‘friends’ among ‘adversaries’, this second-term President, who attained office with so much hope and promise, cannot even bring himself in 2014 to turn the page on the U.S.A’s sad, black record of ending America’ utterly failed 51-year history of isolating the proud Caribbean nation of Cuba.
That’s the four-letter name of the country which has stuck in the throat of successive U.S. Presidents since enforcement of the most punishing and destructive embargo against any nation by the United States of America. Now this caricature of an ‘anti-Cuba’ policy is increasingly being viewed as a monumental failure by what remains as the world’s sole “superpower” that, sadly, seems to have lost its compass for defeating the ISIS jihadists.
I hope not.