African Culture and Combating COVID-19: Realities and Myths

Notable African cultural values and systems revolve around communal living, large families, festivals, funerals, and other social gatherings that bring people together and enhance relationships and community. With the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the ways of life of Africans have dramatically changed, possibly for a long time. COVID-19 has disrupted the "normal" way of life and imposed a "new normal" that feels alien to Africans. The pandemic and responses to it are essentially dictating to Africans a new culture that emphasizes individualism over communalism, distancing over congregation, and virtual work over physical work. It has altered Africans' daily routine of warm close physical contact with families and friends.

This article reflects on some of the realities and myths of African culture and their effect on combating COVID-19. It also examines the impact of the pandemic on Africans' worldview, philosophy, and societal relationships.

Africans' understanding of and explanation of events are deeply entrenched in myths. Thus myths play an important role in Africans' understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic, and help shape how African communities respond to and cope with the pandemic's "new normal." Such myths include widespread belief among Africans, especially early in the pandemic, that:

• COVID-19 would not affect Africans. This myth was fuelled to some extent by the fact that a Cameroonian student in China, who was among the first people to contract the disease, responded well to treatment.

• The virus cannot survive in a hot climate. This myth came about after a professor from Hong Kong University said the virus could not thrive in warm weather–a claim based on unverified research.

• The virus was more spiritual than biomedical. Many Pentecostal Christians in Africa (and other parts of the world) portray the coronavirus as a "spiritual force of evil" rather than a biomedical disease. This myth can lead believers to be complacent and not comply strictly with public health protocols, thus risking a wider spread of the virus on the continent.

• Drinking alcohol or spraying it on one's body could prevent one from getting infected with COVID-19. This myth spread across the continent even before Africa recorded its first confirmed cases.

Unfortunately, Africans are now confronted with the reality that neither warm climate, dark skin, nor religious spirituality can insulate Africans from contracting the virus. Though Africans can perhaps take some comfort in the fact that the pandemic has thus far had less impact than on other continents, Africans are nonetheless faced with a new reality that has greatly affected their living patterns.

The challenges of the pandemic include social realities that could undermine Africa's COVID-19 response efforts. This includes stigmatization of and discrimination against victims, survivors, and affected families as well as health workers and other frontline personnel. It also includes breaches of the individual privacy of victims, survivors, and health workers by members of their communities.[1]

The new social realities forced upon African societies by the pandemic raise the following questions:

• How do Africans behave now as Africans?
• How do Africans commune and live?
• How do Africans cope?
• How should Africans reconsider their worldview and their identity in terms of life, relationships, and family practices?
• How should Africans adapt their communal style of living, which is an essential part of their culture and weaves them together?
• How should Africans adapt their vibrant and pan-African nature?

Many cultural practices — including festivals, naming ceremonies, marriages, and funerals — that largely define Africans are what COVID-19 is telling them to stop. How will Africans cope with a new normal imposed by an invisible virus? African socio-economic and cultural systems are suffering greatly from this pandemic, and Africans are facing unprecedented stress at both the state and family levels as far as relationships are concerned.

All cultures around the globe are facing similar effects. But the people of Africa by the very nature of their socio-economic and cultural dynamics are facing now and likely to face much longer the impact of the virus and its attendant financial hardships. As a result, total or even partial lockdowns in many African countries will be difficult to sustain much longer. Moreover, pandemic-driven job losses will make it increasingly difficult to support extended families. In addition, during the pandemic, domestic violence and battery is increasing in Africa, and stigmatization of COVID-19 survivors is problematic. In short, in Africa, the pandemic has the potential to explode into violence and public disorder.

In order to avoid such a worst-case scenario as the pandemic rages on, Africans have a duty to adhere strictly to preventive and public health safety protocols. COVID-19 survivors must be encouraged and supported by relevant state agencies and traditional authorities. Social and mainstream media should conduct sensitization campaigns aimed at reducing community stigmatization and fear. Africa's capacities for resilience must urgently be enhanced, and Africans need to accept the reality that some of the cultural practices that uphold the foundation of African culture must be altered for as long as the COVID-19 rages on, or perhaps longer. Until Africans begin to appreciate and accept that they are living in a new normal caused by COVID-19, it will be a herculean task to develop and sustain coping mechanisms.

Dr. Chukwuemeka B. Eze is the Executive Director of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). Mr. Francis Acquah-Aikins Jnr, is the Coordinator of the WANEP Liaison Office embedded in the ECOWAS Commission.

Photo source: A microscope image of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Credit: Felipe Esquivel Reedel Reed. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coronavirus_SARS-CoV-2.jpg. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en.

[1] WANEP, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in West Africa: Vulnerabilities, Threats, Risks and Scenarios (April 2020): 11.