COVID-19 Pandemic in Africa, “Copy-and-Paste” Policies, and the Biomedical Hegemony of “Cure”

Abstract

The whole world was virtually not prepared for COVID-19. The medical remedy was understandably unavailable. So, Europeans, Americans, and similar regions of the world fell back on their traditional approaches to disruptive events of the type that COVID-19 represents. Many African countries would be largely led to mechanically copy the template of these other regions to varying degrees irrespective of the often starkly different economic, political, and social milieus that confront them. This article examines the policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic by African political office holders and the politics of COVID-19 remedy in Africa as scenes for the enactment of cultural racism and biomedical imperialism. Relying on the theoretical frameworks of cultural racism and postcolonialism, the article interrogates what happened with Africa’s policy response and attempts to find a home-grown remedy to the global COVID-19 pandemic as reflections of the underlying patterns of relationalities that determine the behavior of those in leadership positions under normal times—a pattern that only appears in stark relief under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.