I propose to offer another perspective. What is public community health? I suggest it is the state whereby a collective of persons have a balanced, non antagonistic relationship with other human beings, the natural environment and other such collectives. If peace is more than the absence of war, then health is more than the absence of illness.
In a public, communal sense, we must consider health too in a broader, more intrusive sense. That is to say we must consider psychological, ecological and social health. What does this mean? I suggest that a political order that invades another country, removes their leaders, and kills 1000s of people simply because they possess the technological tools to do so is not a healthy society, but an ailing one. Simply put, an imperial political order is a diseased entity that exports destruction abroad because of an imperial psychology rooted, I think, in profound insecurities that needs these violent episodes to feed the beast within.
What I’m saying is that imperialism, like racism, is more than a mere perspective. It is a mental illness. We saw this after 911 when the US erupted into what I call a fever that had had profound international deleterious effects. There are, of course, other perspectives much closer to home. In the Black community, access to fresh natural foods like fruits and vegetables is severely restricted, and as a consequence, people often eat foods that are carbohydrate rich and heavily salted, which results in record obesity levels and early diabetic onset.
Similarly, our psychological health impacted by the oppression of daily life in America makes us hate each other in a cycle of violence noted by psychiatrist Frantz Fanon in his book The Wretched of the Earth, published by Grove Press in 1966, among Algerians living under French colonialism. Similarly, Black psychologist Amos Wilson has noted this in his book “Black on Black Violence”. Fanon noticed Arabs would attack each other on the slightest provocation and pretext, but when they were attacked by the French colonial cops, they would be remarkably passive. It was Fanon found, a system of oppression that said both poor diets and the psychological trauma of life under oppression are severe assaults on public health. Imperialism, racism, food deserts and oppression are global and local diseases. They must be fought by communal and social movements, which alone can vanquish these societal ills. On the MOVE. This is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
