Health for all cannot be achieved without demilitarization and peace sovereignty, is one of the conclusions of the 5th People’s Health Assembly (PHA 5), which took place in Mar del Plata, Argentina from April 7-11. Armed conflicts and occupations, as well as practices like land grabbing and discrimination against Indigenous peoples, are some of the most important determinants of global health today—not only because they lead to the destruction of health infrastructure but because they have the potential to shape the mental and physical health of generations to come.
The modern version of colonialism, described at the assembly by David McCoy of the United Nations University, as the implementation of colonial practices through oligopolies and monopolies of entire economic sectors, enables “wealth accumulation without physical land occupation.” Yet, wars and armed conflicts remain a legacy of the imperialist practices of the Global North, as witnessed by the ongoing violence in Yemen, Sudan, and Palestine, among others.
Speaking about the health situation in Sudan, health activist Rawia Mahmoud warned that the war could starve 230,000 women and children to death over the course of months. The ongoing conflict has also meant a significant increase in communicable diseases like cholera, as essential sanitation infrastructure has suffered widespread damage. In addition to that, the war has led to an upsurge of gender based violence, with the number of testimonies of girls being abducted and enslaved steadily growing.
Read more: Violence against women is a public health crisis, say health activists
Yemen has witnessed a similar trend with infectious diseases to Sudan, with diarrhea ravaging through the population, as pointed out by Elham Jameel from the Association for Health for All. The incapacity to provide services to address communicable diseases comes hand in hand with the inability to provide care for chronic diseases, Jameel warned.
Armed conflict makes it impossible to rely on a network of specialized services spread across a country or a region due to travel restrictions or risks associated with travel. In other cases, it is impossible even to build such infrastructure due to limitations imposed on imports of medical equipment or simply their price.
Health is further impacted by the confiscation of land and forced displacement of thousands of people. During one of the sessions of the PHA 5, Mateus Brito from the National Coordination of Quilombos, Brazil, stated that the struggle for health cannot be seen apart from the struggle for land or the struggle against racism. According to him, coloniality and racism feed each other – and both are a result of the Global North’s dominance. They can only be defeated with a radical rethinking of what decolonization means, and what role health plays in it.
“There is a need for the concept of decolonization to leave pure academia and go back to social movements – because this is where the communities impacted are,” Brito said.
Muhammad Skafi from the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) echoed Brito’s thoughts on land dispossession by bearing testimony to the growth of settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, while healthcare in the Gaza Strip is being decimated by Israeli Occupying Forces. “They are confiscating land. They are cutting our olive trees. Some communities are completely forcibly displaced due to settler attacks.”
These practices, according to the activists who took part in the Assembly, cannot be seen independently of the interests of the military-industrial complex. “Today, global capitalism cannot survive without violence and militarism, and therefore war and militarism have become big business themselves,” the PHA 5 claimed in its Call to Action.
Read more: 5th People’s Health Assembly calls for the transformation of health systems
As a response, the health activists are determined to continue working towards global demilitarization, joining forces with peace and disarmament initiatives already active in the field. The only way to protect and decolonize global health lies in the possibility of including more grassroots groups in both movements, bringing in practices and knowledge from below, and enabling international solidarity.
In order for the right to health movement to be truly successful in its support of peace, said Ubai Aboudi from the Bisan Center for Research and Development, it must organize “in community, together, in order to resist barbaric systems that dehumanize the people.”
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