When President Obama met with his cabinet and other advisers in 'The Situation Room' a few days ago to discuss the outbreak and spread of the Swine Flu, he and his government were not overreacting in the least..
Although the prospect of nuclear warfare and terrorism remain considerable threats to US national security, an uncontrollable pandemic disease has the potential to not only cause a significant number of casualties but also to erode the basis of civilisation itself.
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One of the most prominent victims of a pandemic disease was the once seemingly invincible Roman Empire. History books often attribute the 'decline and fall' of Rome to its inability to fend off external attacks from 'barbarians' (Goths, Ostrogoths, Vandals etc.) and failing to revive a flagging economy at home. While both of those factors indeed contributed to the destabilization of the government, one of the more fundamental and underlying causes of the state's collapse was a series of recurring contagions over a 400 year period.
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In 166AD, a disease broke out and turned into a pandemic lasting nearly twenty years and costing millions of lives. Three generations later during the politically fragmented and anarchical third Roman century since Christ, another plague appeared and wiped out a countless number of citizens over a fifteen year period. Of those infected, one-third to one-half died. The infamous legacy of the pandemic was a shrunken economy with a decimated labor force. As military strength is contingent upon economic power, Roman legions, ill-equipped and undermanned, were no longer able to fully quell internal disorder or adequately defend the frontiers.
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By the mid-fourth century, Rome was struggling to reconstitute itself from years of wars and disease. As decades passed, the Empire grew steadily weaker and formerly perished at the hands of invaders in 476AD. Its legacy lived on in the East, and Byzantium became the new Rome of the sixth century.
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Amid the reforms of the both progressive and retrograde Emperor Justinian, a bacterial disease, which likely originated in Africa, came to the European continent and wreaked havoc from Scandinavia to Sicily in 541AD. This 'bubonic' plague ravaged both cities and countrysides without mercy for decades and managed to wipe out as much as 40% of the Byzantine population and up to 50% of the world population.
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As an enervated Byzantium became unable to conduct military campaigns upon its adversarial neighbors, Islam was allowed to develop largely unchecked in its formative years. As a result, the West faced an existential threat on its eastern frontier for centuries and was eventually forced to capitulate to Islamic forces in the watershed year of 1453.
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Beyond killing hundreds of millions of people through the Roman and Byzantine centuries, pandemic disease ultimately proved to be the death-knell of two great empires in history. As the word 'pandemic' is Latin for 'all' (pan) 'people' (demos), the world needs to stay informed and use common sense in preventing infection of any kind.
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(Picture: Emperor Justinian)
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J Roquen