Biff Thistlethwaite here, reporting from a bar in Heathrow's Terminal 5, which is as close as I'm getting to Kenya this side of a government travel warning. The Foreign Office, in its infinite bureaucratic wisdom, has issued an urgent advisory against all but essential travel to the land of the Great Rift Valley. Why, you ask? Because the Kenyan protest movement, already simmering with the fury of a million wronged tea farmers, has turned deadly. And at the centre of this maelstrom, like a rotten egg in a fruitcake, is a brand spanking new US Ebola quarantine centre.
Let us pause to admire the sublime absurdity. A quarantine centre. In Africa. Built by Americans. To contain a disease that, in the popular Western imagination, turns entire populations into walking Petri dishes. The Kenyans, not unreasonably, suspect it's a front for something else. Perhaps it's a secret CIA laboratory where they teach dogs to sneeze politically. Or a luxury spa for wayward diplomats. Whatever the truth, the locals have decided they'd rather not have Uncle Sam poking around their bodily fluids.
And so they protest. And protest. And somewhere in the chaos, a protester falls. A bullet, a stone, a bloody nose from a fall? It doesn't matter. The narrative is set. The British embassy, ever alert, has issued its travel warning. The airlines are rubbing their hands with glee at the cancellation fees. Meanwhile, the quarantine centre stands empty, like a monstrous concrete metaphor for mistrust.
Now, I know what you're thinking: Biff, old boy, is this about Ebola or about imperialism? And the answer, as with all things in this benighted century, is yes. It is about Ebola, which is a real and terrifying virus. And it is about imperialism, which is the real and terrifying virus that makes locals suspicious of American-built quarantine centres. The two dance a macabre tango, and we, the watching public, are left to pick up the pieces from the safety of our living rooms.
But let us not forget the British angle. Our embassy has spoken. Our travel insurance is void. Our gin and tonic at the Nairobi Yacht Club will have to wait. We are advised to stay away, which is just as well, because I have a pressing engagement with a bottle of Gordon's and a copy of the Racing Post.
In conclusion, this is a story about fear. Fear of disease. Fear of foreign interference. Fear of the unknown. And the only appropriate response, it seems, is to run away. But I, Biff Thistlethwaite, shall not run. I shall sit here, in my Heathrow bar, and raise a glass to the brave souls in Nairobi who question the machinery of global health. May your protests be effective, your deaths few, and your quarantine centres never needed. Cheers.
