In a move that has simultaneously baffled epidemiologists and delighted purveyors of non-lethal crowd control, Kenyan authorities have deployed tear gas against protesters demonstrating against a US-led Ebola quarantine proposal. The plan, which would see suspected cases isolated in gleaming, American-staffed facilities, has been met with the sort of enthusiasm usually reserved for a colonoscopy performed by a drunken gorilla.
Protesters, waving placards that read “Our Blood, Our Choice” and “Yankee Go Home, Take Your Petri Dishes With You”, gathered outside the US embassy in Nairobi. Within minutes, the air was thick with the acrid tang of CS gas and the unmistakable stench of international diplomacy gone awry. One protester, a Mr. Jomo Kenyatta Lookalike (born 1948, occupation: professional lookalike), remarked through tear-streaked eyes, “We don’t want their quarantines. Last time Americans quarantined us, we ended up with a Starbucks on every corner.”
Britain, ever the reliable sheepdog to America’s shepherd, has thrown its full weight behind the proposed health protocols. A government spokesperson, speaking from a location so bland it could be a Samsung showroom, declared, “We support our US allies in their efforts to contain this dread disease. Ebola is no laughing matter.” Which is rich, coming from a nation that gave the world Monty Python.
The irony is thick enough to spread on toast. Here we have the UK, a country whose own track record on quarantines includes the decidedly mixed success of the 1665 Great Plague (lockdowns: yes; beaks with herbs: also yes), lecturing Kenya on public health. Meanwhile, the US, a nation that cannot agree on whether masks are a tool of the devil or a sensible precaution, proposes to run isolation units in a country that has seen more than its fair share of disease containment.
But let us not forget the true villains of this piece: the tear gas. That marvellous invention that turns a political protest into a chemistry experiment. Kenyan police, no doubt trained by the same consultancy that runs the Ministry of Silly Walks, fired canisters with the accuracy of a blind dart thrower. One landed in a bin of chapatis, causing a brief but pungent culinary fusion. “It’s a new dish,” said a local chef. “We call it ‘Ebola Surprise’ – mostly surprise, very little Ebola.”
The protests, it must be said, have a certain logic. Kenya’s healthcare system, while overstretched, is not entirely useless. And the idea of foreign powers setting up quarantine zones without local consent does have a slightly colonial whiff, like a gin and tonic left too long in the African sun. But then again, Ebola is a nasty piece of work, and perhaps a bit of international cooperation is not the worst idea. But try telling that to a man whose face is melting from tear gas.
As the dust settles and the last coughs of CS gas drift over Nairobi, one thing is clear: the world has gone mad. The US proposes health protocols. The UK backs them. Kenya protests. And the only winners are the multinational conglomerates that manufacture tear gas and the gin companies that supply the journalists covering it. Cheers.
