Comment Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn (Score 2, Informative) 359
I don't believe that story at all.
Why not? Is the reports by multiple newspapers not enough to convince you? How about a report from a local (me)? It's true, that they believe such crap is fact and is undisputed.
But even if it's true, what we're dealing with here is an ignorant, uneducated population most of whom don't have access to information, don't watch the daily news, don't (can't) read newspapers, haven't ever heard of the germ theory of disease, and with a government the members of which are enriching themselves in the traditional African way through corruption, coercion and violence.
You're way off base there. Look up the Marikana massacre. The idiot miners, all well past high-school with extra vocational training, went to a witchdoctor who gave them a muti that they could rub all over their body that will make them immune to bullets. They not only believed it (because that particular belief is common in this country), they bought the stuff, smeared themselves with it and then performed an all-out balls-to-the-wall assault on some 200 armed police officers (who also believe in this shit).
The results were as bad as you would guess.
The problem is not one of ignorance - everyone goes through the school system, no exceptions. The problem is one of stupidity; even those locals with advanced degrees still believe in muti that makes one bulletproof, or the virgin cure for HIV. The locals here are just plain stupid and no amount of education over the past two decades has managed to shake them of their beliefs in bulletproof vaseline and/or virgin cures and/or anything else that is stupid.
Thankfully the situation in Africa is slowly improving, though I think the current generation in this locality is probably doomed to plod on in ignorance regardless.