African Con Men
My old friend Pablo is currently living in Africa. He sent me this email.
I saw a cool con in Kitui. People had told me there were street performers in town who did circus stunts. Wow, I thought. Gotta find these guys. When I finally did, it wasn’t quite what I expected. They are snake oil salesmen. There are a few of them doing very similar shows. They start with acrobatics or something to get a big crowd. Then they mention that they are qualified doctors (they show their certificates!), and they spend ages expounding the benefits of their amazing cure-all blood purifier! Plus, they demonstrate it’s efficacy! They put some purple dye in a bottle of water, representing impurities in your blood. Then they add some of their cure-all, and the water turns clear again! Proof! I assume the purple stuff is .
It would be okay if they were ripping off tourists, but they’re not. There’s no tourists in Kitui. They’re preying on poor locals who are used to believing anything a ‘professional’ educated person says. And their potion is supposed to cure malaria, cancer, AIDS, TB, etc etc etc, so they’re also killing anyone who uses their magic liquid instead of going to the doctor.
On one level, my mind goes “how dare they prey on all those poor simple people!?!?”
On another, I have an inclination to think “These people are adults, they survive the countless hazards of their area and their way of life, they’ve seen this sort of scam every day for years and they’ve seen what comes of believing this foolishness.” It’s cruel, but very condescending, to say that they’re too simple to evaluate the daily hazards of their world. Darwin’s principle is cruel, but you can’t expect any person, animal or plant to be given a reprieve from it.
I’m not sure Pablo is suggesting that they are ’simple’. More than their educational and social expectation is to trust people in positions of authority. Also - a tourist can afford to lose the money and will probably go back to a GP.