Illness as Metaphor
Between 2013 and 2016, Ebola claimed more than 11,000 lives in West Africa. Beginning in 2018, another two-year wave of the devastating disease caused a further 2,000 deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These days, even when Ebola itself isn’t spreading, false conspiracy theories about it are.
Could Ebola have been planted for political purposes?
Some in the North Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) feared that Ebola had been seeded by the government in Benin to eradicate the stronghold of native opposition to its rule. According to researcher Jules Villa, the concern recalled reality: between 1900 and 1910, when the now DRC was still under Belgian colonial control, “sleeping sickness” was used as an excuse to forcibly remove residents of the region.
Did humanitarian and governmental aid forces prolong the epidemic?
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