Africa Is a Country

Snake Oil

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Snake Oil

By
Sean Jacobs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKOwDQcPwbs

Selling desperate people false hope, especially AIDS patients, are common on the African continent–well documented in my native country, South Africa–now there’s this “faith healer” in Tanzania who has people in East Africa traveling thousands of miles for a homebrewed drink that he claims can cure AIDS, cancer, diabetes, and other “incurable diseases.” There’s no evidence it does. The report above is by Kenya’s private NTV network. Above is Part One of the NTV report; below is Part Two.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c03FulCf6LY

There’s also Jeffrey Gettleman’s report in The New York Times which reveals the “healer” even has a Facebook page.

Further Reading

Whose game is remembered?

The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations opens in Morocco amid growing calls to preserve the stories, players, and legacy of the women who built the game—before they’re lost to erasure and algorithm alike.

Sovereignty or supremacy?

As far-right politics gain traction across the globe, some South Africans are embracing Trumpism not out of policy conviction but out of a deeper, more troubling identification.

From Cape To Cairo

When two Africans—one from the south, the other from the north—set out to cross the continent, they raised the question: how easy is it for an African to move in their own land?

The road to Rafah

The ‘Sumud’ convoy from Tunis to Gaza is reviving the radical promise of pan-African solidarity and reclaiming an anticolonial tactic lost to history.

Sinners and ancestors

Ryan Coogler’s latest film is more than a vampire fable—it’s a bridge between Black American history and African audiences hungry for connection, investment, and storytelling rooted in shared struggle.