Big Brother Africa 4: House of Conspiracies!

TUESDAY and yesterday were all about testing scientific theories and discussing conspiracy theories. No different from most days in the Big Brother house – except the conspiracies are part of the housemates’ task this week!

For those of you just tuning in, this week’s task, the Industrial Revolution, requires housemates to act as lab rats and test some of the world’s oldest and greatest mysteries. They’ve already tested the myth ‘can you make good luck?’, ‘who has the highest pain threshold – men or women?’, ‘gravity – can it be overcome’ and a variety of food and alcohol-based myths.During all of their investigations, they may not sleep a wink during the day!Because of Biggie headmistress’s ‘no sleeping’ rule and debate over whether to wager 100 per cent, the housemates decide to wager 50 per cent of their Sha-Sha’s [Big Brother currency] on the outcome of the task.Not without some dissent. Itai argued the case for maximising their win, while Nkenna reminded everyone that all the tasks they have lost so far have been because of sleep infringements. Apart from the lab experiments, the housemates have also been given the job of discussing the truth, or potential truth, behind some conspiracy theories. Theories up for debate debating include ‘wars are created and funded by greedy multi-national companies’, and the prevalence of ‘human tracking chips’.It seems our housemates have strong views on conspiracy theories around HIV and AIDS, one of Africa’s biggest challenges in recent years.Debate on the topic provoked heated discussion.Itai started the discussion with the conspiracy theories surrounding the origins of HIV and AIDS.The terms ‘they’ came up a lot, a phrase housemates used to refer to western countries.Most housemates expressed the view that ‘they’ deliberately infected minorities with the virus after ‘they’ carefully created it in scientific labs.TRUE OR FALSETRUE: The origins of HIV and AIDS are not natural but were orchestrated by evil scientistsItai, this week’s Head of House (HoH), tried to convince the housemates that perhaps they should shift their views on this conspiracy theory away from whether it’s true or not, to arguing that since people are already living with HIV perhaps they should leave the discussion on the note that the spread of the virus has got a lot to do with behaviour.But the housemates would not settle for this and decided to vote on it.Six out of seven voted in favour of the theory that HIV and AIDS was created in a lab and human beings were deliberately infected.TRUE: Wars are created and funded by greedy multi-national companiesHousemates felt that these companies are blinded by greed for resources within those warring countries.They all agreed that these companies want to control these countries and their resources. Itai added he has no doubt that this theory is true.TRUE: ‘They’ create economic dependencyHousemates deliberated on how powerful countries attach conditions to trade and other economic agreements.They agreed that this is ‘their’ strategy to leave especially poor countries in a position where they are dependent on foreign funding and expertise.TRUE: Human tracking chipGeraldine raised the theory that in a few years all human will have a tracking chip installed in them. She noted that this chip is already being used on animals.* Tune in to DStv Channel 198 to see more crazy scientific tests and conspiracy theory discussions 24/7, or catch the highlights shows on M-Net East (channel 102) and AfricaMagic (channel 114). Weekly highlights will also be aired on NBC, every Saturday from 21h15 – 22h15.