CULTURE-AFRICA: Attempts Made to Outlaw Dangerous Superstitions

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Swaziland, Apr 18 2002 (IPS) - In the wake of a decision by soccer officials at this year’s African Cup of Nations championship to banish spell-casting witchdoctors from the football pitch during games, police departments throughout Southern Africa have taken steps to curb superstitious practices that are more dangerous than amusing.

“If a Swazi wants to believe that a seven-headed snake lives at the bottom of Maguga Dam, the law cannot make him change his mind. But if a person has sex with an underage girl in the belief that sleeping with a virgin will cure AIDS, the law will prosecute him for statutory rape,” says Swaziland’s director of public prosecutions Lincoln Ng’aura.

“Every nation and people on earth have their own superstitions and Africans are no more superstitious than anyone else,” says Dr. Thandie Malepe, director of the Swaziland Psychiatric Centre. “But damage is done by people who act on their darkest beliefs. It then becomes incumbent on society to protect itself.”

South Africa’s Traditional Healers Association has denounced the practice of AIDS-infected men having sex with virginal girls, saying this has no basis in traditional beliefs, not to mention in medicine. The society condemned traditional healers who prescribe this practice to patients with AIDS.

However, the traditional healers’ society has no mechanism to enforce its dictates on members. Police and prosecutors must step in with punishments.

“Some healers still tell people to sleep with ‘pure’ girls, which only spreads AIDS,” says Dr. Antonio Cumaio of Maputo, reporting the widespread belief’s hold in Mozambique. “Because people with incurable AIDS are desperate and will do anything, the only deterrent is jail.”

Mozambique police have met with their South African counterparts on the issue.

The issue is also included on a regular agenda of law enforcement matters discussed by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) secretariat in Botswana, as part of SADC’s on-going efforts to integrate the policies of its 14 member states’ security apparatuses.

Currently, SADC nations are aware and are trying to counter a Nigerian syndicate that exploits superstitious beliefs in the latest versions of the “get rich quick” schemes that habitually target the region’s poor.

Traditional healers called ‘tangoma’ are widely respected in both rural and urban communities in several countries, and are considered by government medical bureaux to be legitimate health providers with valuable knowledge of indigenous medical plants.

Dialing home and cellphone numbers randomly, the syndicate employs fake ‘tangoma’ to communicate a message to anyone who will listen that the “ancestral spirits” have chosen him or her for an investment opportunity.

“This scheme is a little different from prosecuting a person for acting on a harmful superstitious belief,” says Swazi police detective Andreas Ndwandwe. “The people who are robbed of their money when they ‘invest’ on the recommendation of the ancestors are only harming themselves, while the syndicate operators if caught will be prosecuted for fraud, not superstition.”

Inspector Ndwandwe says there are no laws against superstitious beliefs per se, only against damage perpetrated while pursuing these beliefs.

Some forms of witchcraft beliefs do harm innocent parties, sometimes in deadly ways. These are the most worrisome for law enforcers, and the most difficult to end.

This week in the northern Hhohho region of Swaziland, a family was arrested for selling human body parts, which are used in a “potion” that is believed to “strengthen” the user and bring good luck.

The “life force” of the victim, who is sometimes murdered to obtain potion ingredients, is then believed to be transferred to the potion user.

Each year South African police pursue cases of dead bodies mutilated for what is believed to be the harvesting of body parts for black magic potions. The press carries these sensational stories when they come to light, but the exact number of these cases cannot be obtained because of a government-imposed moratorium on the release of crime statistics.

Psychiatrists like Dr. Malepe and sociologists like Dr. Albert Khumalo of the University of Swaziland generally agree that superstitious beliefs from African witchcraft to modern American urban legends evolve with a society, and some get discarded. Says Khumalo, “Societies outgrow beliefs they no longer need.”

Khumalo points to the Swazi belief that was prevalent into the 1950s that the first born of a set of twins was thought to be possessed of demons. “The remedy was to throw the infant off a cliff, and the second-born ‘good’ twin lived,” he said.

Colonial authorities prosecuted parents for murder when they learned of these cases, but the custom only ended after Christian missionaries adopted the “demonised” twins before they could be killed, and Swazis saw them grow up as normal children.

“In fact, the original murderous belief probably began at time of famine, when an excuse was needed to rid a family of one more mouth people were unable to feed. But the custom took hold even in times of plenty, until the demon possession belief was disproved,” Khumalo says.

Belief in witchcraft is widespread in SADC nations. But these countries also have in place laws forbidding witch-hunts.

“It was King Sobhuza who was worried that witch-hunts led to innocent people being accused and killed,” says Gogo Dlamini, a Swazi traditional healer and daughter-in-law of the long reigning Swazi king. “He ordered them stopped, and he told healers they can no longer even point out criminals. The people listened. Their king had spoken.”

But every year, mobs kill accused witches in Swaziland, and people are prosecuted for these murders, indicating that while dangerous beliefs take their time dying out, laws must be in place to discourage harmful superstitions like sleeping with virginal girls to cure AIDS.

HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa. The estimated 3.4 million new HIV infections in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2001 mean that 28.1 million Africans now live with the virus. UNAIDS estimates that 2.3 million Africans died of AIDS in 2001.