Africa, Witchcraft and Us

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When I got the text about the Channel 4 documentary, Britain’s Witch Children, I knew before watching what was to come; a shameful indictment on African culture that would humiliate us in front of our non-African friends and relatives. It would make African Christianity seem primitive and fraudulent, and the belief in the ancient practice of witchcraft also irrational and naïve.

Juliana Oladipo Britains Witch Children 300x168 Africa, Witchcraft and Us

Juliana Oladipo goes undercover in Britain's Witch Children

So far as to say, it delivered in every aspect. Pastors claiming that they were a divine vehicle of the lord Jesus Christ, that they can rid evil spells from people, make the crippled walk. And above all, guard the congregation against the wicked spell of witches. For any African, it was cringe worthy viewing. It would not help strengthen the identities of Africans in the UK, and I hope it didn’t make me lose the argument to take my wife back to Ghana. Though, it would’ve been worse had I been a Christian. It was sad seeing small girls accused of being practitioners of witchcraft, families desperate to cure their child of an invisible spell. This wide-spread fear, makes easy work for self-ordained pastors to line their pockets. In fact, before the advent of Christianity, false traditional healers would adorn themselves with the attire of chiefs and say they could also guard people against evil powers. Herein lies the critical point, whether the chief priest or pastor is real or fake, both practitioners get frequent work in this industry. So in the minds of the congregation, there is something real to guard against. So the real question I ask is not about the practice, but how real is this threat of witchcraft?

REAL OR FAKE

Is it a real threat, or just a perceived one? Is there something to be afraid of, or is it a reflection of the backwardness of Africa? One more primitive battle we need to cure? Though it should be said, not everyone even in Africa believes in Witchcraft. I remember discussing the subject with an elder Uncle (on my father’s side) in Ghana. He didn’t believe in witchcraft. But at the same time, my great grandfather (on my mother’s side) was known for having special powers. My uncle experienced it, and even though he didn’t believe in it, he settled for the fact that my Great-grandfather had a gift. But what do we call this gift?

Whenever I visit Africa, I am explicitly aware of the belief of many of my relatives have in the existence of witchcraft. Back home, I don’t really delve into it too deeply, neither do I take the subject seriously. I know what human beings can and can’t do, cast spells and possess people are not among them. However, the stigma of being a witch is as potent as that of a paedophile in the West. The label has been put on people close to me, and I really did not appreciate the psychological impact that the accusation has on family members, and the community at large, until after the programme.

When I finished watching, I was incensed. I called my cousin, knowing she would attend similar types of churches and asked her to be careful of these charlatans that are breaking up families. She said, although she didn’t see the programme, she was aware of fraudulent practitioners. Though what surprised me thereafter was her whole hearted and unshakeable belief in the existence of witchcraft–the potential for people to become possessed, and equally, the power the pastor has to cure people of such ills. We argued back and forth until the battery on my phone died. I tried as hard as I could to get her to see the world from my point of view. She equally bombarded me with her evidence, and I tried rationalising from the point-of-view of my upbringing: Which essentially says, (a) the ability for someone to do supernatural things is a nonsense, and (b) the ability for someone else to cast a spell on another human being is equally bogus. Although, while in conversation, something told me to be quiet and listen. This feeling lingered a little longer. My frustration wanted me to solicit other people’s views on Facebook. And the feedback I got were more from people who had experienced a reality similar to my own and who felt somewhat embarrassed about how we were represented.

DISCUSSION

Some people focused on current media explosion concerning the negative depiction of Africa. True. Others pointed out that the media perception in Europe always focuses on the negative, which is equally true. Though it was also pointed out that this is a real subject, a real topic for discussion. Someone else also referred to this as part of a backward mentality that is crippling us. It was also mentioned how ludicrous it is that grown, educated, people believe in such practices. I know this from experience, and I really wanted to open the forum to contributions from people living in Africa as well as those who had lived in Africa. No one was forthcoming, though I got a couple of private messages from people saying that the understanding of this in Africa was completely different to that in the West. My cousin told me that because of my upbringing she doesn’t discuss these things with me. I could only imagine how intimidating it might have been to contribute to a discussion when we are so antagonistic to the opposing reality. Defending their position would have had us thinking that they are strange or crazy, or just embarrassed in much the same way as those of us born here who were thinking, “I hope my colleague Suzy won’t be watching this.” Essentially, I wanted a frank and honest exchange. As a result, I was inspired to write this article. Not a condemnation, but an honest commentary that tries to evaluate all sides of the argument. No answers, just an inter-locking of perspectives.

In Europe and America, we live in a physical world whereby everything has a clear and physical explanation. We feel pain because we have been hit, we have a sickness because of germs, infections, and so on, and almost everything can be explained by the medical profession. Almost. We acknowledge, even in the West, that certain things are beyond a doctor’s understanding or comprehension. I have met people who have been rendered paralysed or brain dead who have learned to walk and speak again. Just this week, I met a woman who said at 4-years old she was rendered brain-dead after a car accident and only after a group of SriLankan pastors prayed for her for 24-hours, did she begin to talk and walk again.

UNSEEN LAWS

Recently, with the popularity of The Secret and The Law of Attraction there has been a bigger interest and investigation to the understanding of the unseen laws that also govern the world, which are as real as electricity is to us, so how
deep do these laws really go and how does it tie in with witchcraft?

PERSPECTIVE

Firstly, witchcraft is not just an African phenomena. Many old societies, have some sort of belief in the relationship between the seen and the unseen world. It is seen in Chinese films, as well as Aboriginal and Asian culture, too.

One thing, however, that the programme, Britain’s Witch Children, didn’t do is to put into historical perspective how Africans practice Christianity, something that another of the contributors to my Facebook thread did. Though I can’t lie, I shuddered when it was said that “Christianity was passed on originally by Europeans to Africans with grace and integrity to offer spiritual enlightenment, the true path to a eternal relationship with God.”

HISTORY

european witch hunt 300x225 Africa, Witchcraft and Us

European governments and societies organised hunts for alleged witches during the 15th to 18th centuries: accusing, torturing, and executing thousands of people.

Although European countries are not as old as other countries of the world, there is one reason and one reason only why Europeans do not have the same phenomena of witchcraft as Africans now do. And it isn’t because they discovered a higher way of living, it was actually their explicit belief in this other world why a widespread belief in it no longer exist in Europe. They went to war with the practice witchcraft precisely because they believed in its power and believed that it should be eradicated from society. So from the fifteenth to the eighteenth the centuries, in a chapter of history called The Witch-Hunts, taking place just prior to slavery and colonialism, and literally exterminating any and all people who had even the slightest predilection toward the practice or those suspected of being witches; meaning men, women, children, old, young, crippled. In a bloody chapter, all across Europe, witchcraft was wiped from the social reality through murder, exorcisms, and torture. This stopped the generational continuation of this practice to the point that we can look back today and say it was simply based on paranoia.

These same people, a few years later, went to Africa with the same prejudices and the aided belief that black was of evil and their evil practices were of the devil and the only way for these Africans to be saved was to accept white people, white culture and for white people to be their lord God and personal saviour, and only through this method, could a black man be accepted before God. So white Christians, when they had a foothold in the country, made traditional practices illegal. Anyone found practising traditional beliefs were sent to the local missionaries for exorcism and integration into the white Euro-Christian view of the world. What we saw on channel 4 were the things we had been taught, and these therefore had a massive impact on us psychologically. They completely turned a culture against itself. For example, Yoruba and many other traditional systems have a very sophisticated and complicated belief system, however, traditional African culture automatically means belief in the evil, and the practice of witchcraft. The missionaries didn’t have our best interest at heart–they had theirs. A conqueror never works on behalf of the conquered.

EFFECT ON THE PSYCHE

Unlike the rest of the conquered world, the effect of invasion has had a higher impact on Africa than anywhere else. When Europeans invaded Indian, for example, they found Sikhs and Hindus and left a seed of Christianity, but generally, indigenous practices still thrived. In Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Middle East, they found Muslims and left a seed of Christianity, but Islam still thrived. In Africa, they found Ashantis, Ewes, Yurobas, Nubians, Baganda, Zulus, and others, all of whom operated from their own cultural practices, but the invaders left them with Christianity–and an uneasy relationship with their own African cultural practices–seeing the world now through the conflicted eyes of their conquered selves.

So what do we do? Do we have a witch-hunts like the Europeans did not too long ago, and violate every human rights law in the book? Do we just cast the practice aside and say the ability to manipulate the unseen world is impossible, and leave it at that? The reality is that the power of belief is the biggest power there is. And believing it is possible, makes it real. People I know who are accountants, lawyers, doctors, nurses, directors, all with a high degree of education, will swear blind that this practice is real. So the question I ask is, whether the belief in this practice is sound or not?

HUMAN POTENTIAL

They say human beings use less than 10% of their brain’s capacity. Would it be strange to see what human beings could do if they learn to use 12%? Would that account for genius? What if these fuller-brained humans began to do things we just couldn’t fathom. What if they began to use 20 percent of the brain’s capacity? When I see the likes of Darren Brown or David Blaine operate, I realise their abilities have gone beyond illusionary activity. In Africa, these people would undoubtedly be seen as practitioner of witchcraft. Are they genetic remnants of the witch-hunt era, or have they managed to develop other faculties of the mind?

CAST-A-SPELL

One aspect of this practice I have struggled with is the belief that a person can cast a spell on another individual. My argument is this: If Africans hold such power there is no way we would have lost so many wars to invading armies. No way we would have remained in bondage for so long. How could we be defeated in any football match against non-African teams? I don’t understand. If the power of witchcraft is true, why does it seems to only work against poor struggling families? Why are only poor people condemned to poverty and doom? Where was this power when Mobutu was ruling Congo? Where was the power when the Belgians were mutilating people in Africa? Or when Mandela was in prison for 28 years, where was the power then?

POWER OF BELIEF

The power of belief, the power of culture and the power of a paradigm are extremely important. We who are born in the West usually do not believe in any of this ‘nonsense.’ We have grown-up in a society that has no remnants of its superstitious past prevailing in any arena of society, except perhaps in entertainment, on television, or at the circus. If we are fortune, our African parents have raised us without engaging with us in this practice. However, I would bet, even us born there, if we were to ask our parents with all their degrees. Would swear blind that its existence is true.

Herein lies the problem I had when communicating with my cousin. She, in her mind, had conclusive proof of witchcraft. She had admissions from practitioners, and victims, she claimed. She knew of people who went to hospitals only for the doctor to have no idea what was wrong with them, but for the local healer to identify the problem, cure them, and name the person responsible. What could I say in the face of such ‘evidence’? No amount of books can confront this real experience.

Furthermore, if pastors and priests are believed to have the power to battle against this, there is no way that you will go against them. These are the openings that fake pastors and charlatans can use to exploit the vulnerable searching for answers. Parents that go to pastors are actually trying to help their children not harm them. Which means the pastors can say, it’s your mother-in-law, your wife, your grandmother, or your mum. And it will be believed wholesale, if not consciously, subconsciously. That is the problem; everything that exists in your world becomes real as a result of this “spell.” Your finance, your marriage, your health, and when you ultimately fail, whoever was accused becomes the witch. (And why on earth is it always female?) The woes are being generated by the belief, and the mental power given to the belief that essentially says that what you fear most begins to manifest. That is my belief.

WITCHCRAFT FAKE OR REAL?

So is witchcraft, its existence and its power real? To be able to cast spells and possess others? Me, being born and raised in the UK, I would say absolutely not. To me, these star trek and superman stories of people flying, casting spells, causing death, and destroying people’s finances, is ludicrous. I just don’t see how these things can be possible. Though, at the same time, I had to ask myself whether I would be brave enough to challenge the world of witches to put a spell on me to prove it has no effect. The truth is I wouldn’t do that either. So I had to ask myself is that seed an element of belief or recognition that this could be possible? How much more would that be hardened if I was living in a society where evidence could be tallied, or I knew people like David Blaine, who did things beyond comprehension of the physical mind. As much as I say it’s false, the truth is, I wouldn’t put it to the test, would you?

I really don’t have the answers. I know belief holds a big sway on what happens to an individual. But I am willing to be open and to try and listen without being prejudice or judgemental. I would really like to know what people feel or think about this complex subject. Can you help me evaluate the evidence?

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Kofi

Pity your article tries to justify the unjustifiable, namely, a modern-day belief in the practice of witchcraft. Sadly, you make little reference to the psychological damage caused by both a belief in witchcraft and the accusing of others, particularly innocent children, by unscrupulous pastors out for monetary gain and power over the vulnerable.

It seems cowardly to me for you not to make a stand against this barbaric practice for fear of being bewitched yourself. Yet you, the author, talk of how you will be perceived by non-Africans (read white people) at work, once programmes like this have aired and your secret belief in witchcraft is out. How pathetic that you should care more about how others perceive you, than in the health and well-being of vulnerable people in your community.

Innocent children and other victims are being abused and even murdered in the name of witchcraft and Christianity, but all we get here are some half-baked theories, and more lame excuses blaming white people for all our current owes based on colonisation some few hundred years ago. Grow up. Paying lip-service to change in our communities while maintaining the status quo, won't actually progress anything. We need the brave and outspoken to take responsibility for the crisis happening both in Africa and in African communities everywhere. The cowards won't do it.
Three Eight

I largely agree with this piece, but I cannot help but feel concern with several of the assumptions the writer makes, including a number of factual errors. For example, Nelson Mandela is arguably the most famous person alive and any casual check on the facts of his life would quickly reveal he was imprisoned for a little over 27 years, not 28. This isn't important in itself, of course, but it's the kind of mistake that undermines the credibility of the whole article.

More salient and serious mistakes include the claimed time lines for anti-witchcraft activity, “slavery”, by which I presume the author is referring to the transatlantic slave trade, and colonialism. The transatlantic trade began in the 15th century – 1444, to be precise – and ended in 1888. This virtually coincides with the start of the European witch hunt period (generally regarded as starting between 1450 and 1480) and exceeds it by about a century, as the trials declined around 1780), rather than precedes it.

Perhaps an even greater omission is the lack of any acknowledgement of the continued existence of witchcraft in Europe, which persists until today. Indeed, it's arguable that witchcraft is both a larger faith now than it has been for centuries in Europe and that European believers are a larger proportion of Europe's population than comparable believers in Africa.

Perhaps most critical of all the omissions, however, is the lack of any reference to ancient African Christian traditions. The established church started in Africa! How can any article critiquing African Christian practices fail to mention the Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox churches?

Finally, I must contest the issue of ordination. The writer makes a very pointed distinction between self-ordained and accredited priests. Fair enough – but from where is the authority of established churches derived? Were their origins not in self-ordination? Isn't it possible that churches started by self-ordained priests today may evolve into the established churches of tomorrow, particularly given the schisms in, say, protestantism due to controversies over ordaining women priests and attitudes to homosexuality?
http://colorfultimes.com/ Paul

Who knew that so many otherwise sane, intelligent people of African descent believed this witchcraft stuff in the streets of Britain?

A Nigerian-American friend of mine who lives and works in London, remarked that this kind of strong interest in witchcraft would not find much place in the United States where he grew up, because Africans in the USA are much more integrated into American society and culture. I thought that was an interesting observation.

So are we now to expect demonstrations in the streets claiming hurt feelings because Channel 4 dared to lift the lid on this open secret? One might think so given the level of debate and chat. Oh, the things we get riled about. What a palaver!