HELLO WORLD
JOIN ME IN THE CAMPAI
SUMMARY FROM MY BOOK ON AWARENESS CAMPAIGN ON KILLINGS OF ALBINO AND OLD WOMEN IN TANZANIA
HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT IN TANZANIA
BACKGROUND TO WITCHCRAFT
Witchcraft can be defined as an art of performing tricks with mysterious and sometime done to entertain . According to Witchcraft Ordinance (1928), witchcraft includes sorcery, enchantment bewitching or the purported exercise of any occult power or the purported possession of any occult knowledge.
Belief in witchcraft is universal in Africa and common across much of sub-Saharan Africa. Most societies connected it with local beliefs, since by then before 1870 almost all people were pagans and there was no any existing law concerning witchcraft practices. People used it as their weather station, that witches used to tell people what will happen in future, fortune telling, discovering enemies and whether there will be grace or hunger. And for those evil witches their punishment was to be exiled from their villages to very remote areas to live alone. It was during the coming of colonialists where the laws about witchcraft were introduced
What is taken to be witchcraft may differ from place to place depending on the culture of the people and the point in time in history and discussion. For instance among the Nyakyusa of Mbeya and Fipa of Sumbawanga when a person is ill he will go to the diviner and ask him “what had made him ill” the diviner takes his cup, rubs it on a stone, and when it is stopped in certain place he will say “indeed the sorcerers have bewitched you. In a broader view, divination is but a species of magic. And if magic is defined , in its modern accepted sense, as the art of effecting results beyond human power by superhuman agencies. Is always performed as a sort of multiparty conversation between the traditional healer, the client, and unseen spirits both of the healer and of the client, through which the past, present and future secret knowledge, insight into the future. This is through throwing bone, talking in the gourd, or watching through local TV. These diviners work under presumption that a person appearing before them both has a particular problem and needs mediation from unseen spirits through negotiating. No one goes to witch doctors and told that he has no problem.
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK
Chapter One
The book campaigns against the killings of Albino and old women in relation to witchcraft in Tanzania particularly in the Lake Zone informally known as Sukumaland. This is according to report of various media in Tanzania and outside. Witch doctors started claiming that magical potions, using skin, hair, blood, bones, genitals, tongues or limbs of albinos as ingredients, bring wealth to their customers. This is fueled by superstition, poverty, greed and ignorance. These people misdirected themselves on albinism by lacking genetic education. They have the wicked belief that an albino is a ghost sent from Europe that has come to the African families, with the purpose of destroying, cursing and killing members of the family, soon after decolonization so as to replace colonialism which has existed for along time in Africa. This outdated, stupidity and superstition belief has caused people with albinism to be hunted and butchered in East African country, for cruelly cutting their body parts. The parts are sold to witch doctors that use them as ingredients in potions which they claim will bring good luck and make people rich. This being the shame and nightmare dreams which has never and will never turned into truth. It will not surprise for the very poor fishermen who weave albino hairs into their nets because they believe they will catch more fish, gold miners, farmers, to give the little they have to the witchdoctors in order to be rich.
In later chapters the book provides public awareness campaigns to educating the people that it is only through hard work that one can make money in life but not through sale or use of body parts of fellow human beings with albinism. So education to the albino and old women killers, is very important tool to combat killings through depreciating, denouncing and campaigning against superstition belief, which in Europe regard as a disrespectful backward-looking glance to a pre modern history which Europeans and people of European descent or influence, having long since forgotten the terror of those times many century ago. Being civilized, they think of proliferation of popular discussion about scientific fields such as genetics engineering, cloning, telecommunications, robotics, artificial life, and digital imaging. In later chapters, the book gives alternative ways of becoming rich like Bill Gates in America, Capitalists in Asia and Europe who maintain their billionaire status, without using albino body parts, through hardworking, devoting time in innovation, creativity, educating members of family, modern agricultural methods, mining using modern advance technology, reducing sleeping time by doing economic issues, and many other economic activities. This is completely contrary to the stupidity thoughts of some of the greedy and heartless gold miners, fishermen, entrepreneurs, farmers and some Tanzanians mostly living in rural areas, who believe speaking with unseen spirits, killing at a distance, making the flight by flying 1000KM per minute using sieve, becoming rich through using albino and old women body parts.
In this introduction it should be understood that; albinism is genetic defect that causes a lack of pigmentation in skin, eyes and hair, can affect all races of human being including animals such as fish, birds, reptiles, and amphibians.The word is delivered from Latin albus, meaning ‘white’, The lack of the pigment melanin is due to an error in the biochemical pathway that converts phenylalanine to melanin. Depending on the severity of the break, a person with albinism may not always have a pale complexion, white hair and pink eyes. They can sometimes vary from other family members by having a lighter skin tone. Albinism is not the ghost sent from Europe to kill the members of the family or contains the magic power which can make someone rich. This is through scientific analysis, genetic engineers, zoologists, philosophers, have made the research and written many books which show and explain in details that there is no any connection of albinism and superstition belief. They did not end there but also they have commented in their books that people with albinism are not evil or not from the devil. They neither have magic power for making someone rich nor fortune power.
Not only scientists and philosophers but also the missionaries in their books have commented that, “Killings of Albinos and elderly women is the heaviest of sins. It rejects trust and hope in God, as well as the possibility of regret. Humankind has always been involved in and fascinated by killing. Since the beginning of time, killers have existed. The first recorded homicide is found in Genesis, where Cain killed his brother Abel. The devil is the first murderer of men, and has continual inspiration to murder, nowadays, He has entered into the heart of Greedy gold miners, Entrepreneurs, farmers and fishermen and continue breaking the God’s commandment which denounce killing thinking that God has amended or repealed the fifth commandment which prohibits murder.
The devil is smitten with envy and hatred because he knows that man will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven and have thought that what will hind him to inherit the kingdom of God is to put obstacles to human being by putting the greedy situation to these lust people by cheating them that to use Albino body parties and killing old women suspected of being witch can result into wealth and prospectus life. This is the same way which he used to Adams and Eve, when Satan, said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it or you will die.'" The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die!” For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. What happened after that was that Adam and Eve were now sinners. They now had sin in their hearts. When God came down that evening to walk and to talk with them, Adam and Eve hid from God. They were afraid of Him because they knew that they had done wrong. This also applies to albino and old women killers, when they kill people and take away their body parties they start hiding from the police machinery and angry people who are educated and find the truth that it is only through hardworking and devoting time for creativity, can lead someone into the success in gold mining, fisheries and other economic activities. They do not only afraid people but also afraid the imposing of very heavy punishment by the government, including that of death penalty. In Tanzania the death penalty has not yet repealed and according to the Penal code section 195 imposes the death penalty that any person who kills
These lust killer thinks only about themselves they do not think that since Albinism is inherited gene one day even their children offspring will have grandchildren with Albinism and they do not think on the consequence of this. It is the most unnatural thing a man can do. It betrays Christianity and brings paganism as if the Gospel was not preached in Africa. The Church denies the bodies of Killing of Albinos and elderly women, the primary reason for God to hate murder is that out of all creation, only human are made in the image of God. Even before the codification of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai the murder of other human beings was wrong. While on earth, Jesus spoke out against murder. We also see in the writings of Paul that murder is wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment