Which witch is which?

2008-10-01 12:32

Chris Roper

Spending time in foreign cities is always good for perspective. Which is why I've come back from a few days in Lisbon and Durban energised, and with a new eye for the absurdities that make this South African life so delightful.

Of course, foreign (like delightful) is a relevant term. So although Lisbon is very similar to Cape Town - seaside town, full of foreigners, serves good coffee - Durban is incredibly exotic and in another country entirely.

There's also the problem of language - seasoned travellers will know the problems of making themselves understood in the strange English dialect spoken in Durban. Lisbon, on the other hand, is easy, because they speak Portuguese.

I wasn't really in Durban for very long, as I was on my way to a wedding in the more rural backwaters of Kwazulu-Natal. No, not Pietermaritzburg, you nasty people. But close. It was without a doubt one of the nicest weddings I've ever been to, and it left me with a very positive feeling about the people in this country.

I haven't quite graduated to paparazzo levels yet, so I'll leave names out of it. But one thing that struck me was the speech of the father of the bride. He told the tale of the groom phoning to ask for the daughter's hand in marriage, a gesture which he appreciated.

However, as he pointed out, in his culture (he's Zulu) it's customary for the groom's family to come and visit the bride's family, and for the marriage to be negotiated that way. He didn't mention this to the groom at the time, because he's not the kind of guy to impose his own way of life on anyone else.

Imagine his surprise, then, when the groom's family does arrive, via a plane flight, having taken the trouble to find out how things are supposed to work in the Zulu tradition.

Strides

It's a great story, and one that highlights the strides we're making in this country in terms of intercultural and, more importantly perhaps, interpersonal relationships. At the same time, I couldn't help but wonder at how much work there is still to be done before South Africans can claim to truly understand each other. And I don't just mean the way Durban surfers speak English.

At the same time as two families were happily uniting in the KZN Midlands, a family of thirteen were lying dead on KZN's South Coast. Okay, not exactly the same time, but you have to admit it sounds more dramatic that way.

Not that this story needs extra drama. An apprentice traditional healer (although reports suggest that he wasn't officially sanctioned) tries to cleanse his family home of "a foul smell" by burning a poisonous concoction, and in the process kills his entire family.

The traditional healer is a part of South African culture about which I find it very difficult to be tolerant. I tend to lump many traditional healers with all the other religious charlatans out there, like priests who claim that prayer will cure terminal diseases, imams who preach that women are unclean, or televangelists who tell believers that creditworthiness is next to godliness.

There are, of course, traditional healers, soon to be members of a government regulated Traditional Healers Council, who do good work in the fight against HIV/Aids, and in the dispensation of homeopathic medicines and, that most important of medical necessities, soothing advice.

But there are also way too many traditional conmen out there, peddling love potions, anti-witchcraft curatives, and the ability to make tokoloshes eat your neighbour's wife every Friday night. Thank goodness the audience for these conmen isn't online yet, because when that happens you're going to start longing for the good ol' days when spam involved mostly penis enlargements.

Although do yourself a favour and look at nativedoctor.co.za, which - rather honestly, I thought - features animated gifs of those most traditional of African icons, the galloping unicorn and the flying fairy.

Stories

Here are some recent stories. In Malawi, they've just drafted a law to stop traditional healers from claiming they can cure Aids and religious leaders from advising their followers to discard treatment for prayer. Two weeks ago in Malawi, five Aids patients on anti-retroviral treatment died after their church pastor advised them to stop take the medication because they had been healed by prayer.

I spotted this fantastic headline on News24:Hummer man, sex worms a myth In Limpopo, "health officials have denied rumours that a growing number of women are seeking treatment for worms in their vaginas. Rumours are doing the rounds that, in the past two months, a man driving a black Hummer has slept with and infected women."

Here's some testimony from The Herald, from a witchcraft trial in Zimbabwe last month, where the accused fetched sand from someone's footprints, and used it make the victim miscarry her baby. Ms Margaret Manjangara, the chairperson for Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers' Association in Chitungwiza, said "the practice of scooping soil samples could not be divorced from witchcraft. She said it was a very dangerous practice that could cause madness, miscarriages, swelling of legs and abnormal menstruation."

Is it just me, or are all these people insane? That's not the real question, though. The real question is, am I prepared to pretend that I find it reasonable to kill animals to make traditional medicines that can only have, at best, placebo effects? Am I prepared to refrain from ridiculing a friend who visits a traditional healer to get a cure for bad debts? Well, never mind me. Are you prepared to do it?

Chris Roper is Editor-in-Chief of 24.com, and blogs at chrisroper.co.za

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