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Zim 'needs' cleansing ritual
09/04/2008 13:19 - (SA)
Harare - Martha Katsande sits on a reed mat, grunting and roaring and intermittently snorting snuff as she tries to summon up the ancestral spirits for an answer to Zimbabwe's woes.
"The ancestors are angry, that is why there is so much chaos," she says, waving a long spear-like sagaie.
"Unless authorities undertake traditional ritual ceremonies to cleanse the country of blood spilt during the liberation war, the country is headed nowhere," says the respected spirit medium.
About 30 000 people were killed in the liberation struggle through the 1970s after black guerrillas sought to overthrow the whites-only regime of then Rhodesian leader Ian Smith.
For Katsande and other like-minded traditional healers, the political shenanigans surrounding last week's presidential election were unimportant, what was paramount was that the sins of the past were atoned for.
"How can we talk about tomorrow when the prerequisite traditional rituals have not been undertaken yet," asked the 51-year-old in her modest house in the capital's working class suburb of Tafara.
"So we can hold one election after another, but all that will be child's play."
Zim 'needs' national ceremony
Professor Gordon Chavunduka, leader of the Zimbabwe traditional healers association and formerly the vice-chancellor of the country's leading university, echoed Katsande.
"From the traditional perspective, the basic problem in Zimbabwe is that no national ceremony ... was held to mark the end of the war and to cleanse whatever happened and give the spirits the opportunity to speak to the leaders on how to run the country," he said.
Zimbabweans voted on March 29 to elect a new president, but the result of the poll had still to be declared and there were fears the country could descend into violence if Robert Mugabe tries to cling to power.
The veteran leader, still regarded by many in Zimbabwe as a hero for the part he played in securing independence from Britain in 1980, had presided over a period of economic freefall since launching disastrous land reforms in 2000.
Inflation in the one-time regional model had ran into six figures, the unemployment rate was more than 80% and even bread and cooking oil were hard to find in stores.
Katsande said Mugabe, 84, was wrong to blame his country's political and economic woes on the West when the problem was clearly the offence caused to the ancestral spirits for not observing ancient rites.
"If nothing is done, nothing will come right," she said.
"We are crying about Western-imposed sanctions, blaming them for this mess we are in, but there are worst sanctions imposed by our ancestors."
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