Front Page
Commentary
Letters
Editorial
Feature
Health
Profile
Perspective
Legal
Real Estate
Finance
Africa News
Community
Arts & Entertainment

About Us
Advertising Info
Subscribe
Survey
Chat Room
Bulletin Board
Guest Book


Search

Past Issues

Current Weather
7-day Forecast
Traffic Map

WHERE WITCHERY-TALK REMAINS OUR DAILY BREAD

Poor Africa and people of African descent! When are we going to enlighten our minds? Our enmeshment in strange occurrences ran second to none yet we have no proof that our encounters with the world beyond exists or has done anything to benefit us apart from bringing grief and decadence to the welfare of our people.

Given any instance, most Africans believe or can relate a horrifying experience in which witchery influenced a situation. From a barren woman to couples who have lost children to some bizarre undiagnosed diseases; from an impotent man to a ladies’ hunk; from fireballs that whoosh in the witching hour, to affluent people that supposedly receive their wealth via the ominous mouth of a deadly snake, every inopportune occurrence has a witchery decoder and experts to decipher them.

The recent African movies that have saturated the markets are examples of how we still believe in these claptraps. Most of these movies are filled with twaddle tales of witchery, supernatural and beastly connotations despite great dialogue and superb productions. It is a wonder why our brilliant young writers and directors who are supported by great actors cannot find suitable story lines that would be salubrious to the Motherland. The most amazing factor to all this foolhardiness is the fact that our people actually believe in them.

Why all this consistent misery if we have such powerful people on the continent? Why can’t they use their sorcery to conjure up spirits that would rid the Motherland of all her devastations? Where were they when the slave traders arrived and unleashed an affliction of brutality and inhumane treatment on our ancestors? Imagine slave traders being chased by gigantic carnivorous vultures ready to maim and kill. These traders - if only some would have survived this onslaught of beastly witchery creatures – no doubt would have returned for more slaves. They would have gotten the hell out of there as fast as their colonial ships would allow, with the message to their superiors of the strangest encounters in the land of the witches.

Nothing of that sort happened to the traders who gladly returned and engaged the whole continent in the most heartless treatment that any race has ever encountered. We became their slaves wherever we were sent to. In the Americas and on the Islands in the Caribbean where supposedly voodoo runs amok, we still were subjected to slavery until independence. We survived the slave trade, gained our freedom, the chains came off, the civil rights movement put us a rung above slavery as we see our people bonded with invisible chains and red linings making our daily lives treacherous and unbearable yet we still talk about our powers of the night. If that is not insanity, nothing is.

We know the kind of lives that we lead. Lead a good life and get rewarded. Be a bad influence and get rewarded accordingly. Our society, with our vilipend ways, find something wrong with our way of lives and look for someone to blame in case things do not go right. That is when the accusations become unbridled and we look elsewhere for blame. We seek the weak and defenseless and we vehemently and harshly accuse them of being witches. This pattern has to stop. Gather up your thinking gears and accentuate the positivism of life and what you can do to help the Motherland and her descendants rather than the negative and pretentious excuses that we use when the going gets tough.

Listen to The Journalist's Soldiers of Fortune CD