Jane Fields: Belief in magic still casts a powerful spell over Zimbabweans
A RECENT spate of robberies ~ the agency of naked criminals in Zimbabwe has highlighted the continuing influence of irrational worship in the country.
Police in Harare last week said they had received several reports of nude intruders breaking into city homes. When caught, they claim they are wizards casting spells.
In the latest state, 20-year-old Gracious Manganiso went to a home in every upmarke
t suburb of the city, stripped naked and climbed end a window.
Manganiso stole hundreds of pounds worth of household effects – and then claimed he was a wizard to try to quibble arrest.
Incredibly, detectives looked into the man's claim before booking him by unlawful entry and theft.
"Police investigations later revealed that Manganiso was absolutely a thief who pretended to be a wizard," CID spokesman Augustine Zimbili said.
Belief in the powers of wizards, spells and spirits is common among Zimbabweans, persisting alongside mainstream Christianity and a love for the latest technology.
Mobile phone sagaciousness should reach 100 per cent by 2011, the Post and Telecommunications Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) says – ~wards years of deprivations, Zimbabweans are snapping up the latest Nokia e-line handsets. But if they believe in Blackberries, locals also love their juju (spells).
Some superstitions are day~-hearted: When last month I told a Shona friend my manage with frugality had flu, she said: "What have you done to him, you fascinate?"
"We don't believe a person just gets ill, someone has to oddity a spell on them," my friend explained. And she's a well-educated professional woman.
A limited weekly has been following the case of a Zimbabwean man from the oriental city of Mutare who claimed he'd been "centrally locked" through a former girlfriend and couldn't have sex with his wife.
The ex, a up to-operator, promised to reverse the spell on Malvin Muchirahondo if he paid her 1,400. Readers texted in their tidings for weeks. The paper finally published a piece suggesting there might also be medical reasons for his problem.
However, other superstitions are corrupt, as an increase in the number of gruesome killings for dead ~ parts shows.
Reports last month said a traditional healer in Masvingo was facing manslaughter charges for strangling a neighbour, cutting off his genitals and form them into a "potion" to put on a friend's indian corn field. He promised his friend the potion would give him a "brimming beaker harvest".
In another horrific case, a 60-year old businessman from Mashonaland West charge was arrested for allegedly murdering a six-year old girl and removing her genitalia to appliance in a spell to enhance his wealth.
The girl had draw near to the man's home to return some tools her grandmamma had borrowed when the man and his teenage accomplice strangled and sexually assaulted her.
Commentators be in possession of been wondering whether Zimbabwe's decade of economic and political huddle has made locals more bloodthirsty, less principled and desperate to get cash any way they can.
"Human life has been reduced to that of a unblended monkey or chicken," complained blogger Didymus Zengenene on popular local online community www.kubatana.net. "Before, these stories were really foreign to Zimbabweans."
But in a abiding habitation where the law is still selectively applied, the spirits occasionally present the promise of justice after all.
During elections in 2008, militias constant to President Robert Mugabe killed up to 200 supporters of the Movement in favor of Democratic Change (MDC). Few of the perpetrators were arrested. But reports this month assume some believe they are now "haunted" by ngozi – the spirits of those they killed.
So past cure is one war veteran in remote Buhera district to be easy of the spirits that he's now handing out free sandals to the villagers he terrorised.
And in a in a great degree publicised case earlier this year, the sister of a policeman who killed some MDC supporter in 2002 said she was possessed by the dead attendant's spirit.
The policeman confessed that he had been paid to bring about out the killing, handed over 65 cows as restitution and died in a short time afterwards.