Witchcraft and technology

By Dr Emmanuel Phiri

The subject of witchcraft is one of those that most of us find extremely unsettling.

It is easy to understand why this is the case when one looks at the subject of witchcraft contextually. Our context in relation to witchcraft is that most of us today identify as Christians, and it is the case that Christianity itself is diametrically opposed to witchcraft. As a matter of fact, the Christian Bible tells us that; “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (see Exodus 22:18). This is our current context. However, this context of stern opposition against witchcraft has not always been the case. Here, a brief look at history will suffice. Before colonialisation, most if not all African societies including Zambia, were epitomised by a culture that exhibited strong beliefs in matters of witchcraft and traditional medicine among others. This is not what most of us would like to hear today, but this was a way of life for our forefathers. With the European explorers, missionaries and eventual colonialisation, came the view that the larger part of African culture was primitive, savage and backwards. Of course, these perceptions extended to the practice of witchcraft and traditional medicine among others.

Because of the forgoing, the indigenous culture of our forefathers was gradually abandoned and replaced by the European way of life at the time i.e. Christianity. The whole idea of making our forefathers abandon their indigenous culture in favour of Christianity was to ‘civilise’ the so-called ‘savages’. Given this albeit extremely brief historical context, it is easy to understand why most of us today fiercely look down upon the idea of witchcraft.

Let’s face it, despite our stern opposition towards witchcraft, most of us have heard, and at times continue to hear stories about witchcraft. Growing up, some of the most fascinating stories we would hear was how the infamous Adamson Mushala used to apply witchcraft to cause a lot of trouble with authorities, particularly State House. According to the story, dubbed the legend of Mushala, the man used to invisibly dine uninvited with our beloved founding father Dr Kenneth Kaunda – only to leave a note at the end as evidence – thanking the head of state for such a sumptuous meal. According to this story line, the late Mushala gave the army, police and other law enforcement officials a run for their hard-earned money. This cat and mouse game between Mushala and law enforcement officials continued until the latter apparently used charms to be able to capture and eventually kill him.

Apart from Mushala’s story, the other story that comes to mind is that of an elderly man fondly known as Zagwa Zata. The background of the story is that Zagwa Zata wanted to sort out a small problem of having his beehive stolen by some unscrupulous persons. After making some preliminary investigations into the issue with all members of his village, everyone therein refused to have anything to do with the missing beehive. According to the story, the only thing that Zata said was “no problem at all, the thief will by tomorrow voluntarily confess to the crime and handover my beehive”.

Sure enough, the following day, there was pandemonium in the village as bees were seen accompanying a named boy to his school. These bees followed him around everywhere he went including the school’s grass thatched toilet. Apparently, this was to give the boy some kind of gentle reminder of the crimes he had committed the previous day. The boy in question, now with a swollen face from having been stung, wasted no time in rushing back to Zagwa Zata’s village on a bicycle with bees chasing him. Once there, the boy had no trouble confessing to the theft and eventually returning Zagwa Zata’s beehive. Case closed and bees disappeared without stinging anyone else. Even today, the media sometimes carry similar stories of persons engaging in witchcraft to sort out issues here and there. But what is the point of sharing these witchcraft stories here? Well, the point is to demonstrate that if it is the case that these stories are in fact true, then whether we like it or not, it would imply that witchcraft has potency.

Needless to say, the above given stories and many other similar stories on witchcraft sound extremely fictional, and it is easy on our part to simply write them off as merely being just that…stories…nothing more, nothing less. However, our aim here is not to determine whether witchcraft is indeed real, or whether it is simply a figment of our imagination. For our purposes let us take a step back and engage in a thought experiment. In this thought experiment, let us assume that indeed witchcraft is real and that it has potency.

If the forgoing is the case, can witchcraft be harnessed to solve the many problems Africa faces today? For instance, one of the serious problems faced by African countries including Zambia, is corruption and theft of public resources. Would it be possible to harness the power of witchcraft to make all those persons involved in corruption and public theft give back proceeds of their crime, in the same way that Zagwa Zata used witchcraft to make the boy voluntarily confess to his crime and return his beehive? Granted that this can work at an individual level, but how can this work at the national level, one may ask?

Well, we can have, let’s say, a department of witchcraft as part of our law enforcement agencies. This department would be responsible for casting spells, among others, on all those that have stolen public funds and probably giving them ultimatums for bringing back these. Imagine cheeky bees tirelessly chasing those crooked politicians around until they voluntarily confess to their crimes and handover the proceeds of crime to the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC), or the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).

Experts are agreed that financial crimes are amongst the most expensive crimes to fight. So, imagine the huge saving that would be made in terms of investigative resources if criminals were to voluntarily hand over themselves together with the proceeds of crime.

Let us now look into the issue of transport. Most of us have heard stories with regards to how transportation works within the apparent practice of witchcraft. Assuming this were true, imagine how revolutionary it would be if these practices were to be adopted and adapted at a larger scale for everyone to use. To exemplify this, let’s for instance consider the fact that most people agree and believe that “time is money”, and that time is thus important. If that’s the case, just imagine flying from Lusaka to Vubwi, Nakonde, Mwinilunga, or the UK, let’s say, on a broom or shomeka in just a matter of seconds. This would obviously not only be beneficial in terms of speed and thus saving time, but it would also be environmentally friendly in the sense that there would be no carbon emissions resulting from this form of transportation. The forgoing would be unlike the case with the current jet fuel propelled engines that burn a lot of gas and deposit all sorts of toxic waste into our atmosphere.

Similar to transportation is the issue of communication and entertainment. At the moment, these are largely dependent on satellite or cellular technologies. As a result, telecom companies for instance pay a lot of money just to use these technologies. Of course, the financial burden of using these ultimately rests on us the consumers of these services, that is, you and me. Just imagine how much monies we pay for our satellite or cellular dependent services such as internet, phone calls or DStv services. On the flipside, most of us have probably heard a thing or two about how communication obtains within the practice of witchcraft. One thing is for sure…this kind of communication does not depend on expensive satellites hovering hundreds of meters above us in space.

In this regard, there could be a window of opportunity for us to adopt and adapt witchcraft communication and make it available for everyone in society. Imagine the joy of having DStv premium for free on a specially designed television. Imagine the joy of using free internet on an interesting looking gadget. Imagine the joy of making unlimited free calls from an indigenous cell phone made in Chiengi. Obviously, the only persons who wouldn’t be joyful if this were to be the case are those who currently make huge profits from selling the above-mentioned services.

Assuming the forgoing witchcraft practices could be harnessed and properly packaged, this would undoubtedly amount to technology that would not only develop African countries, but these countries would also export these technologies to other parts of the world. No doubt about it, such technologies would revolutionise and change the world as we know it today. Such technologies would definitely be hot cake, if you like, on the global market.

At this point it is fair to say that we have thus far assumed a lot of things. This can be forgiven if one bears in mind that this has simply been a thought experiment. The assumptions given in our thought experiment seem so bizarre and out of this world. However, you would be surprised to note that even the most industrialised countries around the world have entertained such bizarre and crazy thoughts before, or at least something similar. For instance, it is on record that one of the world’s most prestigious spy agencies, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has in the past carried out experiments with witchcraft (the so-called psychics) with the aim of utilising their supposed supernatural powers for espionage purposes.

The author holds a PhD in Applied Ethics. He is a researcher and expert on sexual orientation and is affiliated with the University of Zambia. Send comment to: emmanuelphiriphd@gmail.com, +260 972 296414.

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