The more I grow up, the more I realize that I have vast knowledge gaps. Whenever I hear news stories about witchcraft, I become so puzzled and wonder what could be behind the perceived notoriety and overwhelming accusations of women as witches. It appears that women and children -- the most vulnerable in society --bear the brunt of these accusations, with some men occasionally grabbing some attention.
Enduring Questions:
There comes a time when one has to confront twisted logic. Doesn’t modernity conflict with witchcraft? Are there more witches than wizards – implying that witches are females and wizards belong to the male gender? At childhood, do girls show the potential for witchcraft more than boys? Is there something in the food girls eat and the drink girls drink while growing up, which invariably turns the female gender into witches as they age and evolve?
Or, could it be that estrogens, the dominant female hormone, generate and pump up witchcraft juices and characteristics? What is the science? Or, this matter belongs firmly only in the realm of spiritual logic? Has estrogens been responsible for the woes of women? But a deeper enduring question is: What is it about women growing old in our part of the world that qualifies them to be accused of witchcraft? We neglect the thorns and by that, the roses in our mothers’ gardens at our peril.
I’ve travelled the so-called ‘developed world’ quite a bit and this phenomenon is absent, or at least uncommon. So a further enduring question is – Could it be that women’s witchcraft in our part of the world is a product of a combination of factors including poverty, underdevelopment, illiteracy, ignorance and a general lack of civilization?
Realities like wanton want, painful and desperate poverty for which initiatives to eradicate or alleviate only scratch the surface, unexplainable diseases in the midst of an antiquated health care delivery system that is supported precariously by a ‘Paracetamol’ health insurance scheme, ignorance that is deeply steeped in oral tradition, vast non-literacy that is worsened by a lousy educational system, as well as many other funky realities do need scapegoats.
What better scapegoats-victims-culprits are more obvious and convenient than the dishevelled shrivelled aging poor old woman who is weather-beaten, sun-dried, poverty-trashed and living on the margins waiting for the end of her story! The thorns are left to burn!
But better still, could the women who are declared guilty of witchcraft be cases of unexpressed geniuses? Where are the sisters of our successful men? How many of them had equal opportunity to become what their male siblings became? Do successful men ever wonder what happened to the very intelligent girls they attended school with, especially those who excelled in class to the envy of the boys? Answer: some of them jumped onto mommy trucks, others hopped onto the husband trains, and others remained behind in one permutation or the other to become the women witches of today and tomorrow.
Many women throughout our beautiful country have suffered and continue to suffer in the claws of illiteracy and the jaws of ignorance at the altar of witchcraft accusations. A child suffers from the sickle cell disease and a grandmother is declared guilty. A child is knocked down by malaria and dies before age five and again, a woman stands caused. Some new-age spiritual churches help to entrench age-old cultural beliefs.
A snake chase did it!
Periodically, a writer goes naked before his/her readers. Confessions are said to be good for the soul. Self-disclosure can be at once disturbing and humbling. There is no rose without thorns!
When growing up in a village, I knew that my life should have a deeper meaning and purpose beyond the obvious. But how to make it happen only became clear to me one day during lunch time on my grandfather’s cocoa farm. You see, the cocoa farm was the place to go for a quick bite of something; of whatever and to return quickly to school. One hot tropical afternoon, a green thin snake chased me on the cocoa farm. That single experience gave me my marching orders: To study hard no matter what and get out to save myself from any other chase by a snake or the semblance or representative of a snake.
Books became my refuge. Books? What books? The leftovers, pieces of papers thrown about by customers of my ‘bofrot’ seller aunt provided my reading material. I went round to collect the pieces of papers, pieced them together to create my ‘library’, disregarding the missing pages. What a logical reaction to a snake chase!
Yes, for young readers, in those days, plastics had not made it into our national consciousness. We used paper and leaves, which decompose to become one with nature. These days, we use mostly non-biodegradable plastics, which might not decompose for hundreds of years, long after we the users have died and rotten away. Thorns galore!
In my current state of restlessness amidst aging, my love of/for literacy suggests to me that I would have, by default, been declared a witch by now, in the Year of Our Lord 2010, in some forgotten village if that thin green snake had not chased me into the warm arms of reading and writing and some arithmetic.
The roses in our grandmother’s gardens
It’s in order to pay homage to all the women who have lived miserable lives and even died after they’ve been accused of witchcraft without any proof whatsoever. To the women of old whose lives were interrupted so were unable to go yonder to live up to their full potential. To the women who are currently wasting away and withering like untended flowers in witches camps and church backyards. To the mothers, the grandmothers, the aunties, the grand-aunties who have been declared guilty of witchcraft just for being wise and opinionated.
We all – men and women alike, have mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers as well as aunties, grand-aunties who play mother to us; who give us love unconditionally – until we declare them witches for being wise women and by that single act, give thorns undue prominence over sweet-scented roses.
We should salute the many women who have been misunderstood; the geniuses who were unexplored, unfulfilled, unappreciated. Homage to the grand aunts and great grandmothers, who over the years, have died miserable deaths, have seen painful ends, dejected by loved ones shrouded under gloomy coats of witchcraft. How many women survive their gifts? How many shrink and belittle their aspirations by thinking small with as low expectations as possible?
Imagine if Ama Ata Aiddo had not gone to school! Imagine if Afua Sutherland had not learned to read and write! The beautiful poetry, the heart-warming plays and the gifts of prose would not have been born. Ghana would have been poorer.
Imagine if our token female representations – Akua Kuenehia, Joyce Aryee, Georgina Woode, Betty Mould-Idrisu, Nana Oye Lithur, Grace Bediako, Elizabeth Adjei, Ajoa Yeboah-Afari, Akua Dansoa, and the many women of distinction (sung and unsung) – had remained in the armpits of Ghana in some funky villages and not had the privilege of education. Just pause, and imagine! But Hallelujah, some roses are in bloom, regardless!
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