I wanted to broaden the type of studying and research that I've been doing lately; I basically want to, in a sense, stop playing it safe and just journey out to places, topics and issues that I've never really heard or know much about. I came across a documentary that really struck my attention, a documentary about witchcraft and the African traditions behind such issues. This documentary discusses the results of children being accused of being witches, how they are tortured because of this and how they are supposed to overcome this by turning to religion. As seen in this documentary, the children who are accused of witchery are beaten, tortured and shunned by their family because of these accusations. This again is hitting a soft spot for me, especially when seeing the aftermath of these children getting tortured; their scars, both emotional and physical, which will be with them forever. Return to Africa's Witch Children can be viewed here, a documentary which dares to explore the fragile issue of child abuse while exposing the deepest and oldest traditions of the African culture.
This film shows a part of an African tradition, of culture and how much it differs from my own beliefs and culture. The narrator said something that really stuck with me after watching it, she said, "Traditional African belief has it that nothing happens for natural reasons in life, any ill fortunes is the work of witches." For some reason, I couldn't get this sentence out of my head, mainly because I believe that things happen for a reason, that in the end of everything, there are certain reasons why something has happened to you. However, I never thought this to be the works of witches or a higher power, I just never really thought why or how this happens but that it is just something I believe because of evidence from my own life.
This film shows a part of an African tradition, of culture and how much it differs from my own beliefs and culture. The narrator said something that really stuck with me after watching it, she said, "Traditional African belief has it that nothing happens for natural reasons in life, any ill fortunes is the work of witches." For some reason, I couldn't get this sentence out of my head, mainly because I believe that things happen for a reason, that in the end of everything, there are certain reasons why something has happened to you. However, I never thought this to be the works of witches or a higher power, I just never really thought why or how this happens but that it is just something I believe because of evidence from my own life.
"2008 Emmy Award-winning Dispatches story of an estimated 15,000 children in Africa’s Niger Delta being denounced by Christian pastors as witches and wizards and then killed, tortured or abandoned by their own families. Two-and-a-half-year-old Ellin is one such child. Found at the side of the road, her body having been severely burnt with boiling water. Nwanakwo, eight years old, had acid poured over him after being labeled a wizard, and later died. Return to Africa’s Witch Children is a documentary that follows the work of Gary Foxcroft, an Englishman whose charity, Stepping Stones, raises funds to help care for more than 150 children accused of witchcraft, and blamed for catastrophes, death and famine. Narrated by Sophie Okonedo."
