Random Thoughts on Violence against People with Albinism

It is yet another Friday and once again we get the chance to read the random thoughts shared on this blog. Despite the mixed feedback I got for my political article last week, the DPP Ntcheu rally had me tempted to write something political yet again. I changed my mind when I realized that it is good to focus on positive things and to avoid picking on people. That was a nice show, by the way (this goes to the Blue readers, if there are any around).

This week has been punctuated by a whole lot of stories surrounding the issue of attacks on people living with albinism. Our honorable cabinet minister responsible for curbing this very malpractice went on the podium and suggested that the issue is not as serious as the Association of People with Albinism in Malawi are making it sound. Calling them cry-babies, basically. Then there was this issue of the suspect who was nabbed in connection with the abduction of a child with albinism. Everyone was looking forward to hearing this man crack the whole mystery open with his testimony. He was later found dead in his Police cell. This issue got people travelling back the memory lane to fish out screenshots of online news articles covering this very issue. What did they get? A story of another suspect who allegedly died after committing suicide by jumping out of a moving Police vehicle and more recently another one who committed suicide in Karonga.

I took my own trip down the memory lane. About four or five years ago I found myself watching an episode of Ray Donovan, then one of my favorite TV shows. In it was a conversation between one of the characters and a mentally ill person in which the latter was saying that what was happening in Tanzania with the murdering and abduction of people with albinism in Tanzania was a shame. A couple of years later I found myself travelling for a students conference and having the opportunity to be around a lot of people from different countries, I got overly zealous with marketing my country as a tourist destination. Most of the guys I was talking to had never heard about Malawi before and when I met them after they had looked my country up, they came with questions not about the game parks, the beautiful lake or towering mountains. They came asking about why we hated people with albinism so much so that we were killing them. My tourism stunt had backfired. This was in June 2016 and close to three years down the line we are still crying about the same things of our brothers and sisters with albinism being violently attacked, abducted and killed for some rituals of sorts.

The fact that we have stayed for so long with this issue got me thinking as to what the root cause to the persistence of the problem may be. I was lured into thinking that the problem may be that we do not know much about what is happening but I am somehow beginning to think that we know enough about is happening and that what we know may just be enough to stop if we were decisive enough.  

One can stand on a podium and a keyboard warrior may type on a couple of WhatsApp groups and post a couple of status updates. A prophet may stand on a pulpit and an online news page may post about the abduction and killings of people with albinism. But we know that already. We may make all the noise about how there are big people involved in the syndicate. But we know that already from the complexity of the whole scheme and how people have managed to continue to kill their fellow humans for years without being brought to book. Perhaps the big thing we do not know is who is perpetrating the evil acts and our energy and resources should be focused on finding out the who and the how before anything else.

I am bringing this point of focusing on finding out who is behind the killings and abductions for a number of reasons the first of which is the debate that has ensued between factions with different lines of reasoning. To others, a firing squad or the needle for everyone who is caught in the sage is the answer to all this. I beg to differ. Handing the death penalty to the small fish we catch with human parts in our localities wouldn’t be the solution. The guy you need to find is the one who sends the one who sends these locals, luring them by amounts below 7 figures in Malawi kwacha to take a life. Trust me, putting someone who got convinced by MK800, 000 to abduct someone in front of a firing squad will not solve anything. What will happen is that his master will go on and find another one to replace him. What we need is the information these guys possess and unfortunately it seems suicide or some natural death comes in before we are able to extract the much needed information.

Others have argued that we need to relocate people with albinism to some secure location. The association of people with albinism is proposing that people with albinism seek asylum in some other country because the government has failed to protect them. I somehow find the local relocation argument flawed while I think the asylum idea may not be that practical. I look at the idea of taking someone away from his daily routines and imprisoning them in a place that is supposedly safe as wrong, segregatory and myopic. What about those who are professionals and business persons? How will they sustain themselves? How long do we plan on keeping them in those “safe” locations, anyway? Until a lasting solution is found? When? Perhaps our two prong focus should be on protecting them in our localities while cutting off the head of the snake. Practical? Not too sure.

With elections drawing closer, people have labeled this party or the other as the perpetrator of this evil act with their argument being that people in those parties are doing all this to win the oncoming elections. Others have taken this as an opportunity to score some political points by posing as the sole sympathizers of people with albinism. One leader pointed out that if he was to be the nation’s CEO this whole issue would come to an end within a month. That statement was received with a heavy barrage of criticism (and understandably so) but that was political rhetoric. What disheartens the nation is that the government of the day is not even pretending to be doing something. The minister said what he said and that led to the withdrawal of the representation of people with albinism from the presidential task force on the protection of people with albinism. Moving on, the efforts (if any) will be disjointed. What a missed opportunity. All in all, politicians ought to refrain from riding on our deceased brothers backs to gain some political mileage. This is a national security issue and everyone needs to treat it as such.

There are some who are of the idea that civic education could play a role in educating the masses about how a human part cannot miraculously make you rich overnight. I think that somehow we are way past that and that would just be a misplacement of efforts. Reason? The events surrounding these attacks say it all. These issues started in Tanzania (and Rwanda, I think) before spreading to Malawi. It is an international syndicate and I doubt that the end market for these human parts is in the Warm Heart of Africa. Civic education wouldn’t surmount the people’s hunger for blood money and their superstitious beliefs.

Having outlined all that, I find myself hopeless with little if any solutions to offer. While I feel like it is the responsibility of all to protect our brother s and sisters with albinism, I feel like we are not doing enough and that is not because we do not want to. We just do not have the means. I found myself criticizing people who were posting pictures with messages against the violence but lately I have realized that they were just doing what was within their reach. The effort from our law enforcement and justice system still leaves a lot to be desired and the presidential task force isn’t doing much either. Every passing day we are fed with lots of propaganda but we are left with no answers to the critical question as to who is the man who was able to motivate a health professional and a man of the collar into the human parts business. Until then, I pray for the protection of our brothers and sisters with albinism and for the breakthrough in the case.