Kinshasa

"Yes, this is a much more modern one. This is about Kinshasa, the capital of Congo, and how religious life, the new Christianity, has affected society. It’s about the new churches, all fundamentalist, charismatic churches called by observers ‘African-initiated’ churches. This means they follow a man or woman who has had a vision to build a church. Sometimes they are small and short-lived and sometimes they are enormous and need a football stadium for the congregation. The central feature of the book though is the new witch hunts which involve children being accused of witchcraft. This is new. Children were often the victims of witchcraft, when they got sick and died, sadly far too often. But now they are the witches. There are thousands, literally thousands, that is not a turn of phrase, who have been rejected by their parents for being witches, because of illnesses, failures, the devastation of poverty. How they survive at all is a miracle – some of them are as young as three and four, just living on the streets after their parents threw them out. The authors have collected their stories – some of them now live in refuges set up by NGOs or churches. The beliefs that underpin the accusations are that the children are possessed by evil spirits, by Satan and that they are doing Satan’s work. It is Christian imagery and the cure is to get rid of the spirits that cause someone to have the gift of witchcraft. There are people from the churches who claim to have the ability to get rid of the spirits for a fee. So first they have them diagnosed for a fee to see if they are possessed and then they have to be delivered. Those parents who haven’t got the money just throw the children out. In a way. The connection between the accusations of witchcraft and the church is the notion of what animates the witchcraft. The primary purpose of the church is to fight Satan. The modern charismatic churches believe in possession by Satan. Of course, the new accusations are not always directed against children. There are old people too being burnt and chopped to death, but this form, which is also happening in Nigeria, of directing it against children is new, stimulated by the notion that Satan and his servants are performing evil. Of course, the Christian mission probably wouldn’t condone burning people alive but the theology behind what is being done by these very desperate people is the same. A lot of the mobs pursuing the witches are young people with no future to look forward to. They will never have any land because it has all been taken away or built on. I also studied initiation rites but of young men on the border between Kenya and Uganda. They go through an elaborate series of ceremonies that go on for a month and these did involve the physical operation of circumcision. You are considered still to be a boy all your life if you do not go through the rituals and are referred to very contemptuously. Interestingly, the people I studied thought that female circumcision, practised by a neighbouring tribe, was disgusting and empowered the women, making them disobedient and not sufficiently subservient. But the circumcised women thought the uncircumcised women weren’t subservient enough to the men. Yes. Hard luck on the women. July 31, 2009. Updated: November 4, 2021 Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]"