| Author |
Message |
    
jackie
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 08:30 pm: | 
|
AIDS Now Compels Africa to Challenge Widows' 'Cleansing'
Sign In to E-Mail This
Printer-Friendly
Single-Page
Reprints
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
Published: May 11, 2005
MCHINJI, Malawi - In the hours after James Mbewe was laid to rest three years ago, in an unmarked grave not far from here, his 23-year-old wife, Fanny, neither mourned him nor accepted visits from sympathizers. Instead, she hid in his sister's hut, hoping that the rest of her in-laws would not find her.
Enlarge This Image
Jeffrey Barbee for The New York Times
After her husband died, Fanny Mbewe was forced to have "cleansing" sex with an in-law.
Sexual Cleansers in Malawi
Forum: African Politics
Jeffrey Barbee for The New York Times
Amos Machika Schisoni working with his tobacco crop. His unofficial job is to have sex with women who have lost their husband.
But they hunted her down, she said, and insisted that if she refused to exorcise her dead husband's spirit, she would be blamed every time a villager died. So she put her two small children to bed and then forced herself to have sex with James's cousin.
"I cried, remembering my husband," she said. "When he was finished, I went outside and washed myself because I was very afraid. I was so worried I would contract AIDS and die and leave my children to suffer."
Here and in a number of nearby nations including Zambia and Kenya, a husband's funeral has long concluded with a final ritual: sex between the widow and one of her husband's relatives, to break the bond with his spirit and, it is said, save her and the rest of the village from insanity or disease. Widows have long tolerated it, and traditional leaders have endorsed it, as an unchallenged tradition of rural African life.
Now AIDS is changing that. Political and tribal leaders are starting to speak out publicly against so-called sexual cleansing, condemning it as one reason H.I.V. has spread to 25 million sub-Saharan Africans, killing 2.3 million last year alone. They are being prodded by leaders of the region's fledging women's rights movement, who contend that lack of control over their sex lives is a major reason 6 in 10 of those infected in sub-Saharan Africa are women.
But change is coming slowly, village by village, hut by hut. In a region where belief in witchcraft is widespread and many women are taught from childhood not to challenge tribal leaders or the prerogatives of men, the fear of flouting tradition often outweighs even the fear of AIDS.
"It is very difficult to end something that was done for so long," said Monica Nsofu, a nurse and AIDS organizer in the Monze district in southern Zambia, about 200 miles south of the capital, Lusaka. "We learned this when we were born. People ask, Why should we change?"
In Zambia, where one out of five adults is now infected with the virus, the National AIDS Council reported in 2000 that this practice was very common. Since then, President Levy Mwanawasa has declared that forcing new widows into sex or marriage with their husband's relatives should be discouraged, and the nation's tribal chiefs have decided not to enforce either tradition, their spokesman said.
Still, a recent survey by Women and Law in Southern Africa found that in at least one-third of the country's provinces, sexual "cleansing" of widows persists, said Joyce MacMillan, who heads the organization's Zambian chapter. In some areas, the practice extends to men.
Some Defy the Risk
Even some Zambian volunteers who work to curb the spread of AIDS are reluctant to disavow the tradition. Paulina Bubala, a leader of a group of H.I.V.-positive residents near Monze, counsels schoolchildren on the dangers of AIDS. But in an interview, she said she was ambivalent about whether new widows should purify themselves by having sex with male relatives.
Her husband died of what appeared to be AIDS-related symptoms in 1996. Soon after the funeral, both Ms. Bubala and her husband's second wife covered themselves in mud for three days. Then they each bathed, stripped naked with their dead husband's nephew and rubbed their bodies against his.
Weeks later, she said, the village headman told them this cleansing ritual would not suffice. Even the stools they sat on would be considered unclean, he warned, unless they had sex with the nephew.
"We felt humiliated," Ms. Bubala said, "but there was nothing we could do to resist, because we wanted to be clean in the land of the headman."
The nephew died last year. Ms. Bubala said the cause was hunger, not AIDS. Her husband's second wife now suffers symptoms of AIDS and rarely leaves her hut. Ms. Bubala herself discovered she was infected in 2000.
AIDS Now Compels Africa to Challenge Widows' 'Cleansing'
Sign In to E-Mail This
Printer-Friendly
Single-Page
Reprints
Published: May 11, 2005
(Page 2 of 2)
But even the risk of disease does not dent Ms. Bubala's belief in the need for the ritual's protective powers. "There is no way we are going to stop this practice," she said, "because we have seen a lot of men and women who have gone mad" after spouses died.
Jeffrey Barbee for The New York Times
Evance Joseph Fundi, headman of Ndanga, with sons, from left, Joseph, 7; John, 9; and Patrick, 10. He believes in "sexual cleansing."
Sexual Cleansers in Malawi
Forum: African Politics
The New York Times
Sex "cleansing" of widows is practiced in Mchinji and elsewhere.
Ms. Nsofu, the nurse and AIDS organizer, argues that it is less important to convince women like Ms. Bubala than the headmen and tribal leaders who are the custodians of tradition and gatekeepers to change.
"We are telling them, 'If you continue this practice, you won't have any people left in your village,' " she said. She cites people, like herself, who have refused to be cleansed and yet seem perfectly sane. Sixteen years after her husband died, she argues, "I am still me." Ms. Nsofu said she suggested to tribal leaders that sexual cleansing most likely sprang not from fears about the vengeance of spirits, but from the lust of men who coveted their relatives' wives. She proposes substituting other rituals to protect against dead spirits, like chanting and jumping back and forth over the grave or over a cow.
Headman Is a Firm Believer
Like their counterparts in Zambia, Malawi's health authorities have spoken out against forcing widows into sex or marriage. But in the village of Ndanga, about 90 minutes from the nation's largest city, Blantyre, many remain unconvinced.
Evance Joseph Fundi, Ndanga's 40-year-old headman, is courteous, quiet-spoken and a firm believer in upholding the tradition. While some widows sleep with male relatives, he said, others ask him to summon one of the several appointed village cleansers. In the native language of Chewa, those men are known as fisis or hyenas because they are supposed to operate in stealth and at night.
Mr. Fundi said one of them died recently, probably of AIDS. Still, he said with a charming smile, "We can not abandon this because it has been for generations."
Since 1953, Amos Machika Schisoni has served as the principal village cleanser. He is uncertain of his age and it is not easily guessed at. His hair is grizzled but his arms are sinewy and his legs muscled. His hut of mud bricks, set about 50 yards from a graveyard, is even more isolated than most in a village of far-flung huts separated by towering weeds and linked by dirt paths.
What Tradition Dictates
He and the headman like to joke about the sexual demands placed upon a cleanser like Mr. Schisoni, who already has three wives. He said tradition dictates that he sleep with the widow, then with each of his own wives, and then again with the widow, all in one night. Mr. Schisoni said that the previous headman chose him for his sexual prowess after he had impregnated three wives in quick succession.
Now, Mr. Schisoni, said he continues his role out of duty more than pleasure. Uncleansed widows suffer swollen limbs and are not free to remarry, he said. "If we don't do it, the widow will develop the swelling syndrome, get diarrhea and die and her children will get sick and die," he said, sitting under an awning of drying tobacco leaves. "The women who do this do not die."
His wives support his work, he said, because they like the income: a chicken for each cleansing session. He insisted that he cannot wear a condom because "this will provoke some other unknown spirit." He is equally adamant in refusing an H.I.V. test. "I have never done it and I don't intend to do it," he said.
To protect himself, he said, he avoids widows who are clearly quite sick . Told that even widows who look perfectly healthy can transmit the virus, Mr. Schisoni shook his head. "I don't believe this," he said. At the traditional family council after James Mbewe was killed in a truck accident in August 2002, Fanny Mbewe's mother and brothers objected to a cleanser, saying the risk of AIDS was too great. But Ms. Mbewe's in-laws insisted, she said. If a villager so much as dreamed of her husband, they told her, the family would be blamed for allowing his spirit to haunt their community on the Malawi-Zambia border.
Her husband's cousin, to whom she refers only as Loimbani, showed up at her hut at 9 o'clock at night after the burial.
"I was hiding my private parts," she said in an interview in the office of Women's Voice, a Malawian human rights group. "You want to have a liking for a man to have sex, not to have someone force you. But I had no choice, knowing the whole village was against me."
Loimbani, she said, was blasé. "He said: 'Why are you running away? You know this is our culture. If I want, I could even make you my second wife."
He did not. He left her only with the fear that she will die of the virus and that her children, now 8 and 10, will become orphans. She said she is too fearful to take an H.I.V. test.
"I wish such things would change," she said.
|
Anonymous
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 08:35 pm: |
|
whew |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 826
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 09:57 pm: |
|
In Sudan, we don't have any tribes that practice this particular ritual....
...but we DO have many things...borne out of Male Sexism...that are similar or just as destructive to women.
I don't believe many women in Malawi are circumcised---but Sudan is the leader in Africa with about 15% of Africa's 100 million infibulated women (mostly Muslim).
My favorite aunt, my Auntie Ramah was jailed for "witchcraft" after a certain man found out that she was a lesbian----but before that, the Zarpunni and neighborhoods had considered her a "good witch" (perhaps partly because she was "lightskinned").
And my Auntie really was a witch. I saw people die from spells she cast. I loved her to death.
Africans have a LOT of superstitions.
Some are wonderful...some are Evil.
|
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 827
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 10:03 pm: |
|
P.S.
What people in America don't realize is that any time you make the statement:
"what comes around...goes around"
YOU ARE CASTING A SPELL---envoking (wishing) a Curse.
"What comes around...goes around."
____________________
These statements---you brought from Africa:
"I brought you into this world and I will take you out" (West African wedding vows)
"What comes around....goes around." (Nilotic curse)
"Okay" (the Nigerian name OKEY, which means "all is well")
|
Jake
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 11:52 pm: |
|
I know a lot of black American males who wouldn't mind taking the job of the cleanser guy. They can never get enough puzzy! |
jackie
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2005 - 12:00 am: |
|
Yep you're absolutely right...and then a few months, years down the line...they'll die of AIDS or their penis will fall off from a new STD...ooops..watch out...don't step on it. Oh well... |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 835
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2005 - 12:03 am: |
|
LMAO!!
Jackie is too much!
|
Anunaki3600
Newbie Poster
Username: Anunaki3600
Post Number: 14
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2005 - 04:21 am: |
|
In Kenya, this ritual is practiced among the "Luo" community. The Luo's are nilotics who migrated from the Sudan a couple of hundred years ago and settled along the shores of lake victoria. The ritual where a widow has to be "cleansed" by a close relative, i.e. brother of the deseased, through sexual contact has changed slightly. Due to HIV/AIDS, close relatives do not want to participate in the ritual so these days, there is a group of "professional" men who can be hired by families to perform this ritual. These men are mostly poor men who provide this service in exchange for money and booze. They move from funeral to funeral providing their services. Educated and professional Luo women have rejected this part of their tradition due to their economic independence but poor rural women have no choice. Many NGO's are working in rural communities trying to change this particular ritual by replacing it by some other symbolic ritual. |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 838
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2005 - 10:45 am: |
|
Great info Anunaki.
I didn't know the Luo did this, but being that they're Nilotic---there are probably other tribes in my brood that do it as well. The Luo came from Sudan, so it's likely.
Thanks for posting this.
|
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2731
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 02:38 pm: |
|
Kola/Anunaki,
I gottah be REAL here.
We African American’s are much LESS inclined to want to vibe with native Africans when we hear and read of stuff like this dreadful “Widow Cleansing”, the Rwandan, Somali and (your beloved) Sudanese genocides.
I concede we’re seldom granted a fair/impartial perspective of the Mother Land. But it always seems like what’s going on in African is such a big @$$ MESS that one can hardly think of where to start or what to do.
For example, how on Earth might one seek to abolish this “cleansing” tradition? |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 864
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 03:37 pm: |
|
BUT that's EXACTLY why the Western Media only reports all those things ABM.
Because it makes you NOT want to identify with us.
You should read the Nurse's "speech" in my short story "BOY MAGIC" in the collection "Long Train".
That's exactly why these CONSTANT negative images are FED to you.
And notice---it's by the New York Times, who tried to demolish me a few years ago.
_________
They want you to marry their White Nasty ass daughter and CEASE to exist.
As an African, I see it so clearly.
And that's why MY NAME is kept out of the media.
|
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2737
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 09:55 am: |
|
Kola,
I may agree this is published at least in part to contribute to the West’s ubiquitous anti-African campaign. STILL, that doesn’t diminish that THIS is a deplorable AFRICAN practice that simply must be abolished...IMMEDIATELY.
Yet, how can anyone from the outside effect its termination without being accused by Africans as interfering in some time-honored African tradition/custom?
It’s similar to how many African Americans reject any outside criticism of certain negative aspects within our community (e.g., hip-hop misogyny, brothahs on the DL, etc.). We get so distracted by our reproofing of others we can never really address the problem.
So, again, how could (or should) African Americans approach this “cleansing” issue? |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 868
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 12:23 pm: |
|
ABM...
there are MANY deplorable African practices. Get used to it.
There's 34,000 tribes on a continent of 800 Million people.
AAs will NOT approach this issue. You must be joking. They don't give a shit.
And besides--the victims are "Black women". We don't have any unity between Black men and Black women OVER HERE.....AA men DO NOT "protect" their own women and could care less about African women. AA women might be semi-moved while reading the story, but in general, they pay such a heavy price for being related to those African women----they don't want to remind anybody WHY there's this stigma on them.
And in general, as well.....we have been CONDITIONED to accept that the plight of black people...is to "suffer".
People are just "reckless eyeballing" this issue for the week....there will be a new issue in 3 days. And the fact is.....out of all the MILLIONS of "stories" that could be told about AFRICA....it's always the most negative, most frightening ones that get reported.
This story is TRULY....not really representative of AFRICA anymore than genocide in Sudan and female circumcision is.
Those are demonic footnotes, to a much larger picture.
|
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 874
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 02:31 pm: |
|
ABM,
This "traditional ritual" of the MOUTH PLATE and "ear" stretching is a holdover from CUSHITE (Sudanese) slavery days.
It was originally instituted for female slaves--to keep them from eating as much as the males and to keep them from talking. Over thousands of years, different tribes have internalized the use of it in new ways....but it's just one of many "rituals" of African people.
___________
And in all honesty....if there were no AIDS virus ("suddenly" just now ravaging Africa after 26,000 years)....then what would be REALLY wrong with the ritual of "cleansing" other than....it's a violation of Women's rights to their own bodies?
But Africa has ALWAYS violated the woman's body, you see.
ALWAYS.
Still, if there no AIDS...I wouldn't be all that concerned about the "cleansing" ritual. There are FAR WORSE rituals than that in Africa.
|
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2749
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 05:49 pm: |
|
Kola,
If find your pessimism unfortunate.
No disrespect intended. But if what you say here about Africa is true, that Africa is so intractably mired in myriad internal stuggles, why should ANYONE - White, African American...Eskimo - at all CARE about the Motherland?
Why should African Americans in particular feel especially compelled to empathize with or adopt (or resume) African customs and allegiances?
And if you there ISN'T much of a reason for such, what's been the point of our dialog about over years? |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 875
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 06:53 pm: |
|
Why should African Americans in particular feel especially compelled to empathize with or adopt (or resume) African customs and allegiances?
____________
(1) WHOEVER SAID THEY SHOULD "RESUME" AFRICAN CUSTOMS?
I didn't.
The allegiance should be there---because those Africans....ARE YOU.
But you can't go back to Africa (DO you see ME going back???)...and you can't live customs that you're not familiar with.
What you CAN DO...and MUST DO....is choose your own identity (which is African) over that of your Slave Master/Oppressor and recognize that you brought here---to be destroyed, both mentally and genetically....and you must also see that your WHITE HOST is no better than the lowest thug or pimp or savage.... for the simple fact that slanderous, exploitative news articles like this are being printed in the first place.
and What you MUST DO is be the "representative"----the voice and protector---of your ancestral people and their homeland in this "NEW LAND/NEW WORLD".
Your function and interest should be EXACTLY the same one that the White Americans SHARE with Europe or Japanese share with JAPAN.
Europe was dying and falling apart...but is KEPT AFLOAT, nourished, sustained and supported.....by GLOBAL White Supremacy, produced and demanded by WHITE AMERICANS.
The White man is so brilliant---he even has YOU funneling all your wealth and money into HIS ANCESTRAL HOME, paying homage to it and celebrating it.
Therein is ALL the answer that you need, ABM.
You are to TAKE whatever power, knowledge and wealth you accrue in this NEW WORLD and use it to benefit, restore and NOURISH "YOUR" womb.....your womb being Africa......which is YOURS.
It doesn't matter that SOME "Africans" are practicing ANCIENT shit and living in the jungle-----there's nothing wrong with that. They're used to it and that is their way. THEIR WAY is no worse than the way we live now---I don't care how you try to see it only from YOUR experience.
I had no idea that I was "poor and barefoot" until I came to the United States.
I had no idea that "eating locusts" was ICKY until I came here---they tasted good!!
I saw all kind of sexual depravity in different African countries---but not all that different than what I've seen here.
I have a friend from Botswana who just graduated from YALE and she was telling me that she's never saw any "homeless, starving" people in all the time she grew up in her country---she also never saw any topless or naked Africans.
And that is the reality, ABM.
There are 100's of MILLIONS of AFRICANS who do not live these rituals...and who are intelligent, progressive, loving human beings who deserve to be AUTONOMOUS and SELF-RULING and who are capable of great things.
This Newspaper article is truly not REPRESENTATIVE of the entire experience and reality of the AFRICAN CONTINENT and you shouldn't allow the fact that Whites are highlighting it.......make you turn against your own people.
And hell...
After all that the WHITE and "ANYONE" has done against GOD and the world....why should the African care about them in like kind???
You really have a lot of nerve.
You think "despotic practices" ONLY take place in AFRICA?
You think all the people in Africa are worthless, LESS HUMAN than the rest of the world?
Damn. What an AGE-old concept. It's the one that brought you here and defiled you to begin with....only now you're trying to identify with it....because a WHITE MAN printed a sliver of "ugliness" about your people.
Should I damn all black men to hell just because AFRICA is one of the most sexist bastions left on earth?
_______
(2) WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BLACK AMERICANS AND AFRICANS???
You think the HIP HOP Crew is any more human, kind or moral than those Africans you're disgusted by at this moment.
I'd choose the ETHICS of that village in Mali over SNOOP DOGG's village---I tell you that.
I don't see the DIFFERENCE.
|
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 876
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 06:57 pm: |
|
And lastly
---I am NOT pessimistic.
Because of "Feminism", I am very optomistic about Africa's future.
I believe that through the Black Woman, we will eventually CHANGE COURSE and do as the Europeans do...rule through our mother---which is the way that ALL healthy groups rule.
The KEY is to find "self-love" and "self-identity". That's the only way to UNSHACKLE our minds....and the improved treatment of women will REMOVE most of these ancient practices.
Africa is an oozing sore---because the invaders made it that way. But with 800 MILLION Black people living there...
...there is tremendous hope.
|
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 879
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 07:41 pm: |
|
ABM...
Why has there never been a story about this magical place and the 15 happy, wonderful tribes that surround it???
http://www.thumperscorner.com/discus/messages/2152/5196.html?1116013229
|
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2755
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 07:37 am: |
|
Kola,
I don't know that our having some % of African blood warrants our allegiance.
You mention we should not adopt African customs. But that most certainly is what White Americans have done with their native Europe.
Conservative Pat Buchanan pundit and GOP presidential candidate was once chided for saying that America is a “European Country”. But in truth, that’s very much what it is.
Most of American language, nomenclature, laws, courts, customs, cuisine, etc. are all some derivation of European standards of some sort. The US even has Holidays based on European people and events (St. Patrick Day, Pulaski Day, etc.).
Those are the reasons why America remains faithful to Europe. It’s not just skin color.
We African Americans, however, have virtually nothing of that to draw from, except for some centuries old hereditary connections that dwindle with the passing generations.
African Americans and African must effect and recognize some commonality beyond the similarity of our skin color if were ever to fight to save each other.
And we African Americans have our own identity, customs and culture. The method by which we now communicate is a result of such.
Yes, very much of what we Black Americans do is framed via slavery and racism. And there are elements within our culture that are indefensible.
But they are ours.
And they are like kin...it is difficult to utterly abandon what's yours, even when you know it is wrong (e.g., your own infibulation).
I don’t particularly agree with much of what Snoop dogg does. But I understand it. Mali, I don’t know much of anything about. Perhaps I should, but at this point I don’t know why.
Btw: Senegal’s Pink Lake and its surrounding natural and manmade environs and setting are indeed beautiful. And the food appear scrumptious! |
|
Email This Page