All this is nothing more than an excuse for not having a new blog ready for today. So I'm reposting a slightly updated one about someone I greatly respect and admire, who has written a novel with a similar backstory to Deadly Harvest - Unity Dow.
Unity Dow is an
extraordinary woman by any standards, but even more so by the standards of
male-oriented Botswana. Born in 1959,
she became a lawyer and immediately took up the cause of women’s rights in
Botswana. In a landmark case, she
challenged the constitutionality of a law which excluded her children from
citizenship because of her husband’s foreign nationality. She won this, solidifying the equal gender
rights promised by the constitution.
Later she became a High Court judge – the first woman member – and
served for 11 years. During that time
she was one of the justices involved in the High Court challenge that gave the
Bushman peoples the right to return to their traditional lifestyle in the
Kalahari. She later served on a
commission redrawing the Kenyan constitution. Currently she is in private practice, but there are goals in other area that she has set her sights on.
She is also a talented
writer. She has written four novels
reflecting deep issues in contemporary Botswana: the struggle between
traditional and Western values, the AIDS pandemic (Botswana and South Africa compete
for the world’s highest infection rates), and ritual murder.
The Screaming of the Innocent is a powerful
book. A young girl vanishes; the police
guess that she has been eaten by a lion, but the reader knows that she has been
ritually murdered for body parts reputed to bestow great power. Years later a female student doing national
service in the community comes across a box of clothing which seems to belong
to the missing girl. But after she draws
attention to it, the box vanishes. She seeks out a friend – now a lawyer – and
the two young women pursue the matter together.
The book is good not
only because of the intriguing characters and plot, but because the reader
finds the premise completely believable because the perspective is purely
African. To westerners, witchcraft has
become almost flippant superstition – like avoiding a black cat. But in many African cultures it is not only
respected and feared, but deeply believed.
It is this that Dow manages to capture so well in her novel. She makes no bones about the influence of
male dominance being connected with these issues. When her evil characters are plotting the
murder, they look for “a man with a hard heart, a heart of stone, a heart of a
real man”. And, of course, they find
such a man. The heroine follows the twists
and turns and seems to be taking us to a successful resolution. But Africa is often not like that.
The book was first
published in 2002 by Spinifex Press in Australia – a boutique publisher
specialising in books focussing on women’s issues – and subsequently published
in South Africa. Fortunately, it is
widely available. It is a harrowing
book, but one well worth reading.
It is tempting to see
the premise of the story as an ingenious (if ghoulish) invention, but it is probably
based on a real case which would have been well known to Dow. In 1994 a 14-year-old girl named Segametsi and her friend Monnye
decided to sell oranges in Mochudi (a small town where they lived) to raise
money for a church trip to Francistown.
The girls separated near the house of a man called Mokgalo. Segametsi was never seen alive again. Her body was found with fatal chest wounds
and a variety of body parts removed, possibly while she was still alive. Clearly she had been murdered to harvest
these organs for muti, “medicine”
made from human flesh.
Nothing was obvious
about the case. Circumstantial evidence
pointed to Mokgalo and he was held briefly, perhaps as much for his own safety. Soon he was released. Monnye then came up with a story that Mokgalo
previously had made advances to Segametsi.
Mokgalo was held again. And in an
almost unbelievable turn of events the girl’s father made a confession that he
had accepted a promise of 1,200 pula (about $150) to help with the girl’s
abduction. Mokgalo was held for two
months. During that time the police
became suspicious of the stories they had been told. The father was sent for mental
examination. Both the father and the Monnye
eventually withdrew their stories, and the suspects were released. This led to rioting in Mochudi and nearby Gaborone
and the focus moved from the murder to public order. The police and soldiers reacted violently and
many people were injured. One was
deliberately killed by a policeman.
The government was
under continuing pressure and eventually was obliged to ask Scotland Yard to
send a team to independently investigate the murder and the police conduct of
the case. This lack of trust in the
police and people in authority is all reflected in Dow’s novel.
The policeman who
killed the suspected rioter was sentenced for manslaughter and the government
paid his family about $100,000 in compensation.
Mokgalo won a case for wrongful arrest, but describes himself as a
broken man who is still treated with suspicion.
The Scotland Yard report has never been made public. No one has been arrested for the murder of
Segametsi.
The belief in the
power of evil medicines and witches has another somewhat unexpected and
damaging consequence. Since witchcraft
is used to ensure success in financial and other ventures, it can be dangerous
to appear too successful. If you have risen faster and farther than
others, is it not possible that you too may have dabbled with muti?
This perception may be very dangerous for you indeed. It is safer to be mediocre…
Michael – Thursday.
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I don't know how you played in Oconomowoc, Michael, but they loved you in Bristol!
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