There are many practices
which were before now thought to be right and very
legal but as time passed
people realised that they are bad and had to bring
them to a stop. Such practices
include Slavery, killing of twins, just to
mention a few. Insanity in Africa can
be reduced, if not totally stopped,
if only we can give a critical look to
its occurrence with positive
attitude to stopping them, especially those human
inflicted insanity
cases which I believe are the most occurring in Africa.
It might surprise you to
hear that Slavery was one time legal and a rightful source of revenue
generation. But that is the situation, even religious groups gave strong
support to it. In the early years, Christians imposed slavery in many different
forms for over 18 centuries. Then, it was a normal feature of the economy and
society in the Roman Empire, and this remained well into the middle Ages and
beyond. Most Christian figures in that early period, such as Saint Augustine,
supported continuing slavery while some such as Saint Patrick were opposed.
Centuries later, as the abolition movement took shape across the globe, groups
who advocated slavery's abolition worked to harness Christian teachings in
support of their positions, using both the 'spirit of Christianity', biblical
verses against slavery, and textual argumentation.
Also, Killing of twins was
a normal practice in some African communities, especially the eastern part of
Nigerian, because they saw the birth of twins as evil and an abomination. In
the Calabar region of Nigeria, killing of twins was practiced strongly but the
good old Mary Mitchell Slessor, a Scottish Missionary to [Calabar] Nigeria,
fought strongly against it bringing the practise to a stop. When she started
the fight, people called her names, regarding her as eccentric but she
determined and brought the killing to a stop. There are many minor bad practices, varying from community to community, country to country, that were later stopped because people came to realise that they were bad. I mean, for example, how can you ask a widow to drink water used to wash her dead husband, in order to prove her innocence [think about the hygiene, if not the human right violation]; How can you collect all her dead husband’s properties [what will she use to raise up her young children].
Humanly inflicted insanity case is one urgent area that I think should be visited. Many people know about it but want to shy away from it due to fear. If the Human right activists want to be true to what they fight for this area should be visited. Also if the Religious groups want to be true to what Jesus Christ, or Prophet Mohammed, stood for [against oppression] this area should be visited and stopped. We don’t have to keep silent about it and let people continue to suffer to insanity and to death. We know that in most cases the evil men who take advantage of these bad cultures are strong and influential people in the society but we should maintain a good stand to fight against it. That is how Killing of Twins, Slavery, was stopped.
Think about it, is all insanity cases from God, as the evil men claim to confuse people? Or why should we want to run anyone mad, for personal gain? Does your victim’s wealth actually come to you [and what if it really does, should we be that wicked]? If anyone commits offense, do you have to run the fellow mad? What happens to “Innocent until proven guilty”?
………..A case of these guy who use to sell electrical Material in the market. One day we heard that he is mad. We still see him come to market looking healthy. After some time we didn’t see him, only to see him again after some months in rags. What happened? He couldn’t bear the maltreatment and had to run out of the town abandoning his shop.....such is one example out of many
…………This young lady, just fresh from nursing school, to come and establish a maternity home. Suddenly we heard that she was mad. Today she is roaming the streets mad.....What is the cause?
………..This young lady, coming from school one afternoon set herself ablaze in her room. The story we heard is that she has been complaining how people make mockery of her and maltreat her. I was very small then, but you can guess what happened.
……….This young guy just fresh from Marine school with excellent result. Got job in a Ship. Coming back, all we could hear about him is that he is mad [ko do ewooo]. What happened, hatred. I mean if you don’t like him, why employ him or why not drop him…….must you go to the extent of running him mad? The worst thing is that all these things are murmured in secrecy so that the victim will not have any tangible base to defend himself.
The above are few examples
of many humanly inflicted insanity cases. It is ruining the lives of many; Driving
many to their untimely death. Don’t forget that many have met with accidental
death or poisoning because they tried to tell that this practise is bad. And
why should we stand strong to bring this to a stop? The reasons are obvious:
(i) It is used for cruelty; (ii) It is used to oppress the weak; (iii) It is
carried out in secrecy (iv) It is a violation of a person’s human rights; (v)
So, many of the Insane people we see on the streets are actually forced to
insanity; Etc.
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