Reflection: My Dilemma in East Africa Related to COVID-19
Jim Harries (b. 1964) has engaged in detailed research into inter-cultural communication between the West and Africa since 1988. He has a PhD in Theology (University of Birmingham, UK). Jim’s home, located in a Kenyan village, functions in African languages, as does his practice of Bible teaching, which is his main local ministry. Jim has published 10 books and numerous articles. He chairs the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission (http://www.vulnerablemission.org).
Serving God amongst people requires being committed to them. Personally, my “acutest” level of commitment is and has been to an average of 12 children who have been living in my home, myself as adoptive-father, since 1997. Obviously they change. The oldest in my home now was not even born when I started taking in children. Almost all are full orphans; no known living parents. Throughout these years I have worked together with the same house-mother, a lady who was widowed in 1994. Intentionally, my home is neither in a town, in a “safe” area, or in a better-off location. I live in a house which I rent cheaply because it is far from the road, where other (African) people don’t want to live. My connection to people in the community is such that I live as they live: same food, same source of water, same mosquitoes, same language, same standards of hygiene, same fuel for cooking, same “ragged” clothes for children, same church to attend, same openness to neighbors dropping in, same system for washing clothes, same routine for cleaning dishes—in other words, same vulnerability.
In my 32 years of cross-cultural service in East and Southern Africa, I have made many major efforts at listening to local people, having learned three African languages, deciding to live in a village with indigenous people, profoundly engaging with local churches, and so on.
My predicament in the current pandemic is not so different to that of African people, now left with the choice to either be grossly selfish and look after “me-only” by following advice coming from the West, or to ignore “science” for the sake of others. I want to take this occasion to explain why I question the applicability of social-distancing in Africa.
African Orientation to Closeness and Inter-Dependency
African ways of life are designed to keep people close to one another and dependent on one another. This orientation contributes to ways in which people get their daily bread from their daily labor. People have to ignore the command to “stay at home” in order to find food each day. People do not try to build up a reserve for a “rainy day.” Many conflicts arise from envy, and a way of reducing envy is not having things or doing things for others to be envious of. This contributes to a lot of poverty. People are expected to do things in ways that are visible to their neighbors and the wider community, as anything to the contrary can be interpreted as selfishness, and anything done secretly can be interpreted as witchcraft. Hence, telling people to “lock-down” makes little sense.
Witchcraft and Envy
A major problem with the above system is the distrust and deception that it engenders. African witchcraft is little understood in the West. The power-house of witchcraft is envy. In many respects, in my view, the English term witchcraft is a poor descriptor of what is going on in Africa today. Terms currently translated into English as witchcraft could be better translated as “envy.” The latter would more accurately communicate the normality and irrevocability of what is going on. I think Western people would agree that “envy” is simply a part of being human. Thus is “witchcraft” in Africa.
Fear of envy, or avoidance of envy, motivates a great deal of African people’s behavior. It contributes to why people live outside of their houses if they can, so as not to appear to be harboring secrets or behaving destructively in secret. In many communities, witchcraft is considered the default cause of suffering.
This has me particularly concerned in regard to the mandated practice of social-distancing. In many parts of Africa, the Christian church is the primary counter to the belief that “witchcraft” is the cause of suffering. But now churches that provide productive organized meetings of people are closed, in aid of social-distancing, while the rest of African ways of life continue to involve a great deal of inter-personal proximity.
Intense witchcraft beliefs result in shunning, “isolating,” and in some cases eventually killing those considered guilty. This certainly runs at loggerheads with Western bio-medical advice to self-isolate. Countering COVID-19 should not be allowed to become a backdoor to the revival of witchcraft. There is in my view an extremely urgent need to re-open places of worship, if need be with allowance for social distancing. Being in a crisis does not put human sinful nature or need for God on hold. People should be strongly encouraged to worship God and receive teachings at least for a couple of hours weekly, if not daily.
Social Conscience
Compliance in the West with bio-medical knowledge confirm ways in which the West has a strong “social-conscience.” That is, in much of their life and activities, Western people see themselves as working towards a collective good, based on some kind of rational understanding of how that collective good is to be achieved. The same is largely or entirely absent in parts of Africa. It is taboos, and not visions of collective purpose, that keep people together. It is therefore much harder to expect African people to simply comply with instructions supposedly for the collective good, that do not make sense to them as individuals and with respect to their communities’ norms.
Physical Force to Enforce Social Distancing
Because social distancing does not make sense in the African context, African governments are using force to appear to be following advice constantly drummed into their ears by the global community: social-distancing and self-isolation. The reason they are using force is because if they did not use force, then their people wouldn’t do what they were told.
If even adults respond to governments only under threat of beatings, what about children? Having reared African children for well over 20 years, I have gotten to understand them quite well. They can be very cooperative and compliant provided they are told to do things which they understand and that are in line with their people’s tradition. Tell them anything contrary to the above, and they’ll easily say “yes” to your face, but “no” in their actions! So, right now, there is only one way in which I could stop my children running around all over, ignoring social-distancing, and playing with every other child in the village who may be carrying COVID-19. And that is to start beating them (i.e. caning them) regularly, painfully, and hard.
My living context leaves me to make a decision that none of my Western friends or supporters in this work, has to make. That is, either to instantly and fearfully drop 23 years of investment into children’s lives, scattering souls I have nurtured for decades to the wind, damaging 32 years of witness and ministry. Or, to daily expose myself to high-risk levels of COVID-19 infection—exactly what all the wisdom from the West is saying one should not do—by continuing to live shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of African kids. (Note that African people face a similar dilemma, quite likely to be, that to social distance is to break faith with all your friends and family.)
Why am I writing this? Partly, simply to explain a context in Africa that the West doesn’t seem to be getting. Partly, to justify why I am, in terms of contemporary wisdom in the West, on a course of suicidal folly.