Recently, a story which has been circulating in Cameroon for over twenty years broke out anew in the town of Buea, in the Southwest Region of Cameroon. That old story is the story of pythons that swallow young ladies, especially young ladies in university towns. This story first became popular when I was still a student at the University of Yaoundé, Cameroon, in the early 1990s. At the time, it was announced over the radio in Yaoundé that a young lady who was a student at the University of Yaoundé, had been swallowed by a python in a hotel. The story went abroad that a wealthy, older man who wanted to have an affair with the young lady had promised to give her much money upon the consummation of the affair. Enticed by the money, the young lady followed the man into a hotel room and while there the man transformed into a python and swallowed the girl. No girl was ever reported missing but many people believed the story.
Recently, however, the same story broke out in the university town of Buea. The story went that a senior police or military officer or a business person (these things are hardly clear) went into a hotel with a girl who lived in Buea. The man proceeded to transform into a python and swallowed the girl. When this story was reported a couple of weeks ago, over ten thousand people poured into the streets in Buea and marched to the said hotel to rescue the girl from the python. No girl was reported missing, something that would need to be the case if a girl had been swallowed by a python. In spite of the fact that no girl was reported missing, people still insisted that a girl had be devoured by a python in a hotel room.
One enterprising young man who heard the story went on the internet and printed out an unrelated picture of a python swallowing a girl and started selling the pictures in the streets, as if they were pictures of the actual even. (Superstition has now gone hi-tech!)The police intervened and stopped the sale of the pictures. In all this, however, it was only the owner of the hotel who clearly denied that he knew of no incident dealing with a python swallowing a girl in his hotel. Public officials only used teargas and gunshots to disperse the gathered crowd. They did not confirm or deny the claims of the story. And so to this day, there are many in Buea and Cameroon as a whole who believe that a python swallowed a young lady at a hotel in Buea. Before that, it was in Yaoundé.
The fact that no public official either denied or confirmed this story leads me to believe that our ruling elites have a vested interest in keeping people in the dark. Disabusing the people from believing such incredulous stories would make them begin to wonder about other untruthful stories they may be tenaciously holding. Where public officials benefit from telling lies, they would hardly want to run the risk of clarifying untruthful stories.
All this brings me to what is my personal interest in this story. The imagination that grants credibility to human beings turning into pythons and swallowing other human beings is a religious imagination. Those who have vested interests in presenting Africans as deeply religious people will not want to disabuse the populace of this ruinous imagination. As a scholar of religion this concerns me because in attempt to encourage the religious imagination in Africa, free reign is given to incredulous beliefs that sometimes lead to unsound outcomes. The hotel in this story was partly destroyed by the gathered crowd.
Two groups, however, have vested interests in keeping the people in the dark about these kinds of stories and both of these groups belong to the elite of the Cameroonian society - the ruling elites and the preachers and scholars of African religion. In this matter, the interests of corrupt ruling elites and those of the religious leaders in society coincide. For both of these groups, the calculation is that the people better remain in ignorance than lose their ignorance and start asking uncomfortable questions. Better the people remain ignorant and religious than knowledgeable, argumentative, and irreligious. That is not the African way. Those things are for corrupt, Westerners; not for good African people. Africans need to be different, you know. Africans need to be different. They are better people. Anthropologists and scholars of religion will have a field day with this. I wait to read about it in scholarly journals about how religion is waxing strong in Africa.
Recently, however, the same story broke out in the university town of Buea. The story went that a senior police or military officer or a business person (these things are hardly clear) went into a hotel with a girl who lived in Buea. The man proceeded to transform into a python and swallowed the girl. When this story was reported a couple of weeks ago, over ten thousand people poured into the streets in Buea and marched to the said hotel to rescue the girl from the python. No girl was reported missing, something that would need to be the case if a girl had been swallowed by a python. In spite of the fact that no girl was reported missing, people still insisted that a girl had be devoured by a python in a hotel room.
One enterprising young man who heard the story went on the internet and printed out an unrelated picture of a python swallowing a girl and started selling the pictures in the streets, as if they were pictures of the actual even. (Superstition has now gone hi-tech!)The police intervened and stopped the sale of the pictures. In all this, however, it was only the owner of the hotel who clearly denied that he knew of no incident dealing with a python swallowing a girl in his hotel. Public officials only used teargas and gunshots to disperse the gathered crowd. They did not confirm or deny the claims of the story. And so to this day, there are many in Buea and Cameroon as a whole who believe that a python swallowed a young lady at a hotel in Buea. Before that, it was in Yaoundé.
The fact that no public official either denied or confirmed this story leads me to believe that our ruling elites have a vested interest in keeping people in the dark. Disabusing the people from believing such incredulous stories would make them begin to wonder about other untruthful stories they may be tenaciously holding. Where public officials benefit from telling lies, they would hardly want to run the risk of clarifying untruthful stories.
All this brings me to what is my personal interest in this story. The imagination that grants credibility to human beings turning into pythons and swallowing other human beings is a religious imagination. Those who have vested interests in presenting Africans as deeply religious people will not want to disabuse the populace of this ruinous imagination. As a scholar of religion this concerns me because in attempt to encourage the religious imagination in Africa, free reign is given to incredulous beliefs that sometimes lead to unsound outcomes. The hotel in this story was partly destroyed by the gathered crowd.
Two groups, however, have vested interests in keeping the people in the dark about these kinds of stories and both of these groups belong to the elite of the Cameroonian society - the ruling elites and the preachers and scholars of African religion. In this matter, the interests of corrupt ruling elites and those of the religious leaders in society coincide. For both of these groups, the calculation is that the people better remain in ignorance than lose their ignorance and start asking uncomfortable questions. Better the people remain ignorant and religious than knowledgeable, argumentative, and irreligious. That is not the African way. Those things are for corrupt, Westerners; not for good African people. Africans need to be different, you know. Africans need to be different. They are better people. Anthropologists and scholars of religion will have a field day with this. I wait to read about it in scholarly journals about how religion is waxing strong in Africa.
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