Albinism in Tanzania: A Ritual Politics of Silence, Fear, and Subservience

Abstract

Violence against people with albinism (PWAs) in Tanzania continues nearly two decades after mass media reported the first incidents in the mid-2000s. The violence is linked to organ trafficking for use in “magical rituals” that allegedly help politicians and businesspeople to succeed in their endeavors. Over time, as societal awareness grows, the attacks become increasingly clandestine and complex. PWAs themselves, the public, and gray literature frequently relate the violence to the increased political and economic activity and participation following Tanzania’s adoption of political and economic liberalization. However, scholarly research is either silent or mentions the occult practices only in passing. This paper, therefore, explores Tanzania’s institutional arrangements both driving the violence and crippling the efforts at promoting the rights and welfare of PWAs in the wake of increasing political and economic participation in the country. It discusses the ways in which violence against PWAs has evolved alongside political and economic dynamics from the time such incidents came to public attention until the present. I argue that the current approach, whereby advocacy about the rights of PWAs relies on appeasing the state, appears to perpetuate the very beliefs and practices driving the violence. The exploration makes use of first-hand experience through my participation in numerous formal and informal interactions with PWAs, internal and external meetings within the Tanzania Albinism Society (TAS), interviews, and gray literature on the subject.

1. Introduction

A parade of people with albinism (PWAs) and their supporters enters the Maji Maji Stadium with hundreds of people singing, drumming, and cheering to celebrate the International Albinism Awareness Day (IAAD). Guided by three navy-blue police pick-up trucks, the parade stops and turns left to face the special guests seated at an elevated stage. While most of those in the parade disperse to join the rest of the audience in booths, tents, and other open spaces moments later, about forty people with albinism (PWAs) remain standing facing the special guests and perform a speech-like song for about five minutes, sending a message to the government and the public calling for an end to the violence targeting PWAs since the mid-2000s; the violence is linked to illegal harvesting of body organs, which are allegedly used in magical rituals to help people succeed in the political and business worlds (Bryceson et al. 2010, p. 358; Wesangula 2015). While addressing the government, the singers focused primarily on the President, mentioning her title followed by her first name “Rais (President) Samia” and other times calling her “Mama Samia”; they also referenced the “sixth phase government”, which the country’s first female president leads, as well as her political party—Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM)—of which she is the Chairperson. The song would start with praise before making the request to pay special attention to the needs of PWAs. Later in the afternoon, MC Zungu, a rapper, followed a similar pattern in his 3 min performance, adding only a nuance that “Samia” should follow in the footsteps of her predecessor, John Magufuli, under whose term of five years, attacks on PWAs decreased significantly. More importantly, the two performances and the parade appealed for more political will and action from the President and her political party, praising, requesting, and suggesting that she win another 5-year tenure for a job “well done!” Praising the government and its officials is the way that PWAs and Tanzanians at large approach the government and its agencies, requesting them to listen to and address their issues.

2. “Albinism and the Rights” Question

The otherwise timid “praise-and-plead” approach that people with albinism (PWAs) and their association, Tanzania Albinism Society (TAS), have used remains in sight in Tanzania today on several platforms and occasions. It is an informal approach to lobbying the government to address issues of concern to the public or a section thereof. While lobbying may become “more influential when the ask occurs in social settings” (Grose et al. 2022, pp. 368–71), as has largely been the case with issues affecting PWAs in Tanzania, it may generally have its own shortcomings, including public officials agreeing to work on the requests for strategic reasons in order to win public trust. While praising the government prior to asking it to take action on some crucial issues may be useful, doing so may encourage the state to not act without being praised—and therefore foster a rather transactional relationship between the state and its people instead of accountability on the part of the former—should be well noted. Writing from a legal perspective, Richard Briffault warns against improper behavior whereby lobbying would result in a “public official to take an official action in exchange for, in response to, or in order to obtain a private or personal material benefit” (Briffault 2014, p. 7). This may also apply to the lobbyists receiving favors from those in power, either to thank or silence them, and therefore compromise the interests of the groups they would be fighting for. In the Tanzanian case, except for some “defiant” opposition political parties and activists, other individuals and institutions use the strategy to “ask for favors” from the ruling party and the government, or even to remind the government of its very crucial responsibility of providing essential services to the people. Almost everyone using this approach will avoid voicing out their grievances openly and/or in a straightforward manner; they would rather present the issues as requests, suggesting that the government and the President have the will, the resources, and are thus capable of addressing the situation. Direct criticism is avoided at all costs. Although the rule remains largely unwritten, at one point in 2015, Tanzania’s former Prime Minister Frederick Sumaye stated at a rally that “businesses could operate successfully and without interruptions” if they aligned themselves with the ruling party, CCM (Mwananchi Newspaper 2015). Sumaye served as Prime Minister for ten years from 1995 to 2005 under the presidency of Benjamin Mkapa. Sumaye’s words are a part of a larger narrative linked to excessive tax exemptions in the ruling party’s efforts to raise funds for its campaigns within the party and against opposition parties amidst the highly monetized political activities in Tanzania and other emerging democracies (Therkildsen and Bak 2019, pp. 5–7, 9–17). In turn, the government, the ruling party, and the President would consider the people and institutions requesting intervention or asking for the government to take action as platforms for political publicity, apparently to garner more support, win elections, and eventually to remain in power (Therkildsen and Bak 2019, pp. 5–7, 9–17). Therefore, praising the government, the ruling party, and the President remains a powerful lobbying strategy despite its rules not being laid down anywhere on paper, or at least conspicuously; TAS and PWAs appear to embrace a similar subservient approach, just like everyone else.

As a topic, increased competition following Tanzania’s adoption of political and economic liberalization featured in most discussions in which I have participated in informal spaces regarding the infamous ritual killing of PWAs. However, little-to-no scholarly effort exists to uncover the puzzle as to why such killings take place; besides mere speculation, the reasons driving the ongoing ordeal experienced by PWAs remain largely unknown. Currently, scholarship mentions the ritual–political relationship in regard to the plight of violence against PWAs only in passing (Bryceson et al. 2010, p. 358). On the other hand, human rights activists as well as domestic and international news outlets have linked the violence targeting PWAs to the desire to acquire and maintain power and wealth through magical practices (Under the Same Sun 2018). This latter category clearly mentions that election time is the worst time for a person with albinism, as the threat of attacks increases significantly (Under the Same Sun 2018). Except for investigative journalism, as usual, time and space always constrain everyday news reporting, limiting journalists from engaging in long-term inquiry into any subject. The sensitivity of this subject further discourages researchers from committing to such an investigation, especially as it implicates politicians directly or otherwise. In this paper, I argue that the problem of ritual killings of people with albinism in Tanzania—and the fears and silences in the process—revolves around the country’s adoption of liberal political orientation, which allows for increased participation and competition both in political and economic spaces. As Samuel Huntington once reminded, while political participation and competition increase in most late-comer democracies, the institutions regulating and guiding the conduct of these increasingly popular activities remain dormant or grow at a rather snail’s pace (Huntington 1968, pp. 4, 140–90). This cultural vacuum between the past and the present triggers efforts to fill the void, which, in turn, may result in new forms or the reinvention of old forms of violence, including the failure or underperformance of previously established structures and institutions (Girard 1972, pp. 49, 66–67). Real competition started to materialize after the 2000s when the political–economic control of the state crumbled due to failing industries, which led to the people’s increased desperation and further exposed the political misdeeds of the state (Beardsworth et al. 2022, pp. 519–21). Adopting this framework to Tanzania’s local context, Bryceson, Jonsson, and Sherrington further explain that the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) have reconstituted the country’s economic setup forcing the state and its people to explore new avenues and economic opportunities, including artisanal mining, with some people resorting to using “magic” for both protection and attracting “good luck” in their mining and other newly or reinvented economic endeavors (Bryceson et al. 2010, p. 354). This happened after the country had suffered immensely from the 1970s global economic shakedown that witnessed the weakening of the agricultural sector, among others, on which Tanzania and the majority of other developing states depended. Prior to these economic troubles, Tanzania had not touched its minerals since its independence in 1961. The first president, Julius Nyerere and several of his successors considered agriculture to be the country’s economic (sic?) backbone despite the sector’s apparent declining contribution to the country’s revenues. No wonder that Catherine Boone rightly prefers labelling majority of the developing countries as “agrarian states” (Boone 2003, pp. xi, 3–4) for the fact that until today over 70 percent of the population in those states live in rural areas and depend on agriculture as their main “economic” activity.

It remains worthwhile emphasizing that transformations take time to mature. Sometimes, they may prove to be endless while producing multiple impacts. Even Tanzania’s transition from a one-party and state-controlled economy that officially materialized through constitutional amendments and legislation to allow for liberal political and economic orientation was debated for several years before taking effect. More importantly, the deliberations were shaped by global historical shifts, including the collapse of the socialist stronghold—the former USSR—which forced formerly pro-left states to submit to Western ideals in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These transformations are far from over, and it is a situation that adds another layer of complexity in defining the nature of the Tanzanian state in this case and its politics. Although the country has opened up its political and economic spaces for competition, its constitution still defines the nation as a socialist state (The United Republic of Tanzania 1977, sct. 3, p. 9). The dominance of the political party that has ruled since independence, amidst Tanzania’s weakening democratic ideals, is apparent. Therefore, Tanzania’s ensuing political and economic competition can best be understood within the framework of “competition within” the ruling party as carrying a greater weight than “competition between” political parties. In their 2019 study focusing on campaign financing, Ole Therkildsen and Ane Karoline Balk report that increased participation in Tanzanian political and economic spaces has led to increased competition and the quest for increased funding for campaigning, mainly within the ruling party and less between political parties (Therkildsen and Bak 2019, pp. 5–7, 9–17). They further report that the line between economic activities of some local business establishments and political activities, especially in supporting the ruling party, is significantly blurred, with much of such funding being channeled rather inappropriately to individual candidates and the ruling party in anticipation of more business favors once the preferred candidates are elected. This mismatch between increased participation in both political and economic activities on the one hand and the almost dormant institutions on the other may have resulted in increased chaos in the public domain, including the ongoing violence against PWAs and Tanzania’s relaxed commitment in addressing the plight in the aftermath of the widely discussed ritual killings for political and economic gains.

More importantly, research on albinism appears to avoid the ritual–political angle obviously because of the inaccessibility and the anonymity of the participants of such rituals. Moreover, as shown above, silence, fear, and subservience appear to characterize the spaces where PWAs exist and voice their grievances, including the Tanzania Albinism Society (TAS), whereby the ritual–politico question is discussed mainly at the individual and informal level rather than the institutional level. In the numerous conversations I held, I observed that interlocutors would also avoid discussing the topic for lack of information or simply shy away from divulging information that they considered to be incriminating; they would leave out information that they thought would put them into some kind of “trouble”. This timidity also characterizes the manner that TAS approaches the Tanzanian government and its several agencies, leading to delays in some important actions—such as the adoption of the National Action Plan on Albinism, which took nearly a decade to materialize—that would benefit the PWAs it represents across the country.

Methodologically, the paper builds on my involvement in numerous TAS congregations and activities including the 2023 annual celebrations of the International Albinism Awareness Day (IAAD), TAS General Assembly, its general elections, all in Songea District, Tanzania, as well as internal and stakeholder meetings both at the headquarters in Dar es Salaam, and the Shinyanga Regional Chapter. Through my direct experiences while participating in several of the association’s activities, it appears that the problem of violence against PWAs in Tanzania is informed by political trajectories and requires a greater political will and commitment to adequately address it.¹ Through these encounters, I established a rapport with PWAs from diverse experiences to learn from them in what Clifford Geertz calls “experience near” (Geertz 2008, p. 58), despite my apparent phenotypic difference from them since I do not have albinism. The information presented and the interpretations thereof emanate from my direct participation in formal and informal discussions with PWA and non-PWA interlocutors, as well as meetings within TAS and between TAS and its many stakeholders, including government agencies and civil society. In the sections below, the paper presents scenarios in which albinism and politics interact, including the relationship between elections and violence on PWAs, and finally concludes with a call to hold political institutions more accountable in order to strengthen the efforts at protecting the rights and promoting the welfare of PWAs.

3. Albinism and the Ritual–Political Spaces

“And where is the transport allowance?” jokingly asked Mchome, a lean, tall man, after he approached the registration desk carrying a baby girl in his hands. His wife accompanied him with her hands wrapped around another baby girl. The children—twin girls, one with albinism and another without—appeared to be about a year and a half old at that time. After I helped the couple to register, I escorted them inside the hall and found enough space for them to sit comfortably while caring for their young ones. Mchome and his family traveled a few hundred miles from Tunduru to Songea to attend a combination of activities including the Annual General Meeting of the Tanzania Albinism Society (TAS), the celebrations of the International Albinism Awareness Day (IAAD) the day after, as well as to elect new leadership of the association that would serve for the next five years. The question that Mchome asked me at the registration desk was a concern of the majority of people with albinism (PWAs) attending the activities. But Mchome’s “demand” for bus fare and subsistence allowance represented a lot more PWAs who were not bold enough to project their voices. While walking to the venue from our lodge that morning, Ana and David, both PWAs from Geita, a region around the Lake Victoria zone, complained of not receiving the transport and subsistence allowance the government was supposed to provide to facilitate their travel to Songea for the national celebrations. Several other PWAs complained during the IAAD at the Maji Maji Stadium the next day that Social Welfare Officers and other government officials who attended the events were well paid compared to the PWAs themselves, who were the focus of the activities. While PWAs experience discrimination and require protection, it appears that their needs are not a priority in the eyes of the public servants entrusted with handling the affairs of PWAs. Despite all these challenges, societal awareness of albinism, especially self-awareness among people with albinism themselves, appears to be on the rise, although the awareness may not translate into the absence of discrimination against PWAs. Many other PWAs, as well as non-PWAs, attending the IAAD and related activities represent a fraction of the Tanzanian population willing to learn about albinism and caring for PWAs.

While the Tanzanian government facilitates most of the activities geared toward increased protection of PWAs through TAS, its commitment and approach to doing so always leave gaps of interest to anyone investigating the experiences of PWAs in the country in the wake of the ongoing violence. District Development Directors (DEDs) are charged with facilitating travel and subsistence allowances for PWAs attending TAS business in their respective areas and when traveling nationally. PWAs are also provided with free skin-and-vision care services at designated healthcare facilities. These latter services are usually coordinated by the office of the Regional Administrative Secretary (RAS) and provided at designated government healthcare facilities. However, both the DED and RAS office holders are presidential appointees and usually ruling party loyalists whose actions would automatically seek to both represent and promote the image of the party and their appointing authority. In such contexts, conflicts of interest become apparent since the government and its agencies may consider the task of providing services to protect the rights of PWAs as charity rather than a responsibility to those for whom they are responsible. The otherwise “reciprocal” approach that would require the people to praise the government and its leaders in return for acting on their requests will more likely turn them into subservient rather than responsible activists and human welfare associations. It is no wonder that TAS complains behind closed doors that the government’s ministry responsible for matters related to disability has been the one slacking on finalizing the National Action Plan on Albinism for several years. The Plan was only finalized and adopted in December 2024 after several years of lobbying and the government acting below the bare minimum to support it for over a decade. Some insiders within TAS hold the opinion that the launching of the NAP and the support that the government currently shows may have been informed by the desire of some politicians to win the support of PWAs, as the 2025 parliamentary and presidential elections are nearing.

On the IAAD day, the Maji Maji Stadium was packed with PWAs from nearly all corners of Tanzania, apparently brought with the transportation assistance the government of Tanzania provides to facilitate the celebrations held annually and revolving across the nation’s different regions. There were military trucks and buses in sight that transported some of the PWA attendees to the events. Some of them came alone while others brought their companions, at least one or two people, with them. Of course, some parents brought their children who had albinism, or who themselves had albinism, while their children did not. The stadium was decorated with billboards of varying colors, sizes, and of course, messages, all of which focused on calling for an end to the plight of violence against PWAs or simply ending the discrimination against them. The space was packed with representatives from organizations working on advancing the rights of PWAs. Speeches from stakeholders in political, religious, law enforcement, and non-governmental organizations, as well as songs and performances by PWAs themselves and others, graced the festivities. Nearly all the speakers—individuals and groups, artists and non-artists—praised the government first before they appealed to it to scale up its commitment to ensure the safety of PWAs in the country. The speakers mainly appreciated the current President, Samia Suluhu Hassan, and her party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), for a “job well done” before they asked for more support in fighting against violence targeting PWAs in the country. The popular narrative relating political and economic activities to the ritual killings did not come up at all. In my subsequent conversations with various TAS officials, it came to my realization that the celebrations are usually conducted in similar fashions despite moving regions every year and inviting different government leaders to grace the occasions. Thus, the discourses of fear, silences, and praise for government, among others, are commonplace in such activities.

But PWAs themselves and their association happen to embrace the same approach to achieving their goals, or at least try to do so. It can be seen as a strategy. In one instance, while welcoming a popular singer at TAS headquarters, the association’s chairperson openly and cheerfully stated that he and the institution he leads support the ruling party and the President. The artist—who features in several of the party and government-related activities—has been raising two children (now adults) with albinism, ensuring that they have access to education and other services like any other children. After the artist had left, it emerged afterward that the Chairperson was lobbying to have the President—Mama Samia—grace the Albinism Awareness Day celebrations the following year, although this has not happened yet. It is no wonder that even the TAS leadership appears to align its approach with the political setup of the state in which appeasing those in the corridors of power becomes a better strategy than embracing real activism. At issue may not be the approach itself or whether the ends justify the means, but whether the means are even achieved. It may appear conspicuous that TAS and other activists of the rights of PWAs help the Tanzanian state and the ruling party politicians more than they demand more accountability from them. While individual TAS leaders may commit to politics differently, the association tries hard not to go against the government despite the grievances it might have about the many ways the different government agencies compromise the efficiency of the efforts to protect PWAs in the country.

The fear and silence could be rational choices that parties make, but at the expense of the very marginal population that carries all the burden of victimization. It can also be argued that the approach—which seeks to please the state but cannot hold it accountable; and which avoids some crucial discussions regarding the sufferings of PWAs—perpetuates such violence given the minimal commitment on the part of the government and the minimal pressure from human rights activists regarding the welfare of PWAs in the country. The approach not only detaches the government from carrying out its responsibilities; it also perpetually turns PWAs into being pawns of politics by expecting them to be responsible for their own fate, which they did not cause nor have control of (Pyysiäinen et al. 2017, pp. 216–17; Birk 2018); PWAs are not able to actively participate in the efforts to speak for their rights despite their being small in number, and TAS and other activists do not project the voices of their members loud enough. The subserviency and timidity by TAS speak largely of the bigger fear of the tendency by the state to shift the blame on the victims, a mentality mainly put into practice when exercising authority, mostly over marginal communities (Pyysiäinen et al. 2017, pp. 217–18). Apparently, TAS, which relies on government support and therefore becomes subservient to it, must go with the flow. The association’s headquarters and its chapters are mostly housed in buildings owned by the government; furthermore, TAS relies on funds directly coming from the state or indirectly through donors with significant involvement of the government. However, the question of whether the state is using TAS as a political space or whether TAS is playing along to benefit from the state may attract less straightforward answers, and although the actions of each of them appear to inform the response from the other, TAS appears to always occupy the position of the underdog. It is what Achille Mbembe calls “mutual conviviality”, in which, apart from mutual deception, no positive outcome comes out of it (Mbembe 2001, p. 128). The near-complete reliance on the government for survival may inform the efforts by TAS and its affiliates to avoid relating the ongoing violence against PWAs to political processes, including elections, despite informal narratives by TAS officials alluding to this relationship. The convivial relations between TAS and the Tanzanian state may further question the commitment of both parties to effectively address the ongoing violence against PWAs as well as the seemingly slackening efforts at raising societal awareness about albinism in different parts of the country.

4. Elections and the Albino–Ritual–Political Question

Two young men remained suspicious of my identity, doubting that I worked as an undercover police officer in the government’s effort to protect people with albinism. One, Samson, a bit more extroverted than the other, retorted, “They are all over the place; others pretend to be motorcycle taxi riders (bodaboda) transporting passengers while observing and recording carefully whatever the passengers would say. This population (i.e., PWAs) is highly protected nowadays. Security becomes tight especially during elections.” After we conversed for a while, they both became comfortable with me. I later realized that the extroverted one had accompanied his friend, Paul, to attend the commencement of his relative who is a PWA at a vocational education facility run by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania (ELCT), Lake Victoria Diocese. A total of twelve young men were awarded certificates of completion after six months of hands-on training in areas including tailoring, soap making, sculpture, and art making at the center. Initially, the center only hosted girls with albinism; according to the Bishop of the East Lake Victoria Diocese, H.E. Andrew Gulle, who graced the event as the guest of honor, it was the first time the center had trained young males with albinism after securing additional funds from their partners from abroad. Samson’s suspicion of me represents the many hesitations some people showed when I identified myself as a researcher; many others avoided me entirely or decided not to discuss the topic of the dangers facing PWAs in my study site, Shinyanga. Shinyanga is reputed for witchcraft activities and is where the first incidents of fatal violence against PWAs were reported. About ten months earlier, Hamisi, a traditional healer, shied away from discussing the processes involved in rituals utilizing human body parts—especially those harvested from PWAs—as objects of sacrifice. However, Paul briefly commented that such rituals no longer exist but have evolved into something else he described as “Msalaba (cross)”, without going into detail. But Hamisi’s decline from discussing the topic with me, for whatever reason, and the comment about the evolving nature of such secret ritual practices may point not only to the fear he and others might have when it comes to discussing issues of violence against PWAs but also the changing dynamics of aspects of culture, including the violence itself. These and other stories demonstrate the people’s fear, shame, guilt, and the unwillingness to divulge information about how such rituals take place.

The call for “improved security” featured prominently in most of the gatherings of PWAs in the time I volunteered with TAS, with an emphasis, “as we are nearing elections”, almost always being a part of the narrative. In several informal conversations, the call for improved security would be accompanied by the apparent contradiction from PWAs questioning how their organs can bring luck and help people become wealthy or win elections while society discriminates against them and does not consider them to be valuable human beings! Elections are spaces both for competition and contestation, especially in the midst of Tanzania’s adoption of liberal multi-party politics, thereby allowing increased participation in political and economic activities. And although it can be a painstaking task to establish a causation between “magical rituals” utilizing organs harvested from PWAs to attract good luck and help people succeed in their endeavors, it is in Claude Levi-Strauss’ structuralism where we learn that as long as people—many or few—believe in them, this speaks not only of the existence but also of the endurance of such beliefs (Strauss 1967, pp. 167–85). In such situations, the value and truthfulness of the beliefs become highly debatable among different factions in that society; it may require the researcher to avoid making their presence as a fact-finding mission. However, referring to the Orissa people in India, Peter Leeson suggests that sacrificial killings can be deliberate and rationally conducted to maximize gains both in the short term and the long term (Leeson 2014, pp. 138, 147). While the country’s political and economic orientation may have affected its cultural dynamics enticing people seeking power and wealth to engage in occult practices that result in inflicting pain on others, these local dynamics also dictate how the post-Cold War global democratization adjusts to local conditions; David Held and Henrietta Moore succinctly argue that globalization not only affects culture but that culture also affects the manner in which aspects of globalization operate in local spaces (Held and Moore 2008, pp. 1–3). Global forces can produce, increase, and reconfigure illegality, pain, and fear, alongside the many political and economic opportunities such as increased rate and diversity in economic activities, movement of people, goods, and services, as well as freedom of speech and association, among many others, that come with it (Camaroff and Camaroff 2006, p. 2). From this analogy, Jonathan Friedman insists on the need to understand any progress—positive or otherwise—in terms of revolutions and evolutions, focusing on the people’s “local dreams of progress, images of a future”. (Friedman 2002, p. 291). It is worth remembering that the future can be gloomy and highly uncertain as well as a promising one.

The use of cleansing rituals, which seek to cast out bad luck and attract purity or good fortune (Fernandez 2010, pp. 219–21), to help individuals succeed in their political or economic ambitions, may not be new from a religious standpoint under which space arguably “superstition” resides. The story of Abraham sacrificing his only son as a sign of gratitude and praying for more blessings to God features in both the Quran and the Bible.² From the story of Abraham sacrificing his son and Jesus dying on the cross “to save the world [sic: sinners]”, according to the Christian doctrine, it can be deduced that animal sacrifice, and human sacrifice in particular, is more valuable in these rituals. It is along these lines that Catherine Bell emphasizes that in most rituals, “the body” becomes a crucial ingredient of the process (Bell 1992, pp. 94–117). It would not be surprising then hearing some horrendous information about body parts of PWAs to be valued at varying price tags, with the whole body fetching at least USD 300,000 while individual body parts attract the minimum of USD 75,000 (Under the Same Sun 2018). Moreover, a live PWAs would be more valuable as an object of ritual, the idea being that the organs would be harvested freshly onsite, thus increasing the potency of the ritual (Winchester 2014, p. 65). This “cultural evolution” may largely speak of the commodification of both beliefs and knowledge; only people who can afford such hefty amounts of money and have knowledge of how to benefit from the expensive secret rituals will engage in them. As Elvis Imafidon recently reminded, the knowledge in question comes from the past but it undergoes manipulations and misinformation—such as the falsehood of the supernatural abilities to bring good luck attached to bodies of PWAs and other individuals with disabilities—to align with the current situation, in this case make those desiring to succeed in increasingly competitive settings to subscribe to them (Imafidon 2019, pp. 57–59). Imafidon specifically explains that people with disabilities or those who looked different were less tolerated in most African societies, a paradigm that may help us understand why caring for “different beings” may still be a challenging task today (Imafidon 2019, p. 57). Perhaps rituals involving human sacrifice for individual gains are not new, but the extent to which such rituals are practiced and the value attached to the body are the attributes that distinguish the present from the past. Sharing his experiences of living among some hunter gatherer communities in colonial Botswana, Alastair Scobie recounts a story he heard of one incident in which a brother allowed a witchdoctor to use his younger brother as an object of ritual in order to regain his lost wealth and power that he once had (Scobie 1965, pp. 6–15). Although this ritual was conducted in secrecy, just like the rituals involving organ trafficking from PWAs in Tanzania today, the object of sacrifice in Scobie’s story did not have any form of disability. It is worth noting that the apparent bias in relating the rituals to non-Abrahamic or any other established religions makes them look barbaric, African in character, and so associated with backwardness. The existing narratives so far exempt any form of Christianity or Islam, the most common forms of religion that African and Tanzanian people subscribe to, alongside their allegiance to their local belief systems.

Blaming the albino-ritual killings on African religions is not just a mere omission that misrepresents a widely known fact about Africans’ syncretic approach of subscribing to one of the Abrahamic religions while still embracing their African beliefs. Victor Turner insisted that when it comes to matters of belief, African and other communities in the non-Western world maintain the same degree of complexity (Turner 1969, pp. 1, 3) and that the rituals he observed among the Ndembu people in Zambia were directed toward economic activities for the greater good of the community (Turner 1969, pp. 4, 97). Recently, Stephen Ellis and Gerrie Ter Haar warned against the otherwise Eurocentric modernist approach of looking down on other belief practices saying that all beliefs carry the significance to their subscribers (Ellis and Haar 2004, p. 3), further telling us that in most African countries power is considered divine irrespective of the people’s religious identity (Ellis and Haar 2004, p. 406). It was Ali Mazrui who was the first to succinctly describe African society as having inherited a triple heritage where Islam, Christianity, and traditional worship practices coexist (Mazrui 1986, p. 239). In most African contexts, this religious syncretism continues to endure without clear boundaries demarcating where one belief ends and another one begins; it would be unsurprising, therefore, for someone to claim to be a Muslim or Christian and still embrace traditional African spirituality. As Mircea Eliade has argued, even in the so-called modern times, society is more religious than not (Eliade 1959, pp. 18, 163–66), and Pew Center notes that over 95 percent of people in Tanzania obviously identify as belonging to a particular religion (Pew Research Center 2012, pp. 8, 40). Similarly, people would pray for success in their activities—including performing rituals of varying nature and magnitudes—in accordance with those beliefs. There are also times when such prayers, even in the Abrahamic sense, would be criticized by some within and outside respective beliefs as going against the prescriptions of those beliefs, making them amount to sinning. These other practices would be termed shirk according to the Quran or simply ushirikina in Swahili to broadly mean going beyond what the monotheistic God has sanctioned in healing and divination practices in the Abrahamic religious traditions. From his experience researching belief systems in Tanzania, Koen Stroeken reports that some healers also combine foreign cleansing practices with African traditional approaches, allegedly to make their practices more potent (Stroeken 2017, pp. 270–71). Moreover, the interfaith nature of the Tanzanian society makes it possible for Christians to consult Islamic clerics for prayers or participate in ones in the event that they would be looking for something specific; the quest to succeed in elections or economically is no exception. Reporting on what he calls “prayer economy”, Benjamin Soares writes about the relationship between Sufi Islamic religious leaders and their followers in Nioro, a small Malian town in West Africa, that,

“Be that as it may, by giving gifts to others, people are generally seeking to assure their place in the next world, but they frequently wish to obtain merit and God’s blessings in the world in which they are living as well. […] They, the ordinary followers, in turn, pay homage to the religious leaders in part through gift-giving to them, because, by being blessed and favored, they are foremost in the hierarchy of authority before God.”

(Soares 1996, p. 744)

In recent times, this analogy may also apply to the many forms of Christianity, especially among Pentecostal or Charismatic Christian faiths rooted in preaching the prosperity Gospel. In such congregations, the priests prefer identifying as denominational, and sometimes non-religious, and only focus on the well-being and prosperity of those who choose to attend the prayers. In highly syncretic environments like Tanzania and other African countries, the followers of any such religions would also go to their ancestral roots or seek the services of traditional healers for rituals of cleansing or divination to “clear the path” for their success.

However, despite Abrahamic and African traditional beliefs coexisting, society treats the former as “modern” while the latter as “traditional”, “poor”, and “uncultured”, and therefore inferior to both Islam and Christianity (Green 2003, pp. 7, 15). In her ethnographic inquiry in southern Tanzania, Maia Green informs us that society’s embrace of most of such beliefs stem from the resources that some Christian congregations including the Roman Catholic Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Churches, as well as several Muslim communities, provided and continue to provide to fill the gap in service provision that the resource-constrained Tanzanian government has had a hard time delivering to its people (Green 2006, p. 643). The majority of the people in Tanzania also even avoid associating themselves with any forms of African spirituality, as said above, mainly for associating it with “backwardness” or “barbarity”. The government of Tanzania is no exception to embracing this modernist view either; it has on several occasions blamed the problem of organ trafficking targeting PWAs on traditional healers, leading to their arrest and prosecution (Stroeken 2017, p. 261). While some traditional healers have been shown to promote the activities that perpetuate the beliefs that subject PWAs to inhumane treatment, not all of them engage in such activities. There are healers that I spoke to who only engage in treating conditions in ways that society appreciates their expertise. Moreover, the beliefs leading to the violence against PWAs appear to also affect societies outside of the Tanzanian borders, as well as coming from those outside societies to Tanzania. The fact that Tanzania hosts the largest population of PWAs, at a ratio of nearly 1:1400 people (Kromberg et al. 2023, p. 4), makes it fall prey to the trafficking business to feed the market outside its borders. With the elections and economic endeavors narrative widespread in the informal spaces as fueling the violence, it can fairly be speculated that the political and economic climate in neighboring countries may also influence the wave of fatal violence against PWAs in Tanzania. For not seeking to adequately understand these dynamics, Tanzania’s current approach appears to be that of hunting down traditional healers, in what I would consider to be finding a quick solution to a deep-seated problem.

Koen Stroeken reports of traditional healers in some parts of Tanzania conducting their activities in hiding (Stroeken 2017, p. 265). Recognizing the privileged status they enjoy, even writers and followers of established religions usually accuse African traditional religions of witchcraft (Mwashinga 2017, pp. 23–25)—and traditional healers, for that matter—as barbaric and the ones fueling the violence against PWAs. Leo Igwe, for example, has called for preaching against the “evils of witchcraft” through Christianity, Islam, and Western education as a way of eradicating it (Igwe 2004, p. 74). It is therefore normal for Muslim or Christian religious leaders to be consulted to give blessings, especially aspirations for political positions during times nearing elections, or to lead thanksgiving prayers after elections. Seldom are traditional chiefs consulted to perform such spiritual activities. Obviously, alongside conquests, the perceived superiority of Abrahamic religions resides in their codification, which allowed them to spread fairly consistently compared to African religions, which tend to be localized to place and ethnicity and are largely passed down through oral traditions (Metz and Molefe 2021, pp. 394–95, 401; Green 2003, pp. 1–3). In one of the security audit meetings that TAS Shinyanga Regional Chapter organized, a Lutheran Church priest of one parish described traditional healers as “non-believers” driving the plight of violence against PWAs in the region, adding that subscribing to Christianity could help transform them into becoming “good people”. On a deeper level, in order to appear “modern”, the majority of Tanzanians prefer to identify with Christianity and Islam and play down their allegiance to their traditional African spirituality. Nevertheless, although both traditions embrace sacrificial rituals as a strategy to attract “good luck” and fight affliction, such as natural disasters (Under the Same Sun 2018; Bell 1997, pp. 115, 150), it should also be noted that deviations and manipulations of the beliefs exist even within the supposedly “modern” or Abrahamic religious traditions. However, in most cases, the rituals associated with these religions, whether traditional or Abrahamic, are usually performed openly and for public utility, not for private gains for individuals. On the contrary, “magical rituals” allegedly utilize human bodies—in whole or in parts—as objects of sacrifice and they do so for people’s individual gain; using a logic from Malinowski, Robert Segal posits that private rituals are intended to alleviate “anxiety, distress, fear, doubt, and sorrow” (Segal 1980, p. 179). It appears that increased competition following Tanzania’s opening up of its political and economic spaces continues to produce these anxieties that supposedly require metaphysical or divine interventions. The stiffer the competition, the more likely it is that people will choose to engage in divination activities, whether through “formal” channels—such as prayer in a mosque or a church, or religious leaders from established religions conducting the prayers at the homes of the people who request their services—or “informally” elsewhere, where such “blessings” are perceived to be more effective. In whichever form and complexity, traditional healing practices across Africa are reported to have been effective at addressing these problems with high emotional concerns (Geschiere 1997, pp. 169–98; Hewson 1998, pp. 1030–31).

The illegal harvesting of body parts from PWAs relates to the belief that PWAs possess special powers to attract “good luck”. Discrimination against and exploitation of people with various forms of disabilities for their perceived “special powers” has existed across global cultures since time immemorial (Stiker 1997, pp. 1–21). However, the discrimination appears to have evolved into commodification, with reports indicating that organs from PWAs fetch at least USD 75,000 while a living PWA is valued at USD 340,000 (Daghar 2022). If this is anything to go by, it could serve as a major pointer in the disjuncture between the ways PWAs and other people with disabilities are treated between the present and the past. There also exists the belief that sexual activity with PWAs helps cure chronic illnesses including HIV/AIDS (Ng’wanakilala 2011; Machipisa 2002). This latter belief has resulted in sexual abuse of female PWAs in some areas. Apparently, only a few individuals who believe in the rituals and can afford to pay such amounts for the organs are willing to engage in the practice. Following liberalization, therefore, the people resorting to these otherwise unconventional and highly commodified rituals for private gains do so not because of backwardness but rather due to “… modern manifestations of the uncertainties, moral disquiet and unequal rewards and aspirations in the contemporary moment” (Moore and Sanders 2001, p. 1).

Despite TAS avoiding the ritual–politico narrative due to the lack of direct evidence on the relationship between the ongoing violence and the individual’s quest for political and economic power, in their many gatherings, including meetings and informal conversations, PWAs themselves directly plead for increased security, especially in times nearing elections; they cite increased dangers of abduction for organs trafficking. As Wesangula and Under the Same Sun, among others, have cautioned, an election year is the most dangerous time for PWAs to exist in Tanzania (Wesangula 2015; Under the Same Sun 2018). Some PWAs decry the lack of participation in civic spaces, which makes them unable to speak for themselves; they criticize Tanzania’s existing political structure at the state and party levels as sidelining them and other special groups despite their efforts and determination to access those spaces—including national and local governance authorities—which are crucial decision-making spaces. Although the complaints from PWAs may add another layer to the discourse of silence and the lack of and quest for agency concerning PWAs, the subject may require detailed treatment that is impossible here in a limited space. Therefore, the information circulating in the public domain on the relationship between attacks on people with albinism and the desire by a few individuals to win elections and acquire or maintain wealth has existed for many years and therefore cannot be accidental, regardless of how hard it can be to prove it in a cause-and effect manner. The ambivalence toward relating the ongoing violence against PWAs to occult economies is owed to the researcher’s quest to “stay safe”, due to the lack of direct evidence to support the claim. It is a product of the otherwise lack of direct causation between the two variables; however, causal logic occupies a very small space in belief systems, if it does at all. Knut Christian Myhre, however, suggests a metaphorical approach to studying magical activities, especially in her analysis of how body parts from PWAs would make sense in the metaphysical world; she says that the objects of sacrifice—and in this case, body parts from PWAs, as it is rumored—need to have in them the quality that reflects the expected outcome (Myhre 2017, p. 170). Myhre’s line of reasoning aligns with Emile Durkheim, who, in relating the sacred to the profane, once said that “… the magic interdiction is judged only by the material consequences which the forbidden act is believed to produce, with a sort of physical necessity” (Durkheim 1965, p. 339). Myhre’s approach falls within the longstanding tradition whereby scholars use symbols in studying belief-related subjects for the meaning they carry as well as their acceptability by those subscribing to the beliefs and how the general public views matters related to beliefs (Whistler 2016, p. 734). In describing religious symbols, Paul Tillich attaches their significance to “a representation of that which is unconditionally beyond the conceptual sphere …” (Tillich 1958, p. 4). As mentioned above, in some circles, PWAs are rumored to possess such powers, whereby their bodies can help attract good luck and success (Dapi et al. 2018, p. 13), and whereby PWAs can therefore be sacrificed for the benefit of others (Phatoli et al. 2015, p. 5). As Sheryl Reimer-Kirkham and colleagues have noted, it is worth noting that the negativity attached to albinism overwhelms any societal awareness about the condition in most African societies (Reimer-Kirkham et al. 2019, p. 756). More importantly, these stories and rumors appear to call for a deeper investigation beyond the rather discrete five-year electoral tradition on which scholarship happens to passingly focus its attention.

It is worth insisting that there exists no level playing field between political parties in most emerging democracies, and Tanzania is no exception. Political incumbents, whether individuals or their parties, have enjoyed significant leverage in African elections even at “the height of the third wave of democratization” (Beardsworth et al. 2022, pp. 516–17), due to their tight grip on the state and its instruments; only a few political parties in Africa have stayed in power despite the transitions from single-party to multi-party systems, including Tanzania’s ruling party, Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), which has ruled since independence in 1961. CCM stands above the rest of the other political parties in Tanzania; it boasts of not only a majority following in the country but has also sanctioned and nurtured Tanzania’s political and economic liberalization; it is the party that was in power during the transition, and of course, all the time until the present. Thus, competition for nomination within the CCM can be equally or even more competitive compared to competition between candidates belonging to different political parties. Consequently, this may drive up the uncertainty among candidates vying for political positions, as well as the need for “spiritual blessings” and campaign financing within the long-reigning political party.

Equally important in the mix are the local government elections that take place every five years but are usually preceded by the parliamentary and presidential elections a year prior. Likewise, there are elections conducted within the CCM party itself, which are held a year after the country’s general elections. Although these were competitive even during the single-party system, as competition among candidates resided only within the one-and-only political party at the time, they have become very competitive over the years following Tanzania’s adoption of liberal multi-party politics, given CCM’s dominance in Tanzania’s political space. Most political parties use the local government elections to lay the foundation for the general elections the following year. They are highly contested, as most individuals desiring to contest during the general elections support candidates in the lower-level polls who would support them back in their political aspirations the following year. More important here is the fact that there are equally and even more competitive elections a year prior to the general elections and a year after it, making the election season last at least three years, allowing only a two-year break in between. As mentioned in the preceding section, the electoral culture and dynamics in Tanzania’s neighboring countries—whose nuanced explanation is not featured here—may also influence the security of PWAs in Tanzania. While campaign financing in each of these elections might be lower compared to funds spent during parliamentary and presidential elections, it is usually the potential contestants for councilors and parliamentary positions who install, finance, and seek the support of those vying in the local government elections. Therefore, the trend of political elections in Tanzania appears to be rolling almost constantly, thus calling for the need for “cleansing” and “blessings” almost all the time, which may in turn inform the rather random and nearly all-time violence against PWAs in the country. As an advantage, the ruling party, CCM, maintains a better presence in most areas compared to the rest of the opposition parties. Therefore, success within and support by the CCM carries more significance for those aspiring to run for public office positions since the party’s strength may help them win against their counterparts from the opposition parties. This may affect even the way non-partisan institutions approach lobbying and advocacy of the groups for which they work or seek to protect. The Tanzania Albinism Society (TAS), among other organizations, may find itself embracing this rather timid approach of giving in to politics and politicians at the expense of the people for whom they advocate.

5. Concluding Remarks

The manner in which violence against PWAs has been covered over the years signifies silence, fear, gaps, and a politics of mutual utility between political institutions and politicians, on the one hand, and advocacy groups and associations representing PWAs, and even scholarship, on the other. Whether deliberate or accidental, these omissions appear to compromise the political will and obligation on the part of the government to protect its people, especially vulnerable groups, including PWAs, who require such protections in times of great need and uncertainty caused by increasing political and economic competition in Tanzania and other African countries. While Achille Mbembe would describe this in terms of mutual conviviality, in that the interests of different players are so woven together to the extent that it becomes hard to criticize the government for fear of retribution (Mbembe 2001, pp. 110–12, 128), it is apparent that institutions advocating for the rights of PWAs find themselves in the trap of fighting for their people and pleasing the government as a means to avoid confrontation and achieve what they want. Both of these competing objectives occur simultaneously. Moreover, neither the government and politicians nor the rights advocacy associations seem to openly admit responsibility in slowing down the efforts to protect people with albinism in Tanzania; when doing so, the tone becomes subtle enough making it sound like “praise-and-plead” for the ruling party and the government, or vice versa, as a way to have the other party acknowledge the requests without feeling blamed or pressured by the advocacy groups. Obviously, politics stands tall even in crafting policy and development projects, augmenting the opinion of one interlocutor who attributed the ongoing violence to politics and thus requiring political solutions. However, leaving the protection of PWAs in the hands of the very institutions that appear to be incapable of handling the increasing challenges that come with increasing political and economic participation, as well as individual politicians rumored to be the primary beneficiaries of the troublesome acts, exhibits a clear conflict of interest.

While Alhassan Ibrahim and Alhassan Siiba recently recommended that development planning needs to be handled by politicians through their election manifestos (Ibrahim and Siiba 2019, p. 2), the practice appears to have already been going on for decades without yielding desirable results. While the “praise-and-plead” approach to lobbying for PWAs appears to have contributed to the promises that the Tanzanian state, the all-time ruling party, and officials in different capacities have made, including protecting PWAs as one of their targets during campaign events, most such plans await implementation. As pointed out in the preceding sections, some departments in the government of Tanzania have been impeding the very plans conceived by and intended to push for the increased security and welfare of PWAs in the country. There is a need, therefore, for institutions to grow strong enough to ensure an effective oversight of the increasingly complex political and economic activities that influence the people’s many cultures. In the case of violence against PWAs in Tanzania, political institutions and individual politicians at the helm of leadership directly and indirectly appear to have been a hindrance to the realization of the very efforts aimed at protecting the rights and promoting the welfare of PWAs. Although manifestos can serve as informal contracts between parties and their voters, especially after elections are over (Dolezal et al. 2012, p. 888), their partisan nature may question their commitment to serve the larger population of a country beyond the political victory its designers may have sought to achieve. Therefore, the “praise-and-plead” approach that PWAs and their association(s) embrace in advocating for their rights in Tanzania may become futile for its focus and dependence on the goodwill of those in power rather than holding the institutions accountable. Moreover, there can be a mismatch between what is promised in the documents and the implementation that would follow. In this case, the welfare of PWAs in Tanzania should not be pegged to the singing of praise to either a political party or state officials. Experience shows that doing has not made the government sufficiently honor their demands. While politics may appear unavoidable, extreme reliance on the otherwise malfunctioning political institutions may further contribute to sustaining the very beliefs perpetuating the very beliefs that drive the inhumane activities.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Florida (Protocol Number 202300659 of 26 April 2023).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in this study are included in the article. Further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Acknowledgments

The study would not have been possible without institutional support from Tanzania Albinism Society (TAS), Department of Anthropology as well as Center for African Studies at the University of Florida. The author wishes to extend his appreciation to Abdillahi Omar, Godson Mollel, Alex Salehe, and Eunice Manumbu of the Tanzania Albinism Society, as well as Adrienne Strong of the University of Florida, and a host of interlocutors from different parts of Tanzania who participated in this study. The author takes full responsibility for the content of this publication.

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Footnotes

Notes

1. Ernest Makulilo (researcher on issues of violence on people with albinism) in discussion with the author, 30 May 2023.

2. The Holy Bible, Genesis 22: 2–20; The Holy Quran, As-Saffat: especially, 37: 102–9.

Footnotes

Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

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