LECTORAAT CHANGE MANAGEMENT – De Haagse Hogeschool

My journalism and media students just finished a COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) project with communication design students from the Central University of Technology (CUT) in Bloemfontein. Their assignment was to interview their partners from CUT about gossip in South Africa: what are the attitudes towards gossip there? What do people talk about? And their partner from CUT had to create an illustration for their article. I would like to share some of the (very interesting) results with you!

To begin with, students claim that gossip is very prevalent in South Africa, probably because of the strong oral tradition there. “Myths are very present in my culture,” Lebohang Morabe explains. “When I was little, my grandma used to tell me these stories before I went to sleep. Now that I’m older, I realize that what she was really doing was just relating those myths and legends to true stories of people she knew. She was just gossiping.”

According to the CUT students, people love to talk about who is having an affair with whom and why.  Appearance is also an important topic. While these topics are also quite juicy in other cultures, there are certainly variations here.

“If an individual loses a lot weight in a short period of time,” Fanqa Nyakallo observes, “people would gossip about them in the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.” Losing weight is definitely a no-no, as it is seen as a sign of illness. “These types of gossip are usually the same regardless of where one is from in South African townships.”

Illustration by Karabo Motswadi

What did surprise me, though, is the importance of witchcraft as a topic of gossip and rumors.

“Last year,” Khanyo Nxusani recounts, “one of our classmates that was supposed to graduate passed away the day before his graduation. The reason for his death is still unknown. According to his family and friends, it all happened so unexpectedly because he seemed perfectly healthy. So, a lot of people are speculating that there might be some kind of witchcraft involved.”

“Personally, I didn’t believe it at first because, I don’t really believe in superstitions and all those things,” Khanyo says, “but I feel like there’s no other way to explain this. I can’t come up with something else. And no one can come up with a reason why it happened. So I’m basically forced to believe it, that it does exist, and it played a part in this incident.”

Illustration by Khanyo Nxusani

Intrigued by all of this, I spoke to Tsholofelo, my counterpart working with me on this COIL project. Indeed, she told me that these beliefs are particularly prevalent in less privileged communities, such as Chiawelo, in Soweto. When hardships strike, when people die, witchcraft is very often the way people make sense of these situations.

“If someone were to suddenly acquire wealth, people would usually say they have a snake, suggesting it’s witchcraft,” Fanqa explains.

Indeed, jealousy is very often a huge motivation to revert to witchcraft. According to Khanyo, “There is a stigma that when you start showing signs of success, you are putting a target behind your back.”

“My mother was also very scared to be a victim of witchcraft,” Tsholofelo Tshabadira told me. “When she was pregnant with me, she would cover her belly with her purse, to not show that she was pregnant. She had found cow hooves in her garden, and was scared that some witchcraft was being performed.”

According to Tsholofelo, “people would do anything to get rich, or to attract ladies.” So they often try to perform certain rituals, such as drinking blood or sleeping with snakes.

Karabo explains: “We heard rumors that people, when they want to get rich, they get snakes, then, this snake will sleep with girls, and then you get money. But this only lasts a certain time, and you sacrifice your life. So, then when that period comes, you die, or you lose your riches. So then you need to sacrifice your family and all that…”

Needless to say, such beliefs give way to a large amount of gossip and rumors. Who is a victim of witchcraft? Who is a perpetrator? What could be the reasons?

“Many people go to see a sangoma, a traditional healer, to counteract a spell,” Tsholofelo explains. “But a good way to avoid being a victim of witchcraft is to not stick out too much. If something good happens to you, it’s best to keep it quiet.”

And if you are accused of performing witchcraft? In his article, “Witchcraft and accusations of witchcraft in South Africa,” John Hund notes that such rumors can have serious consequences. “The escalation of witchcraft accusations has generated … whole communities of outcasts accused of being witches (along with their families). [They] have been placed in hopeless situations under the protection of the police.”

So, how can you protect yourself against such rumors? To be continued…  in our next COIL project!