Accidents: Effectiveness of road cleansing rituals

HE that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned. That is fate. It brings you things you never asked for and you don’t always like.

It is fate that people die the way they do but taming the traffic jungle and reducing the number of deaths and maiming as a result of accidents has always been top priority in Zimbabwe, but fate and destiny always make sure they happen. And because accidents are just that accidents, they will never end as they are not concocted in advance or preplanned. They continue to confirm that people are fragile, they die, their bones shatter, their flesh split and their hearts break while others mourn.

Not only do the accidents spill human life. Property is also destroyed while the natural environment is distorted but it is human life that is more important for it can never be reversed, called back or bought like we do cars. Accidents therefore have an agonising capability of warping the country’s demographic structure as it is not a disease for the poor, neither is it for the elderly but can claim anyone’s life irrespective of age and social status.

The country has and continues to lose politicians, school children, the elderly and many of the country’s celebrities. In short the accidents have unexpectedly robbed the country of its future leaders in a painful way while others had their dreams shattered as accidents have left them confined to wheelchairs.

And in the quest to bring sanity on the country’s major highways, the Government through its various responsible departments has continued to up its efforts to reduce the road carnage that has seen a lot of people losing both lives and limbs. The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development has also come in, working on improving the road infrastructure that for long has been blamed as one of the major causes of carnage.

Although statistics have been proven that human error remains among the top causes of the traffic accidents, most drivers hide behind the roads that are in bad shape littered with potholes. A lot of initiatives have, however, been employed by various people and groups to try and bring peace on the country’s roads, mainly targeting black spots. By definition black spots are road locations that have a record of large numbers of crashes or where road traffic accidents have historically been concentrated. There are often common problems at these sites which can be treated with engineering methods but traditional and religious methods alike have been employed to cleanse these spots.

Road sections such as curves or bends, blind rises, sharp drops, hidden junctions on a straight stretch or fast road with no or poor signage continue to cause a number of accidents on the country’s roads. Apart from the above, the number of cars on the country’s roads have also increased and this has naturally increased the number of accidents as drivers who are not licensed and those with unroadworthy vehicles continue the cat and mouse games with law enforcement agents.

Although most black spots are linked with road engineering techniques used that usually fall in line with the terrain, one would suggest that only engineering solutions can be employed to deal with the black spots but people have employed traditional and religious wisdom to curb the road accidents on black spots.

In May the Guta RaMwari Church carried a cleansing prayer session along the Harare-Bulawayo highway targeting 19 identified black spots. It was soon after the cleansing session that notable and life ending accidents of politician Espinah Nhari and later on seven Dynamos fans were recorded along the same stretch of the road that was cleansed.

It is subject to argument whether their attempt can be summed up by the phrase; they came, they saw, they did and they failed.

Theirs, however, was not the first one as cleansing prayers and rituals have been carried out by both churches and traditionalists targeting black spots but these have done little if anything to stop the carnage, leaving people questioning the effectiveness of the cleansing concepts.

The traditional African cleansing ritual is anchored on the belief that the spirits of people who died at that particular spot are not at peace and continue to hover around such places causing more accidents. Cleansing rituals are therefore done to pacify the spirits of the dead people. Historian and African culture activist Pathisa Nyathi said the belief to cleanse was purely African and was derived from the belief that the dead persons’ spirit was not at rest and was haunting the place and making a particular road section susceptible to more accidents.

“The cleansing ritual is a purely African phenomenon and should be done in an African way. In the African context they sprinkle some water with herbs and make certain verbal pronouncements directed to the spirit of the dead persons so that their spirit could be at peace and people do not continue falling into the same trap.

“But if after the cleansing ritual there are accidents then it confirms that it is indeed a black spot but one conclusion will be that the methodology used in the cleansing was not successful.

“They may have used wrong strategies or religious ways that are not in tandem with the African concept as I have said the belief is wholly African. I am not so sure how Christian denominations do it as using herbs and sprinkling of medicated water may seem pagan to them,” said Mr Nyathi.

He believes the church misplaced itself as the issue of cleansing according to him was, “an African problem that can be corrected using African solutions.”

Evangelist and co-ordinator Mr Eliphas Nkatha, however, defended the church’s methodology of dealing with traffic carnage issue.

He said although there were accidents after they held the prayer sessions along the road they were not feeling like they failed because it is God whose destiny every human being’s life lies.

“Depending on the religion, people understand God differently and their spiritual nature differs too. The safest thing is to respect each other’s beliefs. When you pray to God, you are not the Almighty. You are only pleading with him to consider certain things you may wish but you will not be sure when and how.

“In the case of the accidents and in light of the prayers that we carried people should consider the circumstances within which they occurred. God will not rescue an unlicensed driver, he will not rescue a speeding drunk driver and a driver who is driving a faulty car. That is the premise within which people should understand God. He will be responsible to those who are responsible with their lives. People should therefore avoid giving judgements from a prejudiced point of view. We therefore urge our drivers to pray to God and remain responsible on the roads,” said Mr Nkatha. Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe (TSCZ) managing director Mr Obio Chinyere said they would never turn away people who think they could assist in taming the traffic jungle as it had been their aim to significantly reduce road carnage.

“We would want to engage as many stakeholders as possible. The visibility of the stakeholders and their contribution no matter how small will go a long way in showing the commitment to solve the national problem that we have at hand.

“The Government is making efforts to improve the country’s road infrastructure and on our part we have been working hand in glove with the police to raise awareness campaigns. We continue to applaud the public in their efforts and initiatives to reduce road carnage. We will romp in as many people as possible and continue to raise publicity on the known black spots on the country’s highways as well as improve on the road signage,” said Mr Chinyere.

He said they were already rolling out campaigns as the country heads towards the Heroes and Defence holidays next month.