On “overnight” riches and malambane snakes
The tragic death of a well-known moneyed Zimbabwean chap who had a penchant for the finer things and led a flamboyant lifestyle set tongues wagging, as many people speculated on how he got rich. BraG had thousands of fans and followers who admired him and were inspired by his material success; largely because he apparently came from a poor home and hustled his way to riches, proving that your background doesn’t determine your destiny.
However, other people were sceptical of his riches, and although it’s claimed that he earned big money from a lucky-break gas deal, and other business investments, he was hounded by claims that he dabbled in drug dealing, fraud and money laundering.
Others still, claimed that he was part of the Illuminati, and had sold his soul to the dark world in exchange for material success, while others alleged that he used juju magic and kept a malambane snake. Ba re ne a ruile nyanyambulebu ya machankura. Tlerere!
Despite his popularity, I guess he was still an enigma hence the speculation. He probably had several legitimate businesses, but chances are he might have possibly also been involved in some dubious deals. After all, there aren’t many businesspeople whose hands are squeaky clean; many of them have underhand deals and some skeleton-nyana in the closet. But at the end of the day, he seemed content, and lived the way he wanted. His life was an epitome of the phrase: “Get rich, live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse behind.”
I think many people’s suspicions regarding his riches, are driven by envy and jealousy: just because they don’t have, or know how to acquire those riches; they simplistically assume that it’s impossible to be that rich. Mme kana there are many super rich people out there, it’s just that they don’t “floss” their assets. Sometimes the success of rich people seems “overnight” because we only see the tangible results and not the process of their efforts over the years. Some rich people might be dodgy yes, but others are smart-working, disciplined and focused; they started at the bottom, and steadily worked their way up to acquiring those riches. Often time, in our black African communities, when a white man gets filthy rich, we say that he is smart, but when a black man gets filthy rich, we are quick to assume the worst, that he is corrupt, or has a snake or thokolosi.
Some black Africans are victims of the figmentation of their over-fertile imaginations, and have a systematic slavery mentality that subconsciously rejects prosperity, instead of striving to break generational curses of struggle, and letting go of self-defeating beliefs that associate nobleness with poverty.
I don’t dispute the existence of occults and witchcraft, and that some people practice juju magic, but dodgy conspiracies shouldn’t pollute our minds.
Some people are so obsessed with the “high life” that they would do anything to become filthy rich, even if it means taking short-cuts; and such characters are more likely to be tempted to turn to black magic and sacrifices to accumulate riches. The flipside is that realistically speaking, it would be naïve to believe that someone can become stinky rich solely through hard work and saving. Go huma ga dinaledi ga go tle Setswananyana hela. But we live in a world where people have different values and principles, and if someone can use a goblin or snake to enrich themselves, then it’s their business. So rest, bafwethu.
Modimo o thusa yo o ithusang; go tla re mongwe le mongwe a lebagane le ‘ngoma’ ya gagwe… Khi!