We see the same world but we view it differently
In his celebrated book titled The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey states that when we look at the world we do not “see it as it is, but as we are”. What this means is that our view of the world is coloured by our own experiences, beliefs and fears. Looking at the same set of circumstances, two people will have two different interpretations of those circumstances.
It is like everybody’s view of the world is influenced by the kind of goggles they wear at any point in time. If someone is wearing green goggles, for example, the world will have a tint of green. If another person is wearing red goggles, their view will have a red hue. Now, if you get a situation where an individual wears a certain type of goggles, say red, all their life, it will be an uphill task to convince them that the actual world is not red.
When I was a small boy and living at Nkhoma Mission, the Nkhoma congregational pastor, Rev Killion Mgawi once brought a film about nature to be shown to delegates to a women’s meeting that was taking place in the church. Although the meeting was exclusive to women, the film show was open to the public and so I went to view it.
As the film progressed, a scene depicting the life cycle of a rose flower appeared. In quickened motion, a yellowish rose flower was shown opening up. As it had been shot at close range, it looked really huge, almost filling up the screen. I heard a murmur from the women (most of whom were illiterate and did not follow the film), “Oh, chikabichi!” (What a giant of a cabbage!). Having had no experience with rose flowers, the nearest thing they could identify the image with was a cabbage head. Most of them had pieces of land where they grew a variety of vegetables, including cabbages. In a way, they viewed the world through “cabbage goggles”.
A town dweller once went to his home village and spent a night there. In the middle of the night, his hosts awoke him and, pointing to several moving firelights in the distance, said, “Achimwene, kunotundikwa
In the morning, a group of young people showed up and said: “We had a splendid time last night, collecting honey. If you want some, please let us know, we will be glad to give you.” Suddenly, it dawned upon the visitor that the firelights they had seen the previous night had nothing to do with witchcraft. When people collect honey in the rural areas, they use torches of fire made from grass to suffocate the bees.
We need to do a diligent search within ourselves and convince ourselves that we do not view the world on the basis of our own beliefs and nothing else. It is necessary to unlearn some things in the light of new knowledge. The church persecuted one Galileo Galilei for proposing that the earth was round, not flat and that it revolved around the sun. Unwilling to learn new knowledge, the church’s response was to persecute the innocent Italian observer of heavenly bodies for saying things that had never been heard before, certainly not in theological discourse.
Malawians view the world through various types of goggles. There are many among us who view it through “superstition goggles”. Some years back, the women of Chiradzulu were victims of this type of view when they were constantly subjected to the danger of being hunted down and killed with a view to removing their breasts. More recently, our brothers and sisters with albinism have been the victims of a heinous campaign against them because some people believe they are the source of immense wealth. When such people see a person with albinism walking, what they see through their goggles of superstition is not so much a person but a moving lot of K4 million or K5 million. God help us.
