Blame it on witchcraft

I will never tire of hearing, “how come you’re still single” and the likes…”what’s wrong with you that you’re not married”  I never know how to answer these questions, usually I just shrug and say I don’t know whilst trying to suppress the urge to scream Mind your own business.

I have had many answers and theories as to my predicament, mostly focused on the fact that I am an independent Muslim girl living abroad alone...etc but recently I have had a new theory proposed to me, so profound it’s a completely different kettle of poisson; “Dz-chick, there was a curse put on you years and years ago, your future lies in your past, both in a knot that needs to be undone for you to go on being married or having children, your life is on standby”
No Sh*t Sherlock!

I guess I can stop worrying now, I have located the problem and according to the hippie with the sixth sense and multiple earrings who stopped me on the street to foretell my predicament, before I ran away from him with my hands on my ears singing NANANANANANNANAAAA to stop me hearing what he has to say, it was witchcraft or evil eye or something that probably comes in a jar from Africa; What do I believe? As Truman Capote said “It is the want to know the end that makes us believe in God, or witchcraft, believe, at least in something.”

I guess it’s nice to be able to blame everything on something or someone; everything that is not right in my life is not a systematic consequence of my own decisions but evidently due to some evil curse that was put on me.  What a relief that I can now blame witchcraft for my misfortune, the kilos I put on and for the friends I lost, for all the problems I faced, for the failures I suffered and of course everything positive I have myself and god to thank for. Hmmmm sceptical I am.

This is such an uncomfortable subject; you want to believe but you cannot bring yourself to do it, so instead you think of Harry Potter, he’s a wizard, Sabrina the teenage witch or of Samantha the nose-crinkling beloved witch, or the sexy 3 white charmed sisters living in LA; these are the positive aspects of witchcraft and wizardry the media portrays and then there is the old stereotypes of the old, ugly and green-faced women, wart-nosed, flying on a broom up to evil tricks, there is also the witchdoctor from Africa dancing around a flame in a ritual that involves a chicken and a sacrifice, feathers flying in the air and an incessant trance-like scream that scares the “patient” better.

In Algeria, we have a different visual when it comes to witchcraft and its perpetrators; we hear so many stories growing up, of old women visiting the cemetery at night presumably to use the dead in their macabre practices, witches, it would seem not green faced but may be wart-ridden, of old and young women visiting the marabout to give offerings and seek fortune and news from the past and the future and of the people who urge you to believe because it was referenced in the Quran.

Algerians grow up hearing stories of people who were harmed by the evil eye and the works of charlatans and S’hour (black magic), how they ought to protect themselves from evil, the evil eye and the envious souls, by reciting certain parts of the Quran, namely Ayat (Psalm) “Al koursi”, some people wear the hand of Fatima as an amulet, displayed in a frame in their houses, stickers on their cars or as a pendant on their new born babies to ward off evil eye, of course the baby will never choke on it and if that was to happen, it would be none other than the work of evil eye.

People protect themselves by withholding their success stories, good news and good fortunes for fear of suffering the evil eye which radiates from jealousy and envy, which will then manifest itself through failure, material damage (accidents, fire etc) or bodily harm and health problems, As a result Algerian people took to the habit of doing things as discreetly as possible and keeping good news hushed such as marriages, travels, projects, pregnancies etc
Are you pregnant? No I am just bloated how dare you say that? Six months later, she’s walking around with a pram and you are the one who was out of order.

Black magic  however, remains more of a taboo subject that people tend to brush off as a heretic and irrational belief, when one hears of black magic, one tends to think of Africa, or Haiti and its Voodoo and other cultures such as ancient pagan rituals.
Africans have always been known for their common practice of black magic, as a healing practice, for vengeance or for obtaining riches and fame, it has also been linked to football games and international tournaments, many games were thought to have been rigged with “gris-gris” and charms explaining therefore the lousy performance of the players or low fitness and ultimately the defeat.

This is an interesting blog I stumbled upon when doing some research on the subject, in which the author tries to explain the inexplicable results of the Algerian vs. England game during the World Cup; he believes the Algerians resorted to black magic despite the result of the game http://supertarot.co.uk/wp/sign-of-the-pigeon-why-england-failed-in-football/

Do I blame my misfortunes on evil eye and witchcraft as the hippie suggested and be like the Disney princess who swallowed the hexed apple the dark witch gave her, or do I and the princess wake up, spit out the apple, stop procrastinating and trying to blame someone else for our dilemmas and just get on with it.
I think I will choose the latter and instead of crying about my misfortunes and shifting the blame onto someone or something else, I will focus my energy on bettering myself and moving forward inchallah.