Dear Tarty,

Many, many thanks. I guess a more apt illustration of "seek all possible causes before going on to the improbable" is hardly possible.

Have you, by the way, already read "the Mask of Anarchy" by Stephen Ellis? His attempt to seek some explanation for the excesses committed during the Liberian civil war in terms of the occult is very laudable and to a large extent credible. A lot of people are looking forward to what will happen with the libel suit that Taylor has brought against him, the Times and the book’s publisher. Maybe Taylor will never even show up in London - his lawyers may have initially failed to inform him that such a libel suit requires the physical appearance in court of the plaintiff.

One can imagine that Taylor might fear that somebody could try to perform a "Pinochet" on him, or at least douse him with crafty publicity ("African president in town to clear his name from charges of cannibalism" - that alone would already have a very nice ring). And then, who knows what kind of evidence the accused party may have been able to gather?

The funny thing is of course that if Taylor doesn’t show up, he can in the future be referred to as "the African President who failed to appear in court in order to clear his name from charges of cannibalism" - and that without risking a further libel charge!

To return to the subject, I recently ordered a book titled "the mordernity of witchcraft" which investigates such African practices in the present-day settings. I’ll let you know if I think it’s any good.

On magical properties, I’m suddenly reminded of what an otherwise highly rational Liberian friend remarked about the occult protection of LDF fighters. He was absolutely convinced that their protection was indeed highly effective, and cited that "even RPG cannot kill them". Here we have two sets of magic working in collusion: one being the protection, the other the mystic belief in the capacities of the RPG-7.

As you may know, the RPG-7 is designed as an anti-(armoured) vehicle weapon. It’s projectile has a shaped charge which will penetrate armoured steel plating as it detonates. Against "soft" targets, however, it does little more than give off a loud bang. Impressive, and lethal at very short distance, but without effective anti-personnel working in the form of shrapnel. It seems that the impressiveness of the loud bang gives the RPG its reputation - but simple weapons design dictates that it’s not a good "killer" - hence the perceived effectiveness of "protection".

Another anecdote: in a film seen on TV about South African training of Angolan soldiers, the South Africans would explain that the hardest part of the initial training was to make it clear to the recruits that pressing harder and harder on the trigger (and thus unnecessarily spoiling one’s aim) would NOT make the bullets go any faster.

In closing, I think you provided an important clue for studying the essence of the problem. You state "How do we acquire new and reality-friendly habits in studying our problems?" Could it not be that the problem (which you and I will agree to indeed be a problem) finds much of it’s reason for persisting in the utterly unfriendly reality that so sadly continues to pervade so much of present-day Africa? Does a warped reality breed warped ‘realism’?

Best regards,