I Wanna be an Albino Buddha

After dozing off on the couch last night, towards the end of an old eighties movie called Flatliners, I woke up this morning thinking about death.

I was a happy child, but every now and again I’d stand in the kitchen with a knife in my hand and consider stabbing it into my guts. In those moments, I felt as though I was on the precipice of an amazing discovery.

Death is only scary because it is the Unknown. In school we were taught Divinity and Religious Education – something I’m glad to hear has been struck from the curriculum these days – so my generation was bombarded with images of Hell and told it was the final destination for sinners.

I think if we’d been taught about reincarnation and karma instead, growing old wouldn’t seem as terrifying.

I find the idea that my lot in this life has everything to do with how I behaved in my last life quite comforting; and the notion that the more selflessly I act in this life will determine how the next turns out encourages more good behaviour than the belief in a Father Christmas figure up in the clouds.

I think the worst thing to come back as would be an albino – sounds mean, I know, but let me explain.

Life for albinos is a lot more shitty than, say, having no legs or Down ’s syndrome. At least society has some measure of sympathy and compassion for those with disabilities, and it would be cruel to call albinism a disability – you can still run, hold a job, think laterally; your eyesight’s fucked and you have a high risk of contracting skin cancer, but that’s the least of your problems.

Aside from being hunted in places like Tanzania for muti, albinos must put up with insults, discrimination, and ostracism. And this behaviour, just like our attitudes regarding death, stems from fear.

In Africa it is widely believed that albinos are otherworldly, magical beings. Fishermen on Lake Victoria weave albino hair into their nets for bigger catches. Miners in the Mbeya coal fields splash albino blood on the ground in the hopes that rare gems will be drawn to it. And sangomas pay big bucks for albino body parts.

Andrew Malone of the Daily Mail reports that having sex with an albino is believed to cure diseases, which results in “countless rapes… leaving [the victim] HIV positive”.

If I was so backwardly superstitious, I reckon I’d be more concerned with pissing off such ‘magical beings’ in case they unleash ancestors-know-what on my arse – but on such a violent continent, the ‘let’s kill them’ mentality prevails.

And wouldn’t it be interesting to have a mate with some connection to this Harry Potter-esque world, with all its mystery and cool shit?

I think if we are reincarnated, it is to learn something about the universe, humanity, and how to live our lives. Maybe the worse off our situation, the more we learn – you can’t grow in a comfort zone.

And if life is all about spiritual education and knowledge, I can safely say I’d rather come back as an African albino than a Swedish porn star.

In a nice ironic twist, those sangomas and misguided rapists would get the same treatment.