OfʺBlood Suckerʺto theʺGenital Shrinkageʺ

Alberto Mudjadju"

A rumor is false or distorted information that spreads quickly, stirs emotions, and leads to action before being verified. Or, one could go further and define a rumor as a hasty lie or false, distorted, or unconfirmed information that spreads rapidly because it plays on fear, anger, and hope, with the aim not of informing, but rather of causing others to act without thinking. There is a difference between gossip, rumor, hearsay, fake news, and disinformation. The first, gossip, aims to entertain people and travels slowly, targeting the reputation of the supposed victim. Rumors, on the other hand, aim to create doubt and spread at a medium speed, intending to cause uncertainty. Thirdly, there are hearsay, intended to provoke a reaction from the target audience, traveling very quickly and often leading to public shaming and other damage. Next comes fake news, intended to manipulate, traveling at considerable speed and potentially influencing elections or market changes. Finally, there is disinformation, which operates strategically at a planned speed, with consequences for public policy. A rumor is a kind of semi-collective passenger train of lies—cheap, crowded, and unrestrained—creating all the conditions to cause accidents and damage at any moment. Gossip ruins a person's good name, while a hearsay ruins a life. Several rumors were investigated in Mozambique, but the following stand out: chupa-Blood: This rumor claims that there are men in white, with giant syringes or machines, driving around at night in unmarked cars, entering houses to take people's blood to sell or perform magic, and the government is hiding it because it's involved. In Nampula, health technicians are secretly sucking blood. Then comes the rumor that the government is administering vaccines that already contain cholera to kill poor people; those who take them die within three days, it's a plan to reduce the population, brigades use syringes to draw blood. There's also the rumor of black magic that involves albinism; this is the cruelest rumor, as it transforms people with albinism into car parts for spells, killing, mutilating, and enriching criminals, because it's believed that bones, hair, skin, and organs of people with albinism have power; those who get into the business become rich, those who drink blood gain good luck. And this rumor has various interpretations, such as in Zambézia: an albino's hand at the store's cash register attracts customers; an albino child buried at the foundation brings wealth; albino blood cures AIDS. Without biology classes, this rumor gains more traction. Finally, the rumor about shrinking genitals claims that if a stranger greets you, touches your shoulder, gives you change, or passes you on the street, your penis shrinks, disappears, or becomes small, only returning if you hit the sorcerer until he undoes it, as well as placing a pin along with an elastic band on one of the upper limbs working as an antidote to shrinkage.

Some signs that can easily expose a rumor: a request to share urgently; the source is aʺcousin of the neighbor who sawʺIt's very frightening or an absurd promise; it's only in audio, not on radio or TV; the government or the competent authority has not yet commented. Why do these rumors in Mozambique become an epidemic, mostly in the northern part of the country and in Zambézia Province? There are some hypotheses that attempt to explain why this phenomenon spreads so easily in this part of the country. First, the trauma the population has from the war, cyclones, and terrorism that plagues the northern region stands out; the way the information is spread, since illiteracy is high and many do not benefit from other alternatives for receiving information (audio wins over text); the government disseminates some information at 8 pm, for example, in Portuguese, and the population only understands it the next day at 2 pm, thus opening space for various interpretations and decision-making; poverty is also a determining factor, as those who are hungry do not have time to verify the source of the information to understand if it is true or not; The weak presence of the state, the police, and other institutions allows rumors to take over the neighborhood.

Rumors aren't combated with a simple statement on an A4 sheet of paper, but rather with speed (a quick response), a familiar face, and the local language used in a given geographic area. Rumors go through phases: the spark, the fire, and the ashes. In the first phase (0 to 60 minutes), it can be denied, otherwise it becomes a wildfire; in the second phase (1 to 6 hours), the fire must be extinguished with full force to prevent it from becoming a veritable lynching; in the third phase (6 hours onwards), the only remaining task is to assess the damage caused. When trying to counter a rumor, one should not: deny it with a simple A4 text in Portuguese only; one must reach those who cannot read and write as well; delay the response to investigate thoroughly, because rumors don't investigate, they kill; threaten to arrest those who share it, because people share more secretly, and fear fuels the rumor; use only national TV or radio, because the rumor may have already reached the news; deny it without showing one's face; it has to be someone specific and known by the population itself.

2025/12/3