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Some one once told me that "too much 'eye open' is 'eye close'!" And I think I agree wholeheartedly with that assertion. As scientists, doctors, biologists and people in general, it is important to listen to other people's rationales for doing things, and learn to accept them without judgment. But there does come a point in time where without judgment, somebody has to draw a line somewhere.

So Ghanaians and a lot of other (West Africans) believe in witches and alla that. There have been people who have confessed to being witches, there have been people who have claimed innocence. Those who believe in witches and demons and dwarves have their religion, national memory, and personal experiences to draw from. So  you can't fault them. But I'm not going to sit back and say just because it's t heir belief it's okay to pour acid down a child's throat to exorcise him (happened in Nigeria) or whip a 5-year-old child senseless because 'he is possessed' (happened in Ghana within the past two weeks). It's simply not okay - religion or personality or whatever.

Same applies to science/western medicine in many ways (the Hmong example, or female genital mutilation). The trick is to negotiate these places of difference with as much respect and understanding and non-judgmentalism as possible. But we can't sit on our hands and say - "oh it's their culture, it's their religion." We don't seem to have had a good track record doing that