Gang-warfare Politics and Obeah

For those of you who may be wondering what obeah is, I take a brief moment to explain. It is a sort of witchcraft practiced by the descendants of African slaves. People of my age grew up on the fringes of the demise of obeah-belief on St. Kitts; what I mean is that when I was a boy the belief in the efficacy of obeah was gasping its final breath. Belief in obeah was dying. I knew an elderly lady who firmly believed in its practise and she wore all the dried bones, beads, feathers, bracelets and forms of foliage that demonstrated this.
I am stunned today at the number of young people who believe that obeah works, and among these are members of rival gangs- young boys and girls, and mainly their mothers- who genuinely believe that if their gang-bound sons wear rings provided them by obeah men and women, these boys by some magic spiritual protection, will be able to escape the raining bullets. Rumours abound of gang members who have been attacked by multiple gang rivals firing rapid bullets at very close range, and yet these obeah-ring-guarded gangsters are able to mysteriously and magically escape the showering bullets. I have listened, stunned, as wide-eyed, gang infested community members relate stories of how this or that gang member escaped  sure death only because he "had on" his obeah ring, and that if this or that attacked and murdered gang member "had on" his  obeah ring at the time he was gunned down, he would surely be alive today.
 I am intrigued by these stories only because I am amazed that in an age of technical advancement and free secondary school, and nearly free college education, supposedly  enlightened people still believe such things. Thousands of our people believe that Caribbean political leaders are guided and protected by obeah, that they occasionally take obeah baths, and that they travel frequently to certain Caribbean islands rumoured to have large numbers of good obeah practitioners, in order to consult with their obeah advisers.
 All this is a big joke to me, but the strange thing in my beautiful, relatively peaceful country (except for a few poorly-parented boys playing gangsters) which boasts of an enviable literacy rate, is that I can still be frowned upon by educated people, for believing that obeah is total nonsense. I seem like the idiot for not adhering to such foolishness, so I stare wide-eyes as the people tell their obeah stories, and I am certain that they think my heart is about to pop through my mouth with fear, when, in fact, I am in absolute shock that there could still so much darkness in a country like St. Kitts where there are so many light.