Somewhere Right Now, On This 21st Century Mother's Day, a Woman Is Being Accused Of Witchcraft

It's Mother's Day in 2008 and somewhere a woman is about to be murdered for witchcraft. Just this week a crowd of 20 people in India gathered to beat a 75-year-old woman for being a witch. A judicial inquiry found that 150 women had been tortured for witchcraft in three Indian provinces since the first of the year, despite the passage of a new law meant to protect them.

Reports of witchcraft are common in Africa these days. There's this recent case of an 18-year-old girl who says that she was sent by her grandmother to steal a newborn baby and given magical powers to accomplish the task. (Stories like this are frequently reported as fact in African newspapers.) Panicked reports of kidnapping and murder for body parts are frequent in Tanzania and nearby countries. And readers of a Ghanian tabloid were given this information, presented drily as fact:

"A global meeting of witches, currently underway in Ghana, is targeting thousands of lives through fatal road and other accidents. The assembly is also looking to infect millions of lives with incurable diseases, according to documents available to Daily Guide. In keeping with the witches' agenda, 1,000,154 people would be killed worldwide through road accidents, rape, murder and armed robbery. For Ghana, the organizers of the annual global congress insist they want to make the meeting a memorable one and are therefore requesting heavy loss of lives on the nation's roads. According to the document, Ashanti Region has to 'donate' 722 lives, Eastern Region, 119; Brong Ahafo, 103; Central, 134; and Greater Accra, 76; through an operation code-named 'XXC-XVI-Starlight 666' ...

"In the first quarter of our calendar year we are to infect 110,000 people (both married and unmarried) with HIV/AIDS through sex, 4,000 with tuberculosis, 6,000 with high blood pressure, and 2,600 with blindness, while 11,000 pastors and preachers will be destroyed, 220 marriages broken, and 100,000 wombs destroyed."

In a direct sign of the kinds of subconscious anxiety that lead to these accusations, there has been a wave of reports regarding penises shrunken by witches. Paging Dr. Freud ...

But it's no joke. A 60-year-old woman in India was beheaded last month by a neighbor who believed she was a witch. Saudi Arabia is planning to execute a woman accused of witchcraft, and so far King Abdullah has resisted calls for clemency. Also in Saudi Arabia, a maid was accused of bewitching her male boss because the boss's wife noticed he defended her from criticism.

Women aren't the only victims of witchcraft accusations. In Africa, for example, men are frequently accused of operating "magic planes," supernatural vehicles that seem to crash with alarming frequency. Children are targets, too. "Planet of Slums," by Mike Davis, documents the hysteria created by Christian preachers who distribute videos of bewitched children and exorcisms. He writes that "literal, perverse belief in Harry Potter has taken hold in Kinshasa, leading to the mass-hysterical denunciation of child 'witches' and their expulsion into the street, even their murder." But the vast majority of witchcraft accusations are still directed against women.

Different theories are being floated for the increase in this behavior. Nicholas Kristof writes of a study suggesting a link between climate change and witchcraft claims, a link which the New York Times "Freakanomics" blog explores even further.

But there's still an underlying theme behind all of these trials, murders, and incidents of torture: the superstitious fear of women. Until the ignorance and misogyny that drives these accusations are rooted out, these incidents will continue. And if you think this only a problem among "primitive" people, that it's nothing but ancient history for "civilized Europeans," think again. It's a human problem.

We may idealize women in the role of mother and enjoy the ritual of cards and flowers, but the urge to demonize the female isn't just a tribal one. Do you know when the last woman was imprisoned for witchcraft in Great Britain?

1944.
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("And Howe": Also for Mother's Day, the radical feminist who conceived Mother's Day.)

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Comments

[True]

As someone who grew up going to evangelical churches, I can assure you that fear of magic and the occult is alive and well in this country.

[DMSmith]

I was just reading an article in another publication - linked from the HuffPost - about Michelle Obama. The response comments were chilling. One referred to her as 'this thing', and others came close to calling her a witch, and most were truly racist in nature and innuendo.

I was shocked, and chilled by it. This is THIS country, THIS very day!!!! Be affraid. Be very, very, very affraid!

[Dap]

Somewhere Right Now, On This 21st Century Mother's Day, a Young Lady Is Being Sold Into Sexual Slavery

Foreign Exchange May 9th 2008 with Daljit Dhaliwal
The truth about child sex trade

http://www.foreignexchange.tv/

The following article was originally published in 1997:

http://www.webcom.com/hrin/magazine/july97/sexslave.html

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery:

http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/USA.htm

[BubbaC33]

In past postings Eskow has all but called Ms. Clinton a witch, so I guess his own writings prove his point.

[Dap]

Dear Brother RJ,

A profound and all too poignant essay/post. Kudos! Agape.

[OutsideLookingIn]

"Do you know when last woman was imprisoned for witchcraft in Great Britain? 1944."

Helen Duncan, a 'medium', alarmed British authorities in 1942 by telling a woman at a seance that her son had been killed in the sinking of a warship which had been kept secret by the navy. There were suspicions about how she had come to possess that knowledge and worry about the effect of 'morale' of such facts becoming known - was she being used willingly or unwittingly by the Germans to spread both unpleasant facts like the sinking and black rumour. Or if you don't believe in the supernatural was she getting secret information from somewhere and using it to bolster her reputation.

In 1944 the authorities were worried she might give away information about the impending invasion and to take her out of circulation for a while she was arrested and charged with conspiracy, fraud and witchcraft under a long-disused 1735 Act (rather than simply 'disappeared'). Only the witchcraft charges stuck - as she herself claimed to 'communicate with spirits' which was the core of the 'offence' - she served a few months in prison and was released in September 1944 when the Normandy Invasion had succeeded.

Most people at the time thought the whole thing was a nonsense - Churchill described it as "tomfoolery" - and the 1735 Witchcraft Act was repealed in 1951.

Hardly a case of hysteria and superstition as the writer implies.

[Dap]

You had better come in out of the hot sun. >:-)

[EspritDeVoltaire]

He has a valid point. Helen Duncan is a well known case. Many in the occult networks in Britain, such as Aleister Crowley, did have overt German sympathies.

[NorCalNative]

RJ, this is interesting stuff. It's the realm of poverty and ignorance and is likely immune to the progress of the human race. It is the search for meaning that is basic to all of us, and on one level is NOT really that far removed from the pathology and mythology of monotheistic-based religion.

From one of your links (ReligionNewsBlog) I found this: "Saudi's feared religious police (Mutawas) are tasked with enforcing respect for public morals. Witchcraft is a capital offence in Saudi Arabia, where Sharia Law is strictly applied."

The problem with making witchcraft a capital offence is HOW to define it? It seems like an open invitation to scapegoat undesirable members of society. I cannot, if I had one hundred lifetimes, explain, understand, or condone the violence done against women, just that fear and ignorance are problematic.

[clevelandchick]

India is also a country where they regularly commit female infanticide because boys are thought to be more valuable. So are all of the countries named by RJ and don't forget the Olympic country of China has practiced it for decades as well.

It's sobering to realize that even today most societies do persecute women. And what saddens me even more about this Iraq debacle is that when Sadaam was taken out of the picture the religious fundamentalists immediately waged a war against the rights of women: killing them for working or going to school, not wearing a headscarf, talking to a male non-relative, or holding hands with a boyfriend.

[mcthfg]

Scary, dangerous stuff.

The Catholic Church still performs exorcisms. Mostly on women, if memory serves.

[RickO]

No joke: last week a substitute teacher in Tampa Bay lost his job because he was accused of Wizardry. What is this, the 12th century? He showed his students a simple little magic trick, even showed them how to do it. Lost his job.

[freneticd]

We have a witch-hunt/inquisition going on here in America too. It's called the "War on Drugs." (See "Ceremonial Chemistry: The Ritual Persecution of Drugs Addicts and Pushers" by Thomas Szasz)