http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24759141>1=43001
“NAIROBI, Kenya - A group of up to 300 young men have burned to death 11 people suspected of being witches and wizards in western Kenya — in some cases slitting their victims' throats or clubbing them to death before burning their bodies, officials said.”
Thus begins an associated press article for world news posted some time on the twenty second. This isn’t the first time that I’ve seen such news. A month or so ago a similar, much more humorous article hit the Rutgers weird news category that Kenyan (and forgive me if I have the wrong country) men were calling police stations and explaining to local authorities that local witchdoctors were “stealing their penises”, magicing them away I suppose.
Despite assurances to the contrary, these men apparently sincerely believed this. And I somehow have a problem believing that 300 young men in Kenya had a vendetta with the majority of the recent victims, quoted by the article to be in their seventies to nineties. The crime of these folks was “making smart children in the villages dumb”. (How is it we haven’t noticed the folks who produce television programming for our young folks are doing this very thing yet? Are there shrines to “you know who” in network offices?)
Granted, I’m very uninformed about society over there. If Voodoo and similar practices are to be believed (and I see no real reason to doubt true believers don’t experience something) then maybe these people really were into some kind of powerful stuff. But really, will we ever know? Two villages, and the police are pretty much helpless to figure out who’s at fault and why. Superstition has a way of getting out of hand, and nothing proves it more than this kind of activity. And before you think we’re talking about folks in mud huts, we’re not. The folk in the article’s picture look much the same as you’d likely find in some of our neighborhoods across the US. (Maybe a little more rustic, but I’ve seen such about.)
So very glad I’m not in Africa. For you see, I’m a pagan. I go about wearing my pentagram in public, considered by many of my acquaintances to be a brave move in the middle of Bible-belt America. Brave or foolish, take your pick. (I believe it to be honesty more than the two.)
I’ve long given up any interest in witchcraft practices though. To me the concept of spell casting was nothing more than over-glorified prayer. (To the outsider, the catholic mess with the wine and the wafers looks to be something similar - but try telling that to them.) I just didn’t see the need or have the time, and have since decided I’m kind of like the villager in ancient times. I have my candle, my prayer, and my custom. Anything deeper and it’s time to go see the priest(ess). And even that’s far fetched. While I love something of nature and loathe most of anything that smells of modern church, I am not the wholehearted green fanatic that preaches saving the whales and rainforests. I don’t recycle and I surely don’t live healthy. Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t wear tie-dye and I don’t smoke anything at all. No, I do live my beliefs - I don’t drive a car, and I don’t think of God as particularly masculine, but I’m equally happy to live by the Ten Commandments and follow the golden rule.
But I do like my pentagram. And you wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve caught a person’s gaze meeting my face with a smile, before traveling down to my chest and turning into a very stiff frown. I’ve had people get that look, and cross to the other side of the street to avoid walking too close to me. No, I don’t feel persecuted at all (mostly) but sometimes I’m willing to take bets that it’s because people don’t take my faith seriously.
(Why should they? It’s my faith, not theirs.)
But this is kind of pointless right? I mean the days of Salem are long behind US. Aren’t they? It can’t happen here anymore, thankfully. We have other, more viable witch-hunts to occupy our time. … Right?
But no. I’m not in favor of a wholesale shift to “Christian Politics” thank you very much. What’s “Right” in this country can and oft is well and good for the whole. But what is “Right” isn’t always right, and sometimes the mentality can go too far.
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2 comments:
Interesting choice of topis.
I had forgotten that Vodoun was a major.... Hmmm, not sure I would call it 'religion' so much as a form of magic, in Africa. Of course the version of it most of us are familiar with on this continent (and some Carribean islands) has a bit of Christianity mixed in with it. I believe there is another version in South America which I have read of, which is the flip side: more Christian, with Voodoo mixed in. Can't recall what the name is...
At any rate, it is curious that these people would be attacked. I suppose Vodoun has its own rounds of heresies and sects, and / or 'conservative' groups. The other possibility is that the people attacking them are either Christian or muslim, or boderline one or the other with Vodoun. I could use some more knowledge in that part of Africa, myself.
I always miss something...
As to 'Christian Politics.' No matter what one chooses to believe about what the Founding Fathers actually believed, they Were informed by 1700 years of Christianity. I would suggest that the actual fight is to Keep Christianity in politics, lest we end up with another secular Terror, or worse.
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