An 81-year-old woman in KwaKwiliza near Mtubatuba in KwaZulu-Natal was stabbed 50 times and had her throat slit because her neighbour accused her of being a witch. According to the police he was of the belief that the elderly woman had killed two members of his family members through using witchcraft.
Captain Jabulani Mdletshe said that the police were called to the scene but the man had already escaped.
This incident, one of thousands that have taken place down the years, should give us reason to pause and consider whether the time has not arrived to make witchcraft a criminal offence.
The basis therefore is not based upon religious conviction but rather the very real need to give people access to the law before they murder any more innocent people. The only alternative being the introduction of the death penalty for any party who commits murder based upon the premise that the victim is a witch.
While there will no doubt be an uproar regarding the limitation of religious freedom in South Africa, something entrenched in the Constitution, there appears to be a deafening silence every time people branded as witches are horrendously slaughtered.
When Mpumalanga tried to introduce the Witchcraft Suppression Bill of 2007 they were met with fierce resistance. “The purpose of the bill is to suppress Acts of witchcraft including naming and pointing of any body as a wizard or witch. To deal with the violence associated with allegations of witchcraft and deal with killings including ritual killing associated with witchcraft and empowering Traditional leaders to deal with Witchcraft aspects.”
It defines witchcraft as: The secret use of muti, zombies, spells, spirits, magic powders, water, mixtures, etc by any person with the purpose of causing harm, damage, sickness to others or their property.
“Self-defined Witches have rejected this definition on the grounds that it stereotypes witchcraft as harmful and portrays Witches as a danger to the communities within which they live and work. The proposed definition will merely serve to justify public fear of witchcraft and promote malice and violence against suspected witches.” (Wikipedia)
The problem is that a huge number of South Africans believe in witchcraft and the ability of witches to occasion deadly consequences for those that cross them. That is not going to go away.
Neither is the fact that once a “victim of witchcraft” believes that they are under attack then the party whom they consider to be the witch is in deadly danger. If they are lucky enough to be identified thought may be given to putting them into some kind of witness protection programme.
Unfortunately very few are that lucky.
Anyone can be “sniffed” out as a witch and then has the misfortune of a visit like the one described above awaiting them.
So until such time as someone can put forward a better suggestion for protecting people accused of witchcraft — and not the current law which makes it an offence to call someone a witch — legislation to make it a criminal offence to be a witch seems to be the only answer. In tandem that anyone now possessed of this legal channel to accuse witches, who practices self-help, be given the stiffest possible sentences available to a court faced with that charge.
Denying some form of religious freedom is very ugly but what happened to an 81-year-old woman and many others like her is far uglier.
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81 Responses to “Make witchcraft a criminal offence”
Passing laws has not much effect on the behaviour of South Africans. We are not a compliant with laws society
Those same people that believe in witchcraft already have access to the people that they believe can assist in witchcraft related cases. The people that can assist are also, conveniently enough, the ones that gain the most through the perpetuation of witchcraft. Even more so when you give them the exclusive right to determine guilt as was proposed in the Mpumalanga witchcraft bill.
If you ban witchcraft, most murders would still happen, since the “victim” of witchcraft would still believe he could be cursed when the witch is in jail. Death of the witch is the only way to stop the curse. However, many without the stomach for murder, would now quite happily lay charges against innocent people.
The Mpumalanga bill was vague enough that it would have banned much more than just traditional African witch craft.
No one would contemplate banning Judaism to save the Jews from anti-Semites; the idea is ludicrous. Banning witchcraft to save the witches is similarly so.
The real problem is that people are murdered merely on the suspicion of practising witchcraft. From the gruesome European experience, probably no more than a fraction of the innocent people horribly done to death over the centuries were guilty of that supposed crime.
Until there is sufficient education as to the difference between withcraft, meaning unscrupulous sangomas who prey on superstition and fear, and commit murders as a result, and wicca, which is totally removed from that intention to harm, there will be killings.
Michael, it’s a delicious irony that M&G is earning money from witches with your blog. The Google ad that came up when I read this ran: “Curses & Revenge Spells - Whatever you need, my powerful spells can help you.” (link omitted to protect self-respect).
On a more serious note, most attacks on “witches” in this country are based on scapegoating rather than actual witchcraft activity. It’s a deep rural equivalent to people falling for urban legends, but with far more serious consequences.
So then I presume you wish to make Africa an atheistic society where religious practices of any kind is banned. The reason the poor woman was slashed was due to uneducation, not because of witchcraft. Proposing to ignore the uneducation of South Africans and just suddenly make judgements on a religious practice and place blame upon said religious practice shows your equally uneducated. How about people take responsibility for their actions!
I am of course not a lawyer, but I had so far been under the impression that murder was already illegal regardless of whatever reason the murderer might have had. Thus I fail to see what effect making “witchcraft” - who gets to define that, anyway? - would have, other than to add some paperwork to SA’s legal library.
This, if it were to be purpused, will be difficult to prove in a court of law as it involves some kinda ‘magic’
Therefore, the courts or whoever will be presiding that case will have to get an expert in Witchcraft to prove beholf reasonable dount - and not belief as u worked in thisngs like this before and should know better - before convicting anyone of any of the crimes such as this one.
If you make one religion a criminal offense, you will have to make all of them a criminal offense. I’m a wiccan and my religion is absolute about harming. “do as you will, but in doing so harm none” please don’t generalize us because its convenient, less work and more cost effective than educating the uneducated.
Just what South Africa needs, more unenforceable laws on our statute books. What a ridiculous and perverse notion, criminalising the behaviour of a crime victim for their own protection. Shall we criminalise the rich in order to stop them from being victims of theft? How about criminalising being stupid in order to prevent exploitation? Or driving to prevent hijackings?
Oy Vay…strangling a bull is o.k. because it is cultural and traditional. Witchcraft (the African variety) is not o.k. because it is cultural and people die. Rather spare the bull.
Michael, your definition of witchcraft hinges on persons casting spells etc. to do harm to another.
This is less than half the story. Much of the time the intention of say a sangoma is to benefit the client.
The muti that is used may, however, sometimes entail killing others. There was a programme about muti murders in Uganda recently. Many more children are now killed for muti than before. One ex-killer says he killed 70 or 80 children. One “factory” kills several a week.
Most accusations of witchcraft are of course not directed at such muti murderers but at the innocent. That is just the sociology of witchcraft accusations.
The muti murderers are indeed often the intermediaries who help the aggrieved “identify” the witch. And the remedy. Such as burying the heart of the “witch” under the floor or similar.
Focusing on the person who is accused of witchcraft, and placing a legal burden on them to prove their innocence, will legitimise and reinforce the superstition which feeds the industry. It will be wasteful of state resources. And it will not have the desired effect: by definition no “witches” who are so identified will be successfully prosecuted. Bad things will continue to happen to people. You will offer no remedy. They will simply turn to their intermediaries, who will now have reinforced legitimacy (”even the courts agree witches exist; they just don’t know how to deal with it”) in greater numbers.
Guys thanks for the comments. My concern is for people accused of witchcraft and who consider themselves witches.
Nobody should be lynched for their beliefs and my point is simply this - If we have to put them into cottonwool by making perpetrators of violence use the law then this is one way of slowing this down.
These murders are far more common than I could believe.
Arthur never look a gift-Google in the mouth I always say.
Funny thing, but this whole witchcraft thing reminds me of other things; like the Roomse gevaar, swart gevaar, rooi gevaar and of course, in more recent times, the Terrst threat, and all these terrsts that have to be droned to death, or waterboarded/murdered to prove they’re terrsts. And as for the muti, spells, magic powders and the like, well that sounds like big, corporate medicine and Big Pharma and all the mass murder being hushed up by mainstream medicine’s iatrogenic deaths. Ironic that quacks have become some of the major killers, and that this is so poorly investigated and exposed by the press. I know, I know, some of your best friends are doctors.
Get the justice in society sorted. Make the courts available to the poor, and not just to the secretive, occult priesthood of the rich, and then you might just sound convincing. Have you got figures perhaps on how many people are killed by witches, or by being accused of witchcraft? Compare that to those being killed by quacks! In the U.S. it is reported that this:
‘…225,000 deaths per year constitutes the third leading cause of death in the United States, after deaths from heart disease and cancer.’(Wiki -Iatrogenesis).Actual figures are higher!
FFS, Traps! If the state criminalises witchcraft you are saying that it actually exists which only make those who believe in it MORE likely to attack the so-called ‘witch’.
Communities take the law into their own hands everyday when they decide to attack a suspected child molester or a suspected thief. Such attacks are usually fatal. Lack of respect for the justice system are endemic.
If we criminalise witchcraft we are labeling a harmless person a criminal in order to prosecute the attacker! Attacking ANYONE is a criminal offense. To create a special class of ‘victim’ is absurd. Would you do the same thing with homosexuals by making their sexuality criminal in order to save them from the thugs who attack gays? Of course not.
You don’t criminalise the victim in order to prosecute the offender!
Next time you get a bright idea like this, do your homework first. Read the history of witchcraft in Europe, the UK and the Americas. The religious hysteria of the Inquisition used accusations of ‘witchcraft’ as a cover for attacking everything from freedom of thought to misogyny and as many as a million people, most of them women, were executed for it. Think of Jeanne d’Arc. Would you make it a criminal act to have religious visions? Of course not.
The answer to ignorance is not to re-enforce it. The answer is to educate
the ignorant!
How could you possibly think that by making witchcraft a crime it would stop people from killing supposed witches? You seem to forget that the real crime here is killing a person, which is already against the law. By the same token you should also say that in order to stop people from getting raped a law should be made to force women to wear clothes that cover them from head to toe. Stop trying to punish the victims for the crime committed against them! This was really not your best effort so far.
The more practical solutions for this is for social services to place these senior citizen in old age homes.
Why? in the village, if you are an old women living alone you are a witch. Thats all evidence villagers need to get rid of you.
“every time people branded as witches are horrendously slaughtered.”
Sounds like a cultural practice to me.
If its okay to practice polygamy and to slaughter animals in ways that would normally be regarded as cruelty to animals, killing witches sounds okay and is probably protected under law as a cultural practice.
Seriously, that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? As are the other two practices which are excused, tolerated and even supported as cultural practices.
Traps,
There is legislation that makes provision for this kind of offence.
In terms of the Witchcraft Suppression Act No 3 of 1957, any person who, inter alia, imputes to any other person the causing, by supernatural means, of any disease in or injury or damage to any person or thing, or who names or indicates any other person as a wizard shall be guilty of an offence and in the case of an offence in consequence of which the person in respect of whom such offence was committed, has been killed, or where the accused has been proved to be by habit or repute a witch-finder, liable on conviction to imprisonment for a period not exceeding twenty years.
the problem is the investigation and prosecution of the offences.
Michael,
What about that little girl in Sosh that was murdered for some body parts, just because it has “more power” than using cadavers… I liked your statement that the death penalty should come back for committing murder (pre-meditated).
I do however don’t think that “witchcraft” will be banned due to the “religious” nature of it, and due to the fact that a court of law can only ban something which they themselves can reproduce “scientifically”, even though it may actually exist and may/may not be very dangerous … a court of law does not like to get involved with “supernatural” “facts” …
I once read a really interesting research paper in which an academic found a strong relationship between economic downturns and the killing of witches based on historical data. The theory was that in times of economic strife there needs to be external blame for misfortune, so witch-hunting rises. Wonder if there are similar correlations in the South African context?
Traditional Beliefs and Customary issues are far too often used as an excuse. All this bumf should be outlawed - what about muti murders? These deeds are perpetuated by backward and superstitious beliefs in “witches” and the use of traditional healers. The police do have an Occult Crimes unit but it does not focus on “traditional” matters, perhaps because these are considered as touching on customary practices. I cannot for the life of me believe that in this day and age people (no matter how uneducated) still believe this nonsense.
What’s in a name? Seems in the article that those who get accused or ‘named’ as a witch are the ones who need protection.
And if we look at the definition of witchcraft as quoted ‘The secret use of muti, zombies, spells, spirits, magic powders, water, mixtures, etc by any person with the purpose of causing harm, damage, sickness to others or their property.’ we can immediately see that this definition covers the activities of pharma, marketing departments, municipalities and government.
What rubbish!! It is our Culture to tear animals apart with our bare hands even though this is against the animal protection act.
Therefore it is also our right to murder 8 year old girls, cut them to bits and sell the spares. It is our “Culture” to have witchdoctors so they too are entitled to break insignificant laws such as murder and mutilation for the greater good which is “Our Culture”.
It is “Our Culture” to endanger the lives of young men in initiation ceremonies where over 16 have been reported dead for 2009. Small prices to pay for our “Culture”?
Stop complaining because all laws in South Africa are there to be broken. It’s a hit list of things to do.
“Witchcraft” is a misnomer. Rather use the vernacular term “ubuthakathi” because there is no equivalent English term. Mislabelling unfairly stigmatises the religious practice of Wiccans and magickal Pagans.
Man, I love the logic here. Tell you what, lets make being black a criminal offence because it causes people to be racist, lets make driving cars a criminal offence because it causes people to drive drunk and, best of all, lets make Christianity a criminal offence as more people have died in the name of their “jealous and angry” God and his mad desire to be the “one true God” than in the name of anything ever before.
[…] Thought Leader » Michael Trapido » Make witchcraft a criminal offence www.thoughtleader.co.za/traps/2010/01/13/make-witchcraft-a-criminal-offence – view page – cached An 81-year-old woman in KwaKwiliza near Mtubatuba in KwaZulu-Natal was stabbed 50 times and had her throat slit because her neighbour accused her of being a witch. According to the police he was of the belief that the elderly woman had killed two members of his family members through using […]
There is already a treatise to back such a proposed law against witchcraft, the “Malleus Maleficarum”. I seem to recall reading how many intelligent woman with a wider interest than merely being a “gude wyfe” were burned at the stake “for their own good” in that enlightened age. How do one proof an act of withcraft in a court of law? Why don’t we just stay with damage to another, especially murder or torture of any kind and for any reason is illegal? In that way we don’t need to go down the rabbit hole of: what exactly constitutes withcraft?
The other day a friend from Germany sked me whether we still practiced cannibalism in Africa. With great conviction (and quite ignorantly considering the recent spate in witchcraft related killings) I emphatically said No.
Fundamental to African witchcraft, in my opinion, are things like kidnapping, murder, cannibalism,intimidation, etc.
Those are the crimes that must be tackled. The problem though is the fact that affected communities are seldom prepared to speak openly about this or point out the real perpetrators. It is far easier to organise a witch hunt as was done in medieval times in Europe and elsewhere.
It is time that Africans, especially South Africans, wake up and make the transition to the 21st centurary, and fast. Legislating against witchcraft per se is not going to help one bit.
Given some of the atrocities that happen in holding cells and jails here, do you really think making witchcraft illegal is going to “put them into cottonwool”?
If I read this correctly your answer to the problem of killing witches is to outlaw witchcraft, right?
So if we apply this twisted logic to the rest of the murder problem in South Africa would you not agree that we can stop the murder of Christians by simply outlawing Christianity? I dare you; in fact I challenge you, to try passing that off.
This article smacks of the sort of “wash your hands of it” attitude that fosters hate.
Murder is Murder, no matter how you look at it. Thats the real story here, a man murdered an 81 Yr old woman. End of Story.
The fact that he used witchcraft as an excuse, is just that, an excuse. And the fact that you as the journalist have not gathered all the information (relying on what the neighbours said) Did you even try to find out how his family members died? Have to spoken to his laywers or police to get this mans version of what happened?
As a Lawyer, I would of assumed that you of all people would see the logistical nightmare in trying to prove that someone is a witch and justifying that it is because of her belief system that she got hacked to death.
Do some more homework please. Then report on a story.
Making witchcraft a crime protects witches? Just like making prostitution a crime has really protected prostitutes. This suggestion is blinkered, Orwellian and intellectually shallow.
The problem is that murder by reason of ‘witchcraft’ is being used by the defense as extenuating circumstances to secure a lesser sentence, much in the same way as ‘intoxication’, young age, and ‘insanity’. Giving the perpetrator a light sentence due to him acting according to his belief system - is the problem, as this defense can be used for murders with other motives.
The way to go is to legislate harsher sentences for ‘witchcraft’ murderers, and use some of the wasteful advertising spend from Dept of Justice and Dept Social Services to ram home, inform and educate the public.
You cannot meaningfully outlaw superstition, or in fact any beliefs, whether they be objectively groundless or not.
It would in any case be pointless, as murder is illegal regardless of the beliefs of the perpetrator.
Nor can the ‘practice of witchcraft’ conceivably be circumscribed by a legally meaningful definition.
The fault lies with the efficacy of our criminal justice system to uphold the laws we already have.
If perpetrators believe they have little chance of being apprehended and successfully prosecuted and convicted, then the justice system presents no deterrent, no matter how preemptive one thinks the legislation has been designed.
Perry Curling-Hope on January 14th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
This has been addressed many times in the past. If a person murders another person, that is exactly what it is, murder. If they include Witchcraft, Satanism or even Christian symbolism or acts to perform that murder makes no difference, it is murder and should be tried as murder, not religion. Plus we must bear in mind that calling someone of African descent who uses African Witchcraft means something completely different to calling someone who practices European Witchcraft, especially when you get down to the real roots of the word witch, being Anglo Saxon Old English in origin, and meaning something closer to the title of shaman. Words are used without thought nowadays which is a shame. The word witch got a negative connotation over the years and so it is used to describe such. The people using it usually don;t know what they are actually referring to unfortunately and so it becomes a constant, tiring cycle of someone saying XYZ and those who know better explaining over and over again.
It’s a fine line between traditional healers (who might not be successful) and witches.
Witches are often in the eye of the beholder, rather than self-confessed.
The excuse for murder should be immaterial. I doubt this murderer considered himself responsible for what he did. Justified, yes, but don’t most of SA murderers?
Murder is the sin, rather than witchery. And I’m quite surprised a lawyer doesn’t get that. So methinks I wouldn’t want to get Trapido to defend me no matter what I was accused of…
Oh right, and the vicious vigilante mob is going to just accept a verdict of not guilty and allow the person they are blaming for all their misfortunes to return home and carry on with their life. Or perhaps we just like the idea of forcing some poor elderly woman to go through the indignity of arrest, imprisonment and trial before we send her back to be murdered by her neighbours?
If you can believe in an invisible man in the sky that will burn you if you do bad things then I say you can believe in witchcraft. I find witchcraft no more ludicrous than Christian, Jewish or Muslim beliefs and if you outlaw the one, you may as well outlaw the lot.
WOW. What an excellent idea! Let’s go the whole hog and get rid of ALL criminal activity by, not only criminalizing Witchcraft, but doing the same for Christianity, Judaism and Islam. THAT way we will protect ALL citizens, not only Witches.
It is already an offence to practice witchcraft. Section 1 (b) of the Suppression of Witchcraft Act 3 of 1957 provides that any person who professes or pretends to use witchcraft shall be guilty of an offence which attracts stiff penalties. So far no witch has sought to strike down this law as invalid for its inconsistency with the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom as set out in the Bill of Rights. It is however notoriously difficult to enforce the existing law because credible evidence of profession or pretense is difficult to come by in the quarters in which the practice of witchcraft is found. Perhaps this is why no challenge has been mounted, striking down a dead letter law that has apparently escaped the attention of the esteemed Traps would seem to be an awful waste of time and effort.
Welcome to the arena of conflicting world-views. Witchcraft steeped in African world-view and SA Laws steeped in Western world-view. From the different reactions we can see that you cannot “marry” these two world-views.
Mungikhi has the most practical solution, put the elderly in old age homes.
I fail to see how this idea would give any meaningful protection to anyone - being able to report witchcraft to the police as a crime will only work if:
(1) there’s a possibility of conviction, reliant on:
(a) proof of witchcraft/harm/potential harm (how?);
(b) adequate investigative work and attendance at court by complainants, witnesses and officers;
(c) justice being seen to be reasonably swift (further burdening the courts seems to preclude this)
(2) An injunction on commissioning any further similar or related acts whilst on remand/awaiting trial.
(3) Sufficient law enforcement personnel close to ‘victims’/'perpetrators’.
(4) A belief that witchcraft can be subject to manmade laws and enforcement officials.
This last one is the absolute death blow. If HIV is not always subject to conventional medicine according to many beliefs, nor is it preventable by the use of condoms (if you are cursed to receive HIV the condom will surely fail or break, thus rendering it redundant), how on earth can witchcraft be subject to quasi-Western systems of enforcement and correction? It is madness to suggest it so.
Far better to simply use the statutes and common law processes that exist to deal with issues such as harassment and premeditated murder.
In “Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa,” Adam Ashforth examines how people in Soweto and other parts of post-apartheid South Africa manage their fear of ‘evil forces’ such as witchcraft. Ashforth examines the dynamics of insecurity in the everyday life of Soweto at the turn of the twenty-first century. He develops a new framework for understanding occult violence as a form of spiritual insecurity and documents new patterns of interpretation attributing agency to evil forces. Finally, he analyzes the response of post-apartheid governments to issues of spiritual insecurity and suggests how these matters pose severe long-term challenges to the legitimacy of the democratic state.
“In communities where a witchcraft paradigm informs understandings about other peoples’ motives and capacities, life must be lived in terms of a presumption of malice.”
– AIDS in the Witchraft Paradigm of Power, by Adam Ashforth
Grant Walliser and Peter Henry Eck you’ve made my day.
Indeed in the african context “witchcraft” is what you’d call the dark arts. Most of them start as normal healers, but as in any other society spanning thousand or so years back, theres always some recluse who goes and messing with stuff that isn’t in their interest to mess with (maybe not, woteva)
nonetheless it amazes me to label this an african problem. maybe its why in our language we separate the two.
The idea would work if there was a more objective way to identify and convict an accused witch.
The challenge is, how will this be done. I am a black man, and i believe in the Black man’s definition of a witch, which is not necessarily the same as the western definition.
People will tell you that they saw a Sangoma who told them that they are being bewitched by so and so.
Well my experience is that most genuine Sangomas would actually desist from telling you who is putting the curse on you, especially if they can see that you an unstable type who can’t control his emotions.
So more than likely, we will end up with the same situation most people being wrongly accused and maybe convicted because of personal grudges.
This one should be left to the Traditional Leaders. If i remember correctly, many African communities had courts to deal with these isuues, led by the kings and chiefs of cause. My suggestion is to revive those courts and just amend what we feel might be outdated
And how exactly will criminalisation make witchcraft, or the suspicions of people that someone is a witch, go away?
The suggestion appears to me as a step to the dark ages.
People need to be educated about dealing with allegation in an appropriate way.
I blame these new fangled Re-born African Christian Churches who are fanning the flames and installing the ideas of witchcraft into gullible people so they can make huge profits out of it by exorcising the possessed.
Also I think anybody stupid enough to believe they need to murder witches is not going to listen to the law whatever rules you make. Infact by acknowledging there are witches would justify their killings rather than stop them. You need to tell them there are no witches, no bogey men and even Santa Claus aint’ real.
Michael how can you justify having a witchcraft act? If people were killing in the name of the Eater bunny would you propose an Easter Bunny act? All you would do is make the people believe the Easter Bunny really was real. It wouldn’t stop them killing. Murder is against the law and they know they but don’t care. Educate the people - don’t feed the fear.
Earth to Michael. We are living in the 21st century. Let us use some modern technology like tv, radio and cell phone sms’s to bring those living in the dark ages into the 21st century. The only real witches in the 21st century are a bunch of tree hugging Pagans and they don’t harm anybody. It’s time these superstitions were put into perspective and revealed for exactly what they are - superstitious nonesense. Kill the nonesnse - don’t encourage it by making laws for it. Next you will be telling us to make laws to accomodate the Tokolosh.
I suggest you take a month’s holiday, hell even a week, and go traipse around the Transkei and see the kinda witch-craft related cases the SAPS have to investigate.
Hell, go to your local SAPS and treat this as a reserarch topic. don’t be so ignorant.
Slight difference between christianity and witchcraft. I don’t know of any christian doctrine, that states that to ‘get rich’ or to ‘get sexually potent’ or ‘be lucky’; or ‘powerful’; you should eat medicine, which includes human body parts harvested off people who are still alive, and that the greater terror inflicted upon the harvested victim, the greater the transfer of power….
Do you know any such Christian, or Christian doctrine?
Do you know any such Christian, or Christian doctrine?
Yes, actually. If you eat the body of some dude who died 2000 years ago, you will be saved from burning in hell. Also all your wishes er . . prayers will be granted if you drink his blood.
Not much difference between witchcraft and christianity
Well said Eligos. I would also like to add that when it comes to “the greater terror inflicted upon the harvested victim, the greater the transfer of power”, well then the Christians wrote the book on that one with their Inquisition, Crusades and Witch-burnings/killings of the 1600-1800’s (the latter numbering in excess of the Holocaust). Christianity is a religion borne out of blood and violence that is diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus, their so-called martyr. They also love to quote the Old Testament (”Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”, a command given by Levi) to justify the slaughter but then conveniently brush aside the First Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”, a command given directly by their god. No wonder they are all so confused!
It appears you misunderstand the difference between symbology and fact. No wafer or grape justice/wine distributed in any christian church claims to include therein the actual blood of christ, or body of christ. They say it ’symbolizes’ it; and most white christians know what the word ’symbolizes’ mean.
The people who were instrumental as anti-abolitionists of slavery — Christians!
Sorry, I thought the discussion was about current practices. If the discussion is about past brutality by religions, I would agree all religions have a large number of crusade victims to account for. Muslims have not only the over 100 million in terms of Trans Sahara Slavery; but also the self confessed: millions of Christians, Buddhists etc.
I was referring to current practices of religions in South Africa, in 2010. I don’t particulary care what anyone’s religion is (mine is Radical Honesty Bushido Dischordianism); if it gives them existential meaning; without violently inflicing their beliefs on others..
It appears however one religion (withcraft/muti) in South Africa, has not developed, like Christianity did, out of its dark ages, of superstition and sacrifice.
If I knew of any Christians going about chopping of penises and vagina’s, in the year 2010, I’d say the same thing. I don’t know any; do you Julian?????
Paul Hoffman said, “It is already an offence to practice witchcraft. Section 1 (b) of the Suppression of Witchcraft Act 3 of 1957 provides that any person who professes or pretends to use witchcraft shall be guilty of an offence which attracts stiff penalties. So far no witch has sought to strike down this law as invalid for its inconsistency with the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom as set out in the Bill of Rights.”
This is not true. The South African Pagan Rights Alliance and the South African Pagan Council has appealed to the Law Reform Commission to repeal this Act on the grounds that it criminalizes self-identified Witches. The members of our organization do define as Witches.
Just a point of correction here, lest we get further derailed.
“It appears however one religion (withcraft/muti) in South Africa, has not developed, like Christianity did, out of its dark ages, of superstition and sacrifice. ”
Witchcraft is not a religion…its a cultural practice or a chosen way of life.
Witchcraft has no place in a modern society - and cannot exist in a modern constitutional democracy - It belongs in the dark ages - it has no basis AT ALL in fact and keeping it alive will keep fear, ignorance and poverty alive and well too. What we need is a massive education drive. Oh wait, sorry i forgot! Our school system has been collapsing for the last ten years - oh well.
So I’m a fairy. And someone tries to kill me because I’m a fairy. How is making being a fairy illegal going to stop that?
You’re confusing the cause and the symptom. A man killed a woman for reasons unknown, alleging that she was a witch was his excuse. Witchcraft (real or imagined, Western or African) has nothing to do with it.
We have laws against witchcraft (which some of us are trying to get repealed for obvious reasons) and we have laws against murder. What we need here is to stop people using witchcraft as an excuse for petty revenge against people they don’t like or are jealous of or who are marginalised and vulnerable.
Witches pertain to Witchcraft, and the misuse of the word Witchcraft is due to the mis-categorization of African Nyanga / Tokolosh / Traditional Muti, etc. - chopping up body parts, causing people to die, killing people imagined to be Nyanga / Tokolosh / etc. only proves the ignorant and undereducated state of rural villages and peoples.
Witchcraft is an English word for an English meaning of the European definition of the subgroup of Paganism, which has absolutely less than nothing to do with Traditional African Muti / etc. (use a isiXhosa / Zulu dictionary if you want to find the words incorrectly correlated to witches / witchcraft).
Bottom line is that outlawing a globally recognized and constitutionally protected religion is as daft as outlawing minority religions based on the premise that IGNORANCE IS EXCUSABLE!!
Next they’ll be trying to pass a ban on women wearing “revealing clothing” (i.e. skirts above the knees) because certain minority cultures “cannot” keep their urges under control. Isn’t that what this entire expedition is encouraging - Dropping COMMON SENSE in favor of entertaining inadequate education and limited understanding?
Well done. Spectacular work. If enough people are reportedly afraid of ghosts, why not make GHOSTS illegal?? They haunt people, kill them, eat them– oh wait, that’s paranoid superstition.
Stop using the words “witchcraft” and “witches” to soapbox your sad little stance. This is about murder and you have already made total fools of yourselves over the Mpumalanga witchcraft Bill.
The law makes it an offence for any person who, inter alia, accuses any other person of causing, by supernatural means, of any disease in or injury or damage to any person or thing, or who names or indicates any other person as a wizard and in the case of an offence in consequence of which the person in respect of whom such offence was committed, has been killed that person is liable to be imprisoned for twenty years.
If the South African Pagan Rights Alliance and the South African Pagan Council now want this provision repealed, then you need to very carefully examine your motives because in fact, nobody really gives a hairy goat’s knee about a bunch of wannabees running around at full moon and purporting to be witches etc.
Are you grandstanding or can you prove that there is a REAL threat that you guys are in danger?
What the law is concerned about is activity that can - and does - result in murder.
@White Refugee
I figure that I do understand the difference between between symbology and fact.
What seems to escape you though, is that with these sorts of practices, everything is symbolic - not just the christian pratcices but also those of the “witches” and mutimen and women.
The fact is that there is no difference between the various practices - only the purpose and symbol.
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Passing laws has not much effect on the behaviour of South Africans. We are not a compliant with laws society
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