I wish that I could say that all of this is in the past – that civilization has become enlightened and has stopped murdering themselves out of ignorance, fear and greed – but the truth is, there are places where witch hunts still exist today.
Most of these cases are instances of lynching, which means to seize somebody believed to have committed a crime and put him or her to death immediately and without a trial. The majority occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, and in Saudi Arabia where witch craft is still legally punishable by death.1999 in the Congo there were reports of witch hunts against children, and in Tanzania there were reports of women being accused of sorcery for having red eyes. Since 1990, in parts of Southern Africa, several hundred people have been killed as witches. On May 21st 2008, it was reported that a Kenyan mob had burnt to death at least 11 people accused of sorcery, and in 2009, Amnesty International reported that up to 1,000 people in the Gambia had been abducted by government-sponsored “witch doctors” on charges of witchcraft, and taken to detention centers where they were forced to drink poisonous concoctions.
In India, labeling a woman as a witch is a way to gain land, settle scores or even a way to punish her for turning down sexual advances. In most cases, it’s difficult for the accused woman to reach out for help, and she’s forced to either abandon her home and family, or commit suicide. Witch hunting actually is outlawed there, but research shows that less than 2% of those accused are even convicted. A 2010 estimate shows that the number of women killed as witches in India is between 150 and 200 per year.
And so, no. We have not become enlightened – and it’s possible that we never will. Fear is constant, and fear defies the ages. It is the same now as it was in ancient times: The same crippling emotion that drives humanity to blind themselves from their very own sanity and reason, and drives them to murder their own people because of that self inflicted blindness. So as long as fear without reasoning exists, nothing will change.
theskywillfall 