The antiwitchcraft campaign in Africa has been criticized by a 'pagan religious group' in South Africa.See http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=6416194117&topic=14350 and http://www.paganrightsalliance.org/A%20Pagan%20Witches%20Touchstone.pdf A post from someone who appears to be a member this group regards the campaign as another assault on their religion and their human rights.
This fellow quoted from one of my articles http://culturekitchen.com/leo_igwe/blog/towards_a_humanist_awakening_in_...
where I said there were no witches, and that witches were imaginary entities, to buttress his point. He refered to the IHEU statement at the UN urging African states to improve the quality of education and policing in Africa as a way to eliminate witchcraft related human rights abuses.
It is obvious that this fellow misunderstood the issues at stake. And it is this kind of mistake and confusion that has undermined efforts to realize cultural renewal and rebirth in Africa.
In this piece I would like to make some clarifications. And I would like to start by telling a story - a true life story. In 2002 I attended the World Women Congress in Kampala, Uganda. During the congress, I organized an antiwitchcraft campaign using placards. And one of the placards I was carrying about read 'Women are not Witches'. A white woman who came from Australia saw this, walked up to me and told me that she was a witch. Immediately I knew she had a different notion of the word 'witch'. (Because from my own cultural background, no woman in her right senses would admit openly to being a witch.) I went ahead to explain to her that in Africa, a witch means one who could leave the body at night to go and meet in the oceans or forests to eat human flesh, suck blood, plan or inflict harm on one's enemies. That those alleged to be witches are largely seen as wicked and destructive.
Before I could finish my explanation the woman started shaking her head and slowly walked away. I am sure the woman realized that she was not a witch in this sense. The same goes to my pagan friends and self identified witches in South Africa. They belong to a different narrative of witchcraft
But I want to reiterate that, whatever the sense or narrative one subscribes to, witchcraft is superstition. There is no evidence that any human being can change to an animal or insect to perpetrate any deed-constructive or destructive. The terms magic(black or white), spirituality or occultic are all epithets to disguise our tricks, schemes and intrigues including what we do not know and cannot explain.There is no evidence that witches exist. Those who call themselves witches do. Just as there is no evidence that God exists but god men and women(not god-dog or god insect)do. Any body can call himself/herself anything-god, angel, spirit or demon. That does not give real existence to these fantasies. Witches are fictitous entities.
Those who accuse people of witchcraft do so out of fear of the unknown, out of ignorance of nature and how nature works; out of lack of knowledge of the solution and explanation of their problems.
So the campaign against witchcraft is a campaign against unreason, superstition, fear, and ignoroance. It is a campaign for African enlightenement, intellectual awakening and rebirth.
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