Speaking of children being seen as “witches,” and witch hunts, and cruelty to putative witches, don’t miss Leo Igwe’s new article, Kukuo: Inside a ‘Witch Camp’ in Ghana.
Here is a sample.
Many of the alleged witches said they would like to return to their original homes but were afraid for their lives. Some did not want to go back at all. They felt safe and at peace in Kukuo.
But that is because they do not have a better alternative. In Kukuo, life is hard. Survival is difficult. Most of the women survive by farming for others, but many of them are getting too old and could not farm any longer. Some of them were sick. One of the women could not walk, and she was living alone. She crawled around to cook and to attend to her daily chores. Some have resorted to begging for survival.
Leo tells the story of Fusa, a widow who had just finished building a house and was about to move into it when she was accused of making a neighbor’s child ill. Gee, what a coincidence. Now she’s in Kukuo, heart broken and traumatized.
This is OT, I’m sorry.
Has M. Shermer got a pass from every one of the ftb bloggers? His reprehensible column in SciAm (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-liberals-war-on-science) should be fisked every way to Pasadena. It is one of the worst examples of “both sides do it” punditry.
I hadn’t seen that column.
I’m not the ideal person to fisk anything else of Shermer’s right now!
But in any case I don’t think I disagree with that column. (I didn’t read it closely – I really don’t want to take it on, so there’s no need.) I do think there are branches of the left that are anti-science. That was one of the themes of the original B&W when it started, and of Why Truth Matters. If you don’t believe me, read Higher Superstition. It’s probably mostly out of date now, but it’s a very good book, and eye-opening.
If witches were so powerful, then they should be able to magic themselves out of any difficulties. Yet the anti-witch forces have no trouble persecuting, torturing and killing witches. It’s almost like witches can’t do anything special other than get their neighbors and the authorities into persecuting mode.