REFERRING to your article on 25 November, ‘Witchcraft link in children’s killings’.
The title is misleading. Did the man self-identify as a witch or a sangoma? Why call his practices ‘witchcraft’ if the answer to the question is uncertain?
Are his practices simply called witchcraft because it involved blood and muthi? Or because the practices were harmful?
This reveals an unfortunate and undeserved negative bias against the term ‘witchcraft’.
Calling this murder a witchcraft killing is offensive and even harmful to those South African citizens who do self-identify as witches/wiccans and label their religion or practices as witchcraft, based on traditions derived from Europe and pre-Christian pagan belief systems.
The term ‘witchcraft’ cannot therefore simply be used to stand in for a misuse of African traditional practices as practiced by the perpetrator.
It is unfair to suggest that innocent law-abiding witches are involved in crimes or that murders are part of the peaceful nature-based religious system called witchcraft.
Unfortunately, the term witchcraft is wrongly used in South Africa and in other African nations as a term to scapegoat innocents accused of causing harm in their communities.
Said ‘witches’ are then burned, executed or exiled. This article may well add to the fear and superstition surrounding the words ‘witch’ and ‘witchcraft’.
FRANCISCO
South African Pagan Rights Alliance (SAPRA)
