While Harry Potter is worshipped by kids everywhere, we have thousands of street-kids in Africa accused of witch-craft. The International Herald Tribune reports that in Angola, Congo and in some other African countries kids are being beaten mercilessly for bringing misfortune to adults. There are cases of orphaned children being hung upside down for supposedly cursing their parents to death.

If the kids are thrown out of their homes because of witchcraft, then the aggressive adults get to take over the orphan’s property. This is obvious, but is only a surface reading of the situation. The answer lies in Bantu culture. There kids have been traditionally associated with witchery. It is thought that adult witches target and prepare kids for becoming receptacles of evil forces. It will be a great injustice to the African people to mark out the Bantus for their inhumanities. Western societies too have not hesitated to kill children suspecting them of being vampires. This is a way to transfer blame for adult failures to children. Everything that goes wrong in the adult world can now be conveniently yoked to little shoulders.

Originally Bantu dads had started calling their own kids witches. When faced with extreme poverty and consequent starvation, parents had to get their children killed. This is a survival strategy. Instead of focusing on the cruelty of the parents, we must focus on the circumstances which force parents to kill their sons and daughters. The basis of this witch-hunt is not superstition, but economic compulsion.

This economic situation is being exploited by some evangelical churches in Africa. These churches thrive on the fear of the local people. With their potpourri of Satan and evil forces prowling about, this witchcraft business affords them the perfect opportunity to trounce the Catholic Church in Africa. When people are poor and scared they will believe anything. While mainstream religions teach tolerance and point out social evils as more pressing than unseen demons, these small churches would rather turn everyone away from unjust social structures and present us with demonic children. We adults like the sensational more than the real. Reality hurts, so we would rather hurt kids for surreal purposes.

As long as there is poverty, social inequality and hunger, children are not safe. As I always maintain after Jonathan Swift, who wrote Gulliver’s Travels: it is far easier to eat up kids than declare them witches. That way we solve our hunger problems along with the population problem.

Via: International Herald Tribune

Image: Minor Con