About a thousand people have been picked up in Gambia as being "witches" and made to drink some apparently weird potion.
I'm not going to comment on the utter stupidity and superstition that seems to be emanating from the Gambian dictator, Yahya Jemmah--because this was the same guy that two years ago was claiming he found a cure for AIDS in eating banana and drinking some funky water and smearing oneself with some green stuff.
No. He totally did that. That really should be enough dumb for a lifetime. But no.
What I am impressed by is that when I researched this article, I found this good article from a Gambian source, The Gambia Echo. And I wanted to share a link to them not just because it is very well-thought out and critical, but also because I agree with the sentiments. The site doesn't permit copy and paste (sorry)--so just go there and read it. But here's something:
To start with, I wish to humbly beg to defer with Mr. Sallah for viewing the enigma as an abuse of human rights, because by that trajectory, I'm afraid of the message being misconstrued, especially outside the Gambia, with the notion that those targeted were simply practicing their human rights as witches.
Certainly, the practice of witchcraft in modern times is now one of the most pevasive and legal human activities with websites of those claiming to be witches accessible all over cyberspace. A Google about witches will not only lead one to numerous websites of practicing witches but will further provide one with all types of books, periodicals and information about the subject and the people passionately involved in it. Witches in today's modern world after centuries of being sentenced to the stake, hanged on gallowses, banished in the wilderness at the mercy of wild animals, slaughtered in pogroms, tortured by crazed mobs, humiliated and dehumanized in manners that defied human logic, have now been understood to be harmless human beings whose past suffering had all to do with our ignorance and prejudice. But I wonder how in turn we as Gambians are with this reality or whether our country is even ready to explore the idea of studying and understanding it within the same contemporary framework. My personal experience with many Gambians engaged in debating the myth about witchcraft--and that is what I believe it is all about--the "Gurus" on the subject are usually contemptuous to any attempt one might make to demystify the conventional wisdom. Perhaps Mr. Halifa Sallah's fearlessness in coming out openly to challenge this dubious exercise has a lot to do with his liberation from the retarded belief in witches and therefore, cares less if anyone accused him of being one or not.
(That's a bit I painstakingly typed out with my own fat, arthritic sausage fingers. Enjoy. But click on a link, darn it.)
I really think this witchcraft craze there has to do with Jammeh being very much Teh Suckage. I suspect this purge is deflecting from some really bad economic situation in an already poor country. I hope the people of Gambia can find articles like this one and realize what a fraud it is--and hopefully, stop it before more innocent people are harmed.
My heart goes out to the people who have been picked up and already suffer from this stupidity.
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