Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill of 2007

In June this year the Office of the Premier of Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, leaked a draft Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill of 2007 which threatens to undermine the freedoms and rights already guaranteed to an existing religious minority – Witches - by deliberately criminalizing and prohibiting said religious minority’s constitutionally guaranteed right to exist and to practice their religion.

Intent

The draft Bill seeks to suppress Witchcraft and will imprison self-defined Witches on the assumption of automatic inference of criminality. The Bill will also prohibit the accusation of witchcraft against anyone, and it will regulate the practices of Traditional Healers.

"The purpose of the bill is to suppress Acts of witchcraft including naming and pointing of any body as a wizard or witch. To deal with the violence associated with allegations of witchcraft and deal with killings including ritual killing associated with witchcraft and empowering Traditional leaders to deal with Witchcraft aspects." - Policy and Budget Speech for Mpumalanga Local Government and Housing: By Hon Mec K.C. Mashego-Dlamini during the appropriation of the Local Government Budget for 2007/08

Background

The bill has its roots in a rise of ill feelings against or concerning traditional healers and witches since the mid-1990s.

Since 1980 thousands of innocent men and women have been accused of being witches or of using witchcraft. Many have been murdered by their communities without trial. Many more have been banished from their villages, their homes destroyed and members of their families murdered or forced to flee in fear of their lives.

For many South Africans a witch is nothing but a source of mischief, quarrel, illness, barrenness and sudden death. In common usage the word ‘witch’ is virtually synonymous with poisoner, murderer and liar and has become a label of convenience for any archetypal evil that threatens the natural and good societal order. In rural South Africa, the mere suspicion of witchcraft activity may lead to accusation, assault, enforced exile or murder, especially in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Kwazulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.

Despite numerous inter-governmental investigations into the phenomena of ‘witch-purging’ by individuals and communities within South Africa and in spite of numerous very detailed published reports, including the Thohoyandou Declaration, no attempt has been made to reconcile the two very different world-views at stake when discussing witchcraft from a traditional African and Christian perspective, and Witchcraft from a South African Pagan perspective.

The 1995 Report of the Ralushai Commission of Inquiry into Witchcraft Violence and Ritual Murder in the Northern Province, defined the term ‘witch’ to mean a person who,

…through sheer malice, either consciously or subconsciously, employs magical means to inflict all manner of evil on their fellow human beings. They destroy property, bring disease or misfortune and cause death, often entirely without provocation to satisfy their inherent craving for evil doing.

Testifying before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission Amnesty Hearing in July 1999 Professor Ralushai confirmed his Commission’s definition of ‘a witch’ when he was asked by attorney Patrick Ndou to define what a Witch was. Ralushai stated,

“A witch is supposed to be a person who is endowed with powers of causing illness or ill luck or death to the person that he wants to destroy.”

It could be argued that maintaining and reinforcing a definition predisposed to eliciting violence against alleged witches was never in the best interest of tolerance or reconciliation.

The characterization of a person or group of persons (witches) as ‘evil’ and so deserving of criminal classification by default makes a mockery of the values of human dignity, equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms on which the Republic of South Africa is founded.

The Suppression Bill defines Witchcraft as:

…the secret use of muti, zombies, spells, spirits, magic powders, water, mixtures, etc, by any person with the purpose of causing harm, damage, sickness to others or their property.

Self-defined Witches have rejected this definition on the grounds that it stereotypes witchcraft as harmful and portrays Witches as a danger to the communities within which they live and work. The proposed definition will merely serve to justify public fear of witchcraft and promote malice and violence against suspected witches.

SAPRA has called on Provincial and national government authorities to halt the passage of the Suppression Bill and has provided the authorities with the following preferred definition of Witchcraft: Witchcraft is a religio-magical occupation that employs the use of sympathetic magic, ritual, herbalism and divination.

ee also

* Sangoma

External links

* [http://www.pagancouncil.za.net/?q=node/55 Full text of the draft "Witchcraft Suppression Bill"] , courtesy of the South African Pagan Council
* [http://www.penton.co.za/20070805.htm "Pagan Witches and Traditional Healers on the Suppression Bill"] , Penton Pagan Magazine
* [http://www.penton.co.za/20070806.htm "Freedom of Belief versus religious intolerance in South Africa"] , Penton Pagan Magazine
* [http://www.thepaganactivist.com/paganisminafrica.htm "Paganism in Africa"] by Damon Leff
* [http://www.sa.paganfederation.org/sapaganism.html "The Birth of public Paganism in South Africa 1995 - 2007"]
* [http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20070729084819382C418408 "Western witches set out to defeat new law"] by Kylie Walker
* [http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL20806502.html "S.Africa witches fight for rights"] by Muchena Zigomo
* [http://www.wildhunt.org/2007/07/witchcraft-killings-become-pagan-issue.html "Witchcraft Killings Become a Pagan Issue"]
* [http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=314498&area=/insight/insight__national/ "Bewitched or de-witched?"] by Tshwarelo eseng Mogakane and Sydney Masinga
* [http://www.iol.co.za "Witches need protection, says Sapra"]
* [http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=518307 "Healers, pagans oppose new witchcraft bill"] by Riot Hlatshwayo
* [http://www.lghmpg.gov.za/speeches/BudgetSpeech2007-08.pdf] Policy and Budget Speech for Local Government and Housing: By Hon Mec Kc Mashego-Dlamini during the appropriation of the Mpumalanga Local Government Budget for 2007/08

Pagan Organizations in South Africa

* [http://www.paganrightsalliance.org/ South African Pagan Rights Alliance]
* [http://www.pagancouncil.co.za/ Pagan Council of South Africa]
* [http://www.sa.paganfederation.org/index.html Pagan Federation International South Africa]