Witchcraft and Statecraft: Liberal Democracy in Africa

Abstract

96 Georgetown Law Journal 183 (2007)This Article addresses the prospects of liberal democracy in non-Western societies. It focuses on South Africa, one of the newest and most admired liberal democracies, and in particular on its efforts to recognize indigenous African traditions surrounding witchcraft and related occult practices. In 2004, Parliament passed a law that purports to regulate certain occult practitioners called traditional healers. Today, lawmakers are under pressure to go further and criminalize the practice of witchcraft itself. This Article presses two arguments. First, it contends that the 2004 statute is compatible with liberal principles of equal citizenship and the rule of law. Second, it warns against outlawing witchcraft as such. Subjecting suspected sorcerers to criminal punishment based on governmental determinations of guilt that many will perceive to be unprincipled would work too much damage to individual autonomy and national unity, among other values. These arguments are designed to contribute to a wider discussion about the capacity of liberalism to respond to the global resurgence of religious traditionalism, especially in countries where traditionalists may comprise a large majority of the citizenry.

The Superstition that Maims the Vulnerable: Establishing the Magnitude of Witchcraft-Driven Mistreatment of Children and Older Women in Ghana

“…The belief in witchcraft and the existence of witches and wizards is, unarguably, the most dominant harmful superstition in Africa (Cimpric 2010;Evans-Pritchard 1937;Quarmyne 2011;Tebbe 2007). According to Kate Crehan (1997) and Jill Schnoebelen (2009), witchcraft belief is an inescapable part of everyday life in the region; it is held by all manner of peoplethe uneducated and educated, the poor and rich, the old and young.…”

“…Consequently, the witch embodies this wicked persona, driven to commit evil deeds under the influence of the : : : force of witchcraft." (Cimpric 2010:1-2) Thus, in almost all African countries, witches are generally viewed as entities who possess extraordinary malevolent spiritual powers and whose intentions are almost always to do evil against others (Adinkrah 2004;LeVine 1963;Tebbe 2007).…”

Witchcraft and supernatural harm: navigating spiritual ethics in political science research

“…The very real experiences of misfortune, illness, and loss that result from witchcraft attack are often unresolved due to the absence of or a lack access to appropriate spiritual mechanisms (Tebbe, 2007). Further, these traumatic experiences are the result of malevolence and intended harms designed to limit or prevent the victim from living a life of happiness and success (Ashforth, 2005;Geschiere, 1997).…”

White man law versus black magic women. Racial and gender entanglements of witchcraft policies in Romania

“…South African lawmakers started the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1998, meant to end witchcraft violence (Niehaus 2013). South Africa's Law Reform Commission ratified the Witchcraft suppression act in 2010 9 , which had a strong impact on similar legislative projects in the 2000s in Cameroon (Geschiere 2006) and Zimbabwe (Tebbe 2007), as well as the Kenyan Justification for Review of Witchcraft Act, in 2013 10 . In 2008, after the Consumer Affairs Victoria department has been contacted by numerous Australian citizens with complaints on witchcraft fraud, the Australian legal organisms in Melbourne have started discussing regulations on witchcraft practitioners 11 .…”