I debated with myself for a while whether or not to pen this disgraceful and disgusting story that’s been floating in the social media sphere for close to a day now. In the end, I’ve decided that the point has to be made, ad infinitum if need be, that superstition and ignorance is going to be the death of us as a progressive country.

I’m currently reading Sam Harris’ ‘The End of Faith’, which has short accounts of the Inquisition and what happened to suspected witches and wizards. As chilling as those accounts are, from the dark ages of man and being perpetuated by the most devout people of the time; it seems to me it say a lot about us that if we’re left to our own devices, we would carry out somewhat similar actions that Christians meted out to suspected witches centuries ago.

Those were disgraceful actions then and remain disgraceful now, and even more so. Because it can be argued that the people of the 14th and 15th centuries did not know any better. In this day and age, that argument cannot be made. People should know better, but it shows that we are comfortable to wallow and remain mired in our ignorance rather than apply our faculties towards our understanding of the natural world in the goddamned 21st century.

The unfortunate man/woman who was captured is most certainly not a witch, just as all those who were tortured and killed by the Roman Catholic Church were not witches. Most of such stories that originate can be explained by some sort of mental disorder on the part of the person, or some other explanation we might not be immediately aware of. What is patently stupid is jumping to the conclusion that whatever strange thing you see should be explained by the supernatural, and thus triggering your most primal emotions to get rid of the supernatural obstacle that has come to lie in your way.

In this case, and in countless others that has come before, you just have to imagine what would have happened if police had not been deployed to the scene and some idiot decided they needed to get rid of the witch. Certainly he would have enough support right there and then, we are all trained after all to fear witches and wizards.

And certainly the media does not help, branding such stories as a captured witch and feeding into the mass hysteria the public has already started. It might grab more attention if we frame it like that but it certainly does not help what is an already polarised situation.

That a woman, who clearly needed help of some sort, should be branded a witch is entirely disgraceful. What is more disgraceful, is that possibly 90% of our population would buy that story, and would discuss it in earnest, looking at the pros and cons of it. We are clearly failing, as a society, to move with the times.

We all have to hang our collective heads in shame.

This is the story, as reported by Starrfmonline…

“An alleged wizard has been caught in Madina, Accra and is in the grips of the police.

According to eyewitnesses around the scene, the wizard who has the face of a man and a body of a woman allegedly confessed to the police that he could not fly again after 5am Thursday.

According to reports, the alleged wizard went to steal a woman’s womb, but when flying back felt weak so stopped at ‘Maye Hot’, a community within Madina to rest for a while.

Unfortunately, he fell into a deep sleep only to wake up in the morning surrounded by people who later called the Police.”