'Child-witches' of Nigeria seek refuge

[Dogmudgeon]

What hath "god" wrought?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/3407882/Child-witches-of-Nigeria-seek-refuge.html">'Child-witches' of Nigeria seek refuge

Mary is a pretty five-year-old girl with big brown eyes and a father who kicked her out onto the streets in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. Her crime: the local priest had denounced her as a witch and blamed her "evil powers" for causing her mother's death.

Ostracised, vulnerable and frightened, she wandered the streets in south-eastern Nigeria, sleeping rough, struggling to stay alive.

Mary was found by a British charity worker and today lives at a refuge in Akwa Ibom province with 150 other children who have been branded witches, blamed for all their family's woes, and abandoned. Before being pushed out of their homes many were beaten or slashed with knives, thrown onto fires, or had acid poured over them as a punishment or in an attempt to make them "confess" to being possessed. In one horrific case, a young girl called Uma had a three-inch nail driven into her skull.

Yet Mary and the others at the shelter are the lucky ones for they, at least, are alive. Many of those branded "child-witches" are murdered - hacked to death with machetes, poisoned, drowned, or buried alive in an attempt to drive Satan out of their soul.

The devil's children are "identified" by powerful religious leaders at extremist churches where Christianity and traditional beliefs have combined to produce a deep-rooted belief in, and fear of, witchcraft. The priests spread the message that child-witches bring destruction, disease and death to their families. And they say that, once possessed, children can cast spells and contaminate others.

...

(emphasis by p)

No arch, ironic wisecracks can properly cite this atrocity.

--p!

[Solly Mack]

1. ...

"The devil's children are "identified" by powerful religious leaders at extremist churches where Christianity and traditional beliefs have combined to produce a deep-rooted belief in, and fear of, witchcraft. The priests spread the message that child-witches bring destruction, disease and death to their families. And they say that, once possessed, children can cast spells and contaminate others.


The religious leaders offer help to the families whose children are named as witches, but at a price"

[az chela]

2. And Sarah palin believes in this shit.How scary is that

[Donald Ian Rankin]

3. Not half as scary as it would be if she really did.

Exaggeration and hyperbole are not your friends.

[az chela]

4. Did you not see her being exorcized of her demons by the minister

from Africa

[eShirl]

6. you mean the minister who bragged of driving a witch out of that African village?

[az chela]

7. The one i saw on Tv doing an exorcism of Sarah.Releasing the

demons from her

[ColbertWatcher]

9. What are you trying to imply? n/t

[Blue Diadem]

8. She allowed herself to be prayed over by Bishop Muthee

who believes in spiritual warfare and has claimed he's driven a witch from a town in Kenya. He prayed for Palin to be protected from all forms of witchcraft during his appearance at her church in Wasilla.

[ColbertWatcher]

10. "Exaggeration and hyperbole are not your friends."

How is that exaggeration or hyperbole?

[juno jones]

13. Then read this

"Seven Mountains" and the "Joel's Army" plan for takeover

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/7/165650/170

and the related well-researched diaries by dogemperor and troutfishing complete with primary source info including videos and published documents by members of her sect.

None of this is hyperbole as much as one might wish it.

You don't get to be annointed as the reincarnation of Deborah or Esther by these murderous fuckers unless you are one of them.

[hootinholler]

14. Her annointer Rev Muthee certainly does!

The Muthee church is based on the identification and removal of witches. He makes some rather remarkable claims as to how effective his holy warfare is.

-Hoot

[Shallah Kali]

18. She really does or certainly is willing to go along with a witch protection ritual for other reasons

The Witch Hunter Anoints Sarah Palin
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/the-witch-hunter-anoints_b_128805.html

On September 20 and 21, I attended services at the church Sarah Palin belonged to since she was an adolescent, the Wasilla Assembly of God. Though Palin officially left the church in 2002, she is listed on its website as "a friend," and spoke there as recently as June 8 of this year.

I went specifically to see a pastor visiting from Kiambu, Kenya named Thomas Muthee. Muthee gained fame within Pentecostal circles by claiming that he defeated a local witch, Mama Jane, in a great spiritual battle, thus liberating his town from sin and opening its people to the spirit of Jesus.

Muthee's mounting stardom took him to Wasilla Assembly of God in May, 2005, where he prayed over Palin and called upon Jesus to propel her into the governor's mansion -- and beyond. Muthee also implored Jesus to protect Palin from "the spirit of witchcraft." The video archive of that startling sermon was scrubbed from Wasilla Assembly of God's website, but now it has reappeared.

The Youtube version is below (Palin appears after about 7:30):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl4HIc-yfgM

SNIP

But they hardly needed encouragement. On the first night of services, Muthee implored his audience to wage "spiritual warfare" against "the enemy." As I filmed, a nervous church staffer approached from behind and told me to put my camera away. I acceded to his demand, but as Muthee urged the church to crush "the python spirit" of the unbeliever enemies by stomping on their necks, I pulled out a smaller camera and filmed from a more discreet position. Now, church members were in deep prayer, speaking in tongues and raising their hands. Muthee exclaimed, "We come against the spirit of witchcraft! We come against the python spirits!" Then, a local pastor took the mic from Muthee and added, "We stomp on the heads of the enemy!"

[Donald Ian Rankin]

19. Well now, let me think, what other possible reasons could she have?

Was she, for example, involved in any form of competitive process where being seen to be heavily committed to Christianity might give her an edge, and repudiating a Christian minister might harm her, at the time?

Because that would certainly consitute such a reason...

[Dogtown]

30. She lost

boo hoo.

[Gwendolyn]

5. This little girl was lucky. She didn't get sprayed with acid, stabbed, or burnt.

[Blue Diadem]

11. I had no idea it was that bad and it's getting worse. Please people read the entire article.

snip from the article:

Some Nigerians blame the increase on one of the country's wealthiest and most influential evangelical preachers. Helen Ukpabio, a self-styled prophetess of the 150-branch Liberty Gospel Church, made a film, widely distributed, called End of the Wicked. It tells, in graphic detail, how children become possessed and shows them being inducted into covens, eating human flesh and bringing chaos and death to their families and communities.


Mrs Ukpabio, a mother of three, also wrote a popular book which tells parents how to identify a witch. For children under two years old, she says, the key signs of a servant of Satan are crying and screaming in the night, high fever and worsening health - symptoms that can be found among many children in an impoverished region with poor health care.

snip:
The priest charges £170 - in a country where millions of people are forced to live on less than £1 a day - for "treating" a child every night for two weeks, and holds them captive until the bill is paid.


He has recently refined his techniques for dealing with child witches. "I killed up to 110 people who were identified as being a witch," he says. He claims there are 2.3million "witches and wizards" in Akwa Ibom province alone.

[mopinko]

12. child witches probably also tell

on people who do things to children.

[knitter4democracy]

15. There are no words for this.

It just makes me want to scoop that little girl up and bring her home. Good Lord, those people are evil! There's no way a five year old caused the death of anyone! Those "pastors" and "prophets" need to do some looking in the mirror for once!

[elshiva]

16. The witch hunts aren't over.

:cry: :(

[bertman]

17. I thought the American fundamentalists like the snake handlers and the tongues-speakers

were pretty bad until I unintentionally got to visit an international church that is based in Africa but has congregations all over the U.S.

My wife and I were there for other business but got invited in to wait while the service concluded. We went into the control room, which was an audio-visuals center that looked like something you might find at a local TV station--very well-equipped with video monitors, cameras, audio gear, the whole nine yards.

The church elder who had invited us in explained that the service was being taped and broadcast to all the church's congregations in various parts of the world, but mostly in Africa and the U.S. He explained that the preacher who is the head of the church, and who happened to be preaching there on this particular day, is a "crowned king of Africa." Don't ask me what that means, except that the elder said he comes from a long line of African kings. Real kings.

We were taking all of this in and watching the proceedings through the soundproof glass wall between the sanctuary and the control room. Being a non-believer, I was paying pretty close attention to the goings on just to get a feel for what this "church" was all about. The elder then started telling me more about the king. He explained that he was a divine spiritual leader, in addition to being a crowned king of Africa, and that he had RAISED PEOPLE FROM THE DEAD.

When he said that, I must have registered a look of severe skepticism because he said to me, "Oh yes, I have seen this with my own eyes right here in our church." He went on to explain that on one occasion a young man who was sickly had fallen dreadfully ill during the service and had died right there. He said that the king had come to the young man and told him to arise and the young man had miraculously come back to life. No shit. I am not making this up.

The other time he witnessed the King/Bishop bring someone back to life was when the king's own wife had a heart attack during one of the services and died. The elder explained to me in all earnestness and with the wide-eyed joy of a true believer that he had been right there beside the king's wife and could testify that she was dead. Nonetheless, the woman was fortunate to have married the king who was right there preaching to the faithful and promptly came to his wife's side and commanded her to come back to life. Which, of course, she did.

Yes, there is a huge whiff of derision in my replaying of this encounter, but every word of it is absolutely true. The gentleman who is the elder was one of the kindest, sweetest people I have ever met. He had the demeanor of a kind, grandfatherly patriarch, and he treated my wife and me with absolute respect. After the service he even introduced us to the king/preacher. He was a man in his early 40's. Very handsome, well-groomed, dressed in an expensive suit, and exceptionally courteous, but with an air of the aristocrat about him. He spoke with a British accent and spoke in a manner that indicated that he was highly educated. He was never condescending or anything but cordial to us during our brief business encounter.

I don't know which African country the man was from but he certainly carried himself and looked as if he could have been a royal. But here he was, in North Carolina, visiting and preaching to his congregation of probably 150 folks of all ages and races, but mostly African-Americans.

What struck me about this experience was how fervent the elder was in his belief in the divinity of the king. When he told me about the raising of the dead it was as if he was relating having seen miracles performed before his very eyes--which, of course, they would have been had they been documented as such. This man believed every word that he told me. Or at least he convinced me and my wife that he did.

This is scary as hell on so many levels that it's hard for me to explain. First, who would believe that two people had conveniently DIED in the services where this king was preaching? And then they were brought back to life by this divine leader. To this day I can't remember if these people were Christians or if they were part of another church. I guess it really doesn't matter.

My point here is to illustrate how people believe in some very weird stuff. To say they are gullible and easily manipulated is an understatement. Can convincing people that you can raise the dead be very far from convincing people that you can tell who are the "evil ones" or the witches among us? Ignorance and superstition are living right here in our midst, and judging by the look of that church's media control room, not doing too bad financially. Thank Dog they don't have to pay any taxes.

[Marrah_G]

20. Can't even wrap my brain around this shit so early in the morning.

[Dorian Gray]

21. Evil vile scumbags

who would attack children for being witches. Poor babies.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. I assume that this is a rationalization for child abuse

In other words, parents who are likely to become abusers are attracted to this kind of hysteria.

A lot of horrific abuse goes on behind closed doors in the U.S. (cf. the Lisa Steinberg case in New York City several years back, and also some of the street kids I've known), but in that part of Nigeria, it looks as if the abusers are getting public encouragement for their atrocities.

[mirror wall]

23. This is probably the true rationale behind things like this.

I have lived in the region and known aid workers who have dealt with such things. The general consensus is that the trend of casting children out as witches springs from circumstances which turn the child into a resources burden. You'll notice, if you look into it, that most of the children who end up ostracized as such are orphaned or are in families that are on the verge of starvation. Not that it can't happen in other families, but that's where the plurality of cases come from.

I think this NYT article dealing with the phenomenon as it occurs in the Congo goes into more detail about it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/world/africa/15witches.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=congo+witch&st=nyt&oref=slogin

[Gwendolyn]

28. It may also have to do with the rampant spread of AIDS...

people exhausted by war, lack of education and widespread belief in superstition?

[bread_and_roses]

24. There is no limit to human depravity - and religion

of any stripe is a direct path to our worst potentialities. Even the "God of Love" gave us the Inquisition. It may not be the only path, but it is a sure one, well-marked, well-trodden. Another is the nuclear family - a "power-over" construct that raises our worst demons as often as our better angels. Is there any other species that kills its' own offspring as often, as cruelly, as the human? Surely something went seriously awry in our evolution.

[polly7]

29. The whole world seems to be going backwards.

Gawd, those poor little kids. Just absolutely horrible. I send money every month to two countries in Africa for children .... I will have to get hold of the organization and ask just what they might be able to do to help children caught up in brutality anywhere in Africa. There really needs to be the world spotlight shone on this.

[carlyhippy]

25. poor kids...yep..religion...killer of more humans on this earth than any other source

unbelieveable.
Carly

[1monster]

26. Shades of Salem Town, Massachusetts 1692 when four-year-old Dorcas Good was arrested for practicing

witchcraft.

I thought that three hundred sixteen years later people would know better. I guess not.

Mary is a pretty five-year-old girl with big brown eyes and a father who kicked her out onto the streets in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. Her crime: the local priest had denounced her as a witch and blamed her "evil powers" for causing her mother's death.

[morgan2]

27. ill give them refuge

in my fireplace!