Ghana's MPs pass bill criminalising witchcraft accusation | Hacker News Reader

Ghana's MPs pass bill criminalising witchcraft accusation

trtafrika.com

69 pointsohjeez31 comments

I don't know about this news article but please note that TRT World (in this case TRT Africa) is a biased media source as it's known to be close to Turkish government and its president Erdogan. Also worth noting its parent TRT is the national public broadcaster of Turkey, stands for "Turkish Radio and Television". I would strongly discourage everyone from treating it as a reliable news source.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRT_World

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Radio_and_Television...

Knowing little about it, I assume most accusations of witchcraft are a way of eliminating rivals, like in business or love triangles. But elderly women aren’t the demographic you’d expect to see accused. Can someone explain the reasons (cynical or ideological) why people do this?

They tend to be low status outsiders, and historically witchcraft has been associated with older people and women.

I would assume most witchcraft accusations are made by people who believe in witchcraft and believe that the person they're accusing is a witch.

Inheritance / accumulated wealth?

Like the Salem case…

The idea in medieval Germany is that when farm yields were low, they were looking to reduce the number of mouths to feed and post-childbearing women were deemed sufficiently 'worthless'. It also could be that during these times they were eating moldy grain they otherwise wouldn't, and the mold may have been ergot, with potent psychedelic/hallucinogenic properties (it's LSD, basically).

At the height of the witch panic, in the years 1450-1750, 0.19 witches were executed per year, per 100k people. The homicide rate in Norway, today, is 0.5 per 100k people, 1.1 in Sweden, 3.0 in Europe overall, and 22.4 in Brazil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

With the aid of modern medicine, the rate of cancer deaths is 158.3 per 100k per year: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/statistics

Compared to that, witchcraft executions had a negligible impact on number of mouths to feed. Sources:

European population in year 1500: 90M - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_demography#Demographi...

Executed for witchcraft in 1450-1750: 50k (upper estimate) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt

If you're suggesting that medieval witch-hunters may have been acting irrationally, I won't argue. Anyway, this isn't my hypothesis, it travelled around for awhile talking about supposed discoveries of ergot in soil samples. The Salem witch museum has come out against it[0]. A quote:

"When considering the question “What caused the Salem witch trials,” it is important to remember there is a danger in seeking the elusive, singular, all-encompassing explanation."

IMO a big part of it is likely the desire to 'explain'/'rationalize' misfortunes in some way, that suggests a 'solution'.

[0]: https://salemwitchmuseum.com/2023/05/17/debunking-the-moldy-...

This theory is appealing to me but in some sense seems contrived to attribute to drugs the evil which already exists in people's hearts. There are plenty of "sober" societies easily capable of such madness and cruellty absent any pharmacological agents.

I don't think every aspect of culture necessarily can be traced back to a pragmatic reason. Sometimes people just act out their belief systems, regardless of whether the results are helpful or detrimental to them or their communities.

Or rather, an ideology doesn't operate in service to the individuals who hold it, but in service to itself. So rather than scratching our heads about how an older women could possibly be a rival to the baker, or the town leader, it makes more sense to look at how she might be a rival to the overall belief system of the community, especially in situations where a new belief system (e.g. Christianity) has displaced an older belief system (e.g. paganism, animism, etc).

Post an article about social, tech, or cultural innovation in Africa, get zero votes and comments.

Post another about witchcraft, war, disease, FGM... get immediate interest.

I've seen this trend for a long on here, and it seems very weird to me. It's almost as if people need articles that confirm their beliefs about how life in Africa must be like, even though they may not have ever set foot there (and do not intend to at any time)

It would be just as generically interesting to people if it were Canada or Australia. Witchcraft is a fundamentally interesting topic because it touches on deep-rooted fears and superstitions that probably evolved in humans tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago.

It effectively closes Ghana as a market for Witchcraft as a Service (WaaS) companies

Or opens it! Since nobody can now accuse you of doing witchcraft.

> Over 500 of people are being held in safe houses, so-called witch camps, that are spread across the country where they fled for safety after being accused of involvement in witchcraft, according to local media.

What the fuck is going on in Ghana?

Lack of education combined with superstitious spiritual/religious beliefs.

Why focus on criminalizing "witchcraft accusation" rather than simply focus on enforcing the already criminal associated activities (e.g., "lynching of people")?

You generally want to prevent a crowd from getting to that point. It's a bit difficult for a handful of police to stop a crowd from lynching as it's happening.

It's a slippery slope, though. Should we criminalize kitchen knives because by the time someone starts stabbing someone it's too late?

If the country collapses in the next couple months we'll all know why.

They prefer the term "wiccan."

Witchcraft is on the rise in the US as well: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/paganism-witchcraft-ar...

Why do you say "as well" as if the original article claimed that witchcraft was on the rise in Ghana?

The article has nothing to do with modern Wiccan religion like the one you posted, but rather accusations of traditional witchcraft as something superstitions people fear and claims of which are used to attack others (often women, the elderly, and outsiders).

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