While browsing the internet this weekend, reading the news, I came across an interesting article title: “Sarah Palin and the Thomas Muthee Witch Hunt”
I assumed the term “witch hunt” was a metaphor, as it is generally used in the news, until I read the article’s opening lines:
“Sarah Palin has been linked to a witch hunt. No, not a figurative witch hunt, the kind in which people are made to feel pressured and discriminated against. I’m talking about a real witch hunt, in which a woman is accused of witchcraft by someone seeking political power, and the woman is forced to flee her home in fear of her life.”
As the article explains, Pastor Thomas Muthee, in his effort to get control over the town of Kiambu, Kenya in order to start a church, started a witch hunt. Choosing a local woman who happened to be a fortune teller and, more importantly for Muthee, was a “close associate” with the leaders of the town, he accused her of being a sorceress that was cursing the town. As proof for these claims of witchcraft, he stated that there were three car accidents in the neighborhood near where this woman worked, “sure evidence” that she was a witch. As a result of these accusations, the local population went into panic and police were sent to arrest this unfortunate woman. When she was finally released from jail, she fled the town, and as a result for getting rid of this “demonic-spell” casting woman, Muthee had the support of the town and was able to establish his church.
If there is but one glaring message from our recent reading of The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, and our study of the Salem witch trials (though there certainly is not just this one), it is the sheer horror and destruction that a witch hunt brings upon a community. I cannot begin to describe that sickness in my heart to hear that such a horrific accusation was used as an instrument for one to gain power. And yet again we see the reflections of Salem 1692 and how easily a community surrenders power to the accusers of such a witch hunt, and how such absurd claims were at that time also used to try to accomplish other goals.
So how does this Kenyan priest’s revival of one of the darkest chapters of American history have to do with the current vice president candidate on the republican ticket?
It just so happens that Muthee had visited Sarah Palin’s church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, during the time when she was running for governor and had prayed over her. He prayed to “bring finances her way even for the campaign in the name of Jesus... Use her to turn this nation the other way around” and to keep her safe from “every form of witchcraft.”
What does Palin think of this incident? Check out this news clip.
1 comment:
I thought that this was a very interesting post. It relates well to what we are talking about in class now; how authorities abuse their power. The priest of the chuch had the trust (which can be linked to power because the people will believe and do what you say) of the people, and abused it. This is evidence that when you give all the power to one person, they can abuse it by acting only in the interest of themselves. Great post!
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