#4: Think Locally, Act Globally
Jenny
jennyg@compuserve.com
Mon Apr 10 14:45:09 2000
No, I didn't get that backwards. <g>*p*When we think of the Burning Times, we usually think globally.  We think of one centralized force (a witch-hunter, the Church, a patriarchal government) and imagine that it is the source of all the horrors.  We assume that this bigoted entity inflicted the persecution on a helpless and innocent populace.  And therefore when we try to prevent the Burning Times from returning, we watch for budding Hitlers:  centralized powers or individual demogogues who have a malign agenda.*p*That's important.  People like that exist.  But stopping them won't stop the Burning Times from coming back.*p*Most witch trials were not pogroms, inflicted from above.  They were local affairs.  Witches were usually accused by their neighbors -- not witch hunters or inquisitors.  They were tried by local authorities -- often against the will of the national or Church authorities.*p*Therefore the fourth lesson I draw from the Burning Times is that threats are far more likely to come from the people around us, than from some far-off place like Rome or Washington DC.  And strange as it sounds, the higher "up" you go in a chain of authority, the better your chances are of finding allies.*p*Consider the US court cases that have involved Wicca.  Every court case involving federal forces (IRS, US Army, federal courts) has ruled that Wicca is a bona fide religion, one that deserves full First Amendment protections.  State supreme courts have as well.  (There's one case which, on the surface, seems to rule that "witchcraft" is not a religion, but it's a badly written decision;  I believe what the judge was actually trying to say that the word "witchcraft" does not always refer to a religion.)  Yet when you drop to the local level, there are tons of petty bureaucrats and authorities who insist that Witchcraft is not a religion and they are free to discriminate.  These people are the source of all that litigation.*p*Law enforcement mirrors this.  The FBI insists that it has found no evidence of a conspiracy of Satanic witches in the United States.  Most state law enforcement agencies concur (some don't).  Then, when you get to the local level, you run into individual officers and "experts" who actively work to bring back the Burning Times.  We had a case in Olympia Washington, for instance, where the police allowed a minister to harass the accused "witch" (a fundamentalist Christian), telling him that he was going to go to Hell if he didn't confess.  (The man eventually broke;  later he retracted his confession, but it was too late.)  The police officer in charge of the investigation said that the US's laws had to be revised to facilitate the persecution of witches.  He suggested that witches ("Satanists") should be presumed guilty if accused, and that it should be possible to convict them on confession or verbal testimonies alone -- without any corroborating evidence.  These are two of the exact legal "innovations" which allowed the first Burning Times to occur...*p*So we have to keep track of local issues and events.  The situations where local officials -- who haven't thought things through, or who aren't as learned and smart as a Supreme Court judge -- hold power.  Problems can start at the higher levels and trickle down.  But the biggest source of danger is our own community.  If we can keep our selves and our towns in order, the state and nation are likely to follow.*p*Jenny*br*