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From: Brian Paul Lilburn ([email protected])
Newsgroups: nz.politics
November 16, 1997
'Witch-hunt' never mentioned - Peter Ellis case
I admire the forebearance of Winston Wealleans on the Kim Hill interview this
morning, in not allowing the words 'witch-hunt' to escape his lips. There was
tension in Kim Hill's voice. She had her most 'RWW' feminist-reactionary cap
on in playing devil's advocate against what Winston was saying. I would
suspect she may well have had to overcome some 'dissuasion from above' even
to have the interview, so I am not implying any criticism. However, I'm sure
she would have pounced had Winston tried to tie up what happened to Ellis
with the general witch-hunting atmosphere of the time that still persists in
some quarters; and had he actually said the words "witch-hunt".
Of course there are disgusting cases of proven sexual abuse of children, involving
threatening, cowering and conning the child, and a degree of physical harm
which can be detected by a doctor even when the physical 'damage' is quite
mild. But there can also easily be alleged cases of abuse where proof is very
scanty and poorly-based indeed, followed sometimes by convictions. I mean,
the kind of case where *no* physical evidence is forthcoming, and where - if
psychologists were objective - they would have to trace the disturbance in
the child far more to the "fuss" surrounding the aftermath of the
alleged incident(s) that to the incident(s) themselves. What often happens,
out of that "fuss", is that the gainers financially are those who
make the "fuss" - who allege that their child has been harmed.
Probably quite a number of us have heard of such cases, and reserved our
judgement. It may not be just a question on money from ACC. It could be a
lone mum, trying to get into better housing and needing a job. Suddenly
Social Welfare becomes much more sympathetic to her needs, and she find
herself bumped up to the top of a priority list.
But the worst cases of this sort of skullduggery are of course those where it
looks like advantage has been taken to extract money out of ACC. There's nothing I can add in regard to the
Peter Ellis case that what was excellently put by Winston on radio this
morning, or what 20/20 dealt with on TV (which I didn't see). What I want to
point out is that as far as the anxieties, fears and guilts go with regard to
sex, we haven't come that far from the late Middle Ages in mentality. And
this mentality can still *be played upon by those interested in pecuniary
gain*.
Most of us, in looking back on the witch-hunts of the sixteenth-to-eighteenth
centuries - unless we've studied them in a scholarly way - think that they
were caused and *driven* by religiously and sexually based fears. We think
that people were carried away with enthusiasm to force religious conformity
onto society, and by the superstition that went with that and found
convenient scapegoats for whatever was going wrong with crops etc., in the
non-conformist.
What tends to be overlooked was that the *driving force* which added fuel to
the fire of sexual and superstitious hang-ups was plain simple materialistic
greed!
I studied that period in the course of writing a novel (not published - I
couldn't get the structure right). However I'll end by quoting from the
novel, a quote pretty well directly taken from my historical research. A
petty king is bemoaning the trouble caused to him in ruling his kingdom by
the witch-hunts:
"...were such a lady of rank accused of witchcraft, I would fear plague
of hangings and burnings such as I have not been able to restrain in my own
kingdom. Gods'eath! One is hard put to name the greater evil, the accursed
witches themselves, or the locust-hosts of witchfinders, special accusers,
clerics and inquisitors, notaries, jurors, judges, copyists, constables,
executioners, even innkeepers, that profit from their destruction."
Brian
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