Wedger displays profound ignorance of ‘indigenous Satanism’

…Aaaaaaaaand we’re back!

After a refreshing and enjoyable trip to the seaside, EC is back at his desk, sorting through incoming emails and catching up on the latest Hoaxtead mobster tomfoolery.

Barring Neelu’s recent eviction, probably the biggest story this month has been the re-emergence and subsequent disappearance of Bill Maloney, who along with ex-Met police officer turned troofer-mouthpiece Jon Wedger, managed to stir up a hornet’s nest with Brian Harvey…but that debacle is probably worth a post in itself.

‘Indigenous Satanism’? Seriously?

Instead, today we’re going to take a look at one of Mr Wedger’s more egregiously stupid remarks, delivered in his trademark wide-eyed-puppy style during this interview with Redpill Phil:

Wedger: The more I get involved, the more I see there is a religious organised connotation to this. The Devil’s greatest triumph is no one believes in him. We are headed towards an atheistic society, so if you don’t believe in God you ain’t going to believe in the Devil. These people, these Satanists, these Devil worshippers, they are alive and well, and they’re never going away. 

Phil: Have you ever seen it?

Wedger: I’ve…I’ve never seen it, I’ve seen the aftermath of it. I have dealt with what they call ‘indigenous Satanism’…the areas I worked in London were predominantly ghetto areas, the Jamaicans had a thing called ‘obeah’, it was a voodoo thing, and there was sexual abuse in that, the Congolese had a version of it as well….

As our friend Surreal Hustle wrote us,

What a load of ill-informed shite.

Obeah is not ‘a Voodoo thing’ nor is it Satanism.  It is a form of African folk religion that became demonised and is still regarded with terror by many Jamaicans who are either Christian or Rastafarian.  

Vodou / Vodoun (it has many spellings) is a Haitian religion that is a syncretic mix of Roman Catholicism and West African animist religions.

Wedger claims that the ‘Congolese have a version of it as well’ [indigenous Satanism].  My understanding is that most religious and ritualistic abuses relating to the Congolese community are to do with Kindoki accusations.  I know a fair amount about this as I was very close to someone in the Congolese community who had been accused of Kindoki by members of her own extended family.

It is not unusual for children and vulnerable adults to be accused of having Kindoki— which is basically a witchcraft accusation—not the modern syncretic new age religions such as Wicca, but more along the lines of accusing someone of being possessed by an evil spirit and even possibly of being a Satanist (not the James Hind kind of Satanist or the Satanic Temple kind of satanist—but the baby-munching, blood-drinking kind of Satanist you hear about in false SRA accusations).

When Wedger claims that the Congolese community has a from of ‘indigenous Satanism’, he is referring not to an actual Satanic religion but to a Congolese Satanic panic, a collective delusion that vulnerable people, mostly children, are possessed by Kindoki.  In order to “deliver” the children from Kindoki, with the encouragement of various Christian pastors, ministers and churches, children are subjected to ritualistic torture, sometimes to the point of death.

This last piece struck a chord with us, as we recall the description of the horrors meted out to the children in the Musa family, who reported having been subjected to attempts to exorcise evil spirits.

While the Musas are Nigerian, not Congolese, apparently belief in Kindoki is popular amongst Pentecostal churches in Nigeria, as well.

Bishop Gloria Musa and her husband Joseph were both given long prison sentences in 2012 for “shocking mistreatment” of their six children—and were vigorously defended by Belinda McKenzie, Sabine McNeill, and her friend Maurice Kirk, who claimed that the children had been lying about the abuse they’d suffered.

A Telegraph article at the time stated,

The Nigerian couple, who claimed their kids were possessed by evil spirits, beat them with brooms, hoovers and wires and even gave their baby a morphine overdose just days after her first birthday….

Sentencing them to seven years behind bars each Judge James Patrick described it as “shocking mistreatment” that they had tried to cover up with a “web of deception”.

Not surprisingly, in early 2012 SRA devotee Valerie Sinason and her cronies were signatories to a highly disingenuous letter in the Guardian titled “Ritual abuse and race”.

We were pleased to see your report (An abuse of faith, Social care, 18 January) outlining the evidence of the numbers of black children subjected to violence linked to witchcraft. This is extremely concerning and many of us have worked with such children and adults from the black communities who have experienced abusive aspects of juju, Santeria, witchcraft and possession in the UK. While our major religious institutions are now putting safeguarding procedures into place, children (and adults) from smaller religious groups do not have that safety. We are also concerned as individuals and as a committee that the ritual abuse of white children (and adults) is less easily acknowledged (the Kidwelly case in 2011). It can be far easier, sometimes for racist reasons, to accept the ritual abuse of black children (witness the Adam Case known as “Torso in The Thames” in 2001), and especially from working-class backgrounds. The white middle-class children (and adults) and those who work with them and support them are subject to implications that such experiences, if the victim is not black, must be bizarre delusions. This makes it harder for disclosures to be made and for the police to help, and delays the understanding of the impact of ritual on all children and adults when used abusively.

signed:
Dr V Sinason, Rachel Wingfield, Prof Joseph Schwartz, Dr Sandra Buck, Dr Joan Coleman, Carole Mallard, Wilfred Wong, Deborah Briggs, Dr Pat Frankish, David Leevers, Orit Badouk-Epstein, Lynn Greenwood
Committee on Ritual Abuse, London

This is where the SRA hoaxers get it wrong time and time again.

As SR wrote, “They claim that children need to be protected against “Satanists”, but the evil torturers that the children need protecting from are believers in SRA.  Whether it is Abraham Christie with his various torture implements or a batshit crazy Christian zealot who sees little children as being possessed by the devil / Kindoki, when it comes to Satanism, children are at most risk of sadistic abuses and torture from those who claim to have God on their side”.

We could not agree more.