How colourful and diverse politics has become! The Labour party appointed a transgender person, Munroe Bergdorf, as an adviser to the shadow equalities minister Dawn Butler. Ms Bergdorf met with criticism for some impolite remarks she made about “hairy lesbians” on social media. She resigned this week, citing “online abuse”. But we all say foolish things sometimes, so let that pass.
More significantly, Munroe Bergdorf has proclaimed that she practises witchcraft, enjoys full moon rituals and is a devotee of voodoo. She keeps “healing crystals” in her bedroom and apparently daubs herself in blood, holding a rubber unicorn’s head, for Hallowe’en. She embraces witchcraft because it is “female-centred”.
I have had some encounters with the witchcraft traditions within feminism, which were most instructive. This was the theological thinking behind what some called “goddess feminism”: the ancient deities were feminine because the fertility of the earth was worshipped. Women had power because they gave life, and men, for a long time, were not sure how this occurred. Menstrual blood was thus to be celebrated because it symbolised woman’s power to bring life into the world. This was why Indian women wear henna on their fingers and body: it’s a symbol of the potency of menstrual blood.
But according to witchcraft feminism, Judaeo-Christianity turned these values upside-down, invented patriarchy and made menstruation a matter of taboo. The witch-feminist was especially hostile to Judaism for its attitude towards menstruation as “unclean”, and introducing a time of “cleansing” post-menstruation.
All this is frightfully interesting, from an anthropological viewpoint, and the female figurines featured in the new BBC production of Civilisations attest to the early veneration of fertility.
However, I also came to see that witchcraft could be destructive and backward with its malign ideas that infants could be “changelings” swapped by evil spirits and that spells could be cast upon people because they were “unlucky”. Witchcraft is no laughing matter in Africa or Brazil, either.
Tolerance bids us to allow Munroe Bergdorf her approach to equality politics, but it doesn’t mean we have to take witchcraft to heart.
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On Wednesday this week, the former Irish Taoiseach John Bruton was speaking at the House of Commons in memory of the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, John Redmond, who died on March 6, 1918. Redmond reunited the Irish Parliamentary Party with great patience after the fall of Parnell, and finally won a promise of Home Rule for Ireland in 1914. But when the Great War started, he supported Britain in what he believed would be a short conflict, in exchange, as it were, for Irish self-government. Redmond’s moderate nationalism was then overtaken by the rising tide of Sinn Féin, and his efforts to win freedom for Ireland, while remaining friends with Britain, were cast aside.
John Redmond isn’t forgotten in his home town of Wexford, which still honours him, nor by Charles Lysaght, the Dublin writer, barrister and Times obituarist, who champions Redmond’s cause. Some years ago, the late Lord Hailsham told Lysaght: “We [Unionists] should have come to terms with Redmond.” After Redmond’s death, Edward Carson, a fierce opponent of Home Rule, also spoke with rueful appreciation. There could have been political/ecumenical bridge-building: it’s never too late.
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I learned a lot from the Arctic spell of weather last week. I listened in awe and admiration to reports of doctors walking 10 miles through the snow to attend to a cancer patient. I wondered at the fortitude of truck drivers stuck for 15 hours in their vehicles and remaining philosophically cheerful. I remembered the sheer joy that children take in the playful capacity of snow. I came to realise that being confined inside for three days makes one long for the open air. I felt we were reminded that bread is “the staff of life” as it was the first item to run out in supermarkets – and it was good to hear that people were using local shops more frequently.
I pondered on how reliant we are on electricity, on supplies of energy and on light, and how exacting daily life was before these were available on tap. And on the wisdom of Camille Paglia’s words: “We are not in control of our lives. Nature is.”
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