She turned me into a newt!
■"From Superstition to Savagery: Women Accused of Witchcraft Face Violence in Rural India," by Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post, 8 August 2005, p. A12.
Funny Monty Python bit to us, still real in rural India. But, of course, these attacks have always been about one thing and one thing only: punishing uppity women:
"Superstition is only an excuse. Often a woman is branded a witch so that you can throw her out of the village and grab her land, or to settle scores, family rivalry, or because powerful men want to punish her for spurning their sexual advances. Sometimes it is used to punish women who question social norms," said Pooja Singhal Purwar, an official at the Jharkhand social welfare department.
Remember this, as globalization impinges on any traditional society, women are empowered disproportionally to men, because connectivity, being gender-neutral, simply levels the playing field.
And no, that doesn't make the world flat! Don't mix up flat-worlders with witches, please!
Larger point is this: globalization comes to a traditional place and you can expect women to both benefit from the connectivity and suffer from resulting social strife over both content and changing power relationships.
And yes, men will be pulling out that old witch trick just like they always have.