Introduction
Witch hunt is a term that originated from the medieval act of people actually seeking out suspected witches and accusing them of colluding with the devil to cause misfortune among the people. Most of the victims targeted by these persecutions happened to be innocent civilians and as such, often died for accusation they were not familiar with. This led to the development of the popular and modern application of the phrase witch hunt as the investigation, supposedly meant to uncover subversive activities but in actual sense used to harass and undermine those deemed to be of a dissenting view from the commonly accepted norm. This paper seeks to evaluate the practice of this subversive practice now in relation to its conduct in times past. The focus shall be on the Salem witch hunts and the red scare associated with Senator Mc Cathy.
Literature review and analysis
Both the ‘red scare’ period and the Salem witch hunts are unbelievable illustrations of how the justice system can malfunction in the face of paranoia and public opinion. The Salem witch hunt trials were motivated by the sense of public appeasing rather the pursuit for justice. In modern society, it is common to witness an instance where popular opinion is instituted, by the sheer magnitude of people supporting it, rather than its moral and legal standing/backing. The phenomenon of ‘mob justice’, where members of the public take the law into their own hands and punish suspected offenders, in many instances killing them, is a clear example of how popular opinion is misused in the abuse of other people’s rights. The law provides that one is presumed innocent until proven guilty, while the accused individuals might be liable to the crimes they are accused of, it is the premise of the court to try them in a judicial process in ascertaining the guilt. Failure by the law enforcement agencies to institute proper measures to curb this phenomenon can be explained by their guilt in failing to adequately protect the people and as such would not like to invite their wrath for these short comings. The Salem community, which was mainly puritan by religion found a basis to persecute their victims in their religion. Samuel Parris the puritan pastor of Salem village planned to implicate Tituba, her Barbados slave, as a witch and force her to name the other witches she was working with. After her confession, she named other supposed witches. It would later emerge that the confession was occasioned by harassment and coercion on her. (Robinson, 1991)
The red scare period is another that saw the victimization of many people owing to their real or perceived alignment to communist political leaning. The victimization like in the Salem witch hunt is a period where a wave of popular opinion defeated the rights of other individuals. The political tensions that were being experienced between the then soviet union and the United States caused the perception of people supporting a communist political system as sympathizers of the communist soviet. This persecution saw a lot of individual’s lose their jobs through processes that would later be termed either, unlawful, and actionable. (Fried, 1997) Due to the evidence of individuals working on espionage missions for the Soviet Union, such as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were arrested in 1950 on charges of stealing atomic bomb secrets for the Soviets and were executed in 1953, the American populace found the persecution of individuals suspected of communism as a necessary measure in the defense of the united states against the soviets. (Fried, 1997) This view, which mistakes the adherence to a communism political stand to support of the Soviet Union, parallels closely the witch hunt of women with a different outlook on things, and eventually killing them.
Similarities and differences in the Salem witch hunt and the red scare associated with the McCarthy era prosecutions of suspected communists
The events documented on the red scare era and the Salem witch hunts are similar in the sense that in both situations, innocent people were persecuted and their rights unfairly abused. However, the events record some differences in that while the Salem witch hunt cases were mainly religious in nature, in the sense that witches were persecuted by people who believed in witchcraft and God, the red scare era prosecutions were mainly politically motivated. While politics and religion are distinct disciplines, they paradoxically bring forth the other big similarity in the cases. Politics demand that the majority of the public is happy with the policies of the sitting government, therefore, the government is in a tight place in trying to implement policies which appeal to the public while in fact are of detriment/ inconsequential to them. The public during the red scare period had been fed with notion that communism was much evil, ands was a tool against democracy and freedom, which are the key American pillars. On this standing therefore, the public would not support individuals practicing an ideological principle which they deemed went against the principles founding the state. On the other hand, the Salem witch hunts were conducted on the basis that a majority of the residents in Salem were puritans. (Robinson, 1991) This means that the society was generally inclined against witchcraft and the devil, and would have reacted in that way successfully since there would be little to no opposition to their activities.
Conclusion
Popular opinion has been a bane and a boon to societies over the evolution of civilization. While a majority of public opinion initiatives have been successful, a number have failed with some among them having disastrous effects on the society. The Salem witch hunts and the red scare era are some of the times where public opinion has been wrong in history. It is not bad news all together, as democracy, the choice of leadership by popular vote has been tried and tested as probably the most involving and inclusive type of leadership to the citizens. In the institution of public initiative resolutions however, strong institutions need be in place to regulate them. The judicial system failed in the Salem case, while all the government institutions in the red scare era were too biased against communism to make informed choices
References
Fried, A. (1997). McCarthyism: The great American Red scare : a documentary history. New York: Oxford University Press.
Robinson, E. A. (1991). The devil discovered: Salem witchcraft 1692. New York: Hippocrene Books.
Salem Press. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://salempress.com/store/samples/great_events_from_history_seventeenth/great_events_from_history_seventeenth_salem.htm
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