Lady Maeven of Betwixt and Between recently sent out an e-mail which she also posted on the B&B website. The piece is called A Call For Responsible Activism [This link has expired.] and is more worthy of your attention than what I'm writing now.She is specifically speaking of the issue of the West Memphis Three.

For those of you not familiar with the story of the West Memphis Three, I'll summarize-- three people are currently in prison for a rather ghastly triple murder, and there is no physical evidence to suggest that they are guilty. The trial was a "witch trial" in every sense of the word, and the situation is unacceptable-- both for the injustice that the West Memphis three have endured, and the fact that there is a real killer out there that no one is attempting to find. For further information, read Maeven's commentary or visit the WM3 website linked above.

What's interesting, though, is that Maeven was calling for "Responsible" activism. Why would it be necessary to call for "responsible" activism? To put it simply (and these are my words, not Maeven's, though I expect she'll agree), a cause is quite often harmed by those who would champion it. A specific example she cites is a group of Pagan activists who showed up in black robes, presenting a very morbid image of Pagans that did not serve to help the case at all. And we're not the only group to suffer this problem-- pick a cause, particularly one founded in the politics of exclusion and discrimination, and you'll find proponents of the cause who do nothing but generate bad publicity.

So what exactly is responsible activism? Of course, everyone is going to have their own opinion on this, but this is my answer: Taking action with the consequences of those actions in mind, and understanding that things don't necessarily happen the way you think they should.

Some of our "activists" are a disgrace to the rest of us-- some seem to be determined to live a bad stereotype, passing off their personal politics as Pagan dogma and expecting exemption from the law or even good manners. The problem is magnified by the fact that many of us feel passionately about a variety of issues that to us seem to be basic truth. When you are deeply religious, it is a natural and unavoidable tendency to assume that your conception of right and wrong is the conviction of the Gods. For example, I am a big supporter of the Second Amendment, and I think the Gods back me up on my conviction that you can have my gun when you get reincarnated as a quicker shot. But I haven't exactly discussed it with them (Most of my conversations with the Gods are one sided, and when I do get an answer it's usually on the order of "Trust me, we know what we're doing" or "If you want it, work for it." They are, after all, omnipotent parents), and it would be a disservice to them and you to pass this off as Wiccan Dogma.

Furthermore, each issue, both inside and outside of Paganism, has different extremes. I believe in feminism, but not to the extreme that many feminists take it. I believe in the environment, but I don't think everything man does is unnatural. I don't eat red meat-- but that's a health decision that I must make for myself. For the most part I think the majority of the PC rhetoric that seems to have infested our culture is counterproductive whining.

But there's another level to this as well, and Maeven's piece gives a very good example in the plight of the West Memphis Three: While we have every right as Wiccans to be indignant that these three kids based on nothing but fear, occult hysteria, and an interest in Wicca (that's right kiddies, this was a witch trial), it would be irresponsible for us to swarm over this issue as the Wiccan Community because that has the potential to backfire in two different ways.

First-- and I think most importantly because these are the lives of three people that hang in the balance-- we would be making the situation more difficult for the WM3. They are trying to overcome fear and hysteria, and the vocal support of a community that still makes a lot of people nervous will only make them look worse.

Second, we have to understand that if we support a group of people whom the world thinks is guilty as sin, we present the impression that we are supporting murderers.

The facts that the WM3 are innocent and Wicca is not something that should make you nervous are irrelevant. This is public perception-- another form of politics-- and in politics, truth is an opinion... and not always a popular one. A case like this has to be fought on the legal level-- the attention should be on the astonishing lack of evidence used to convict them and the embarassingly sloppy the way the case was handled.

It's not pretty, and it's not nice. But that's the way it is. And in order to get anything done, we have to act responsibly. You know... like we're in the real world.

© 2000 by Cather "Catalyst" Steincamp