Unfortunately, witch hunting has been a common element among the historical events of the countries represented here in Dillon & Friends. It is important to note that a witch hunt can manifest itself in a variety of ways and not just when actual witchcraft is present. Ethnic cleansing is related to witch hunting in many respects and is also what I was referring to when I mentioned the common element. Anti-Jewish pogroms, the Stalinist purges, and the Reconquista are but a few examples of the buckets of our blood that have been spilt on our land in the name of so-called "justice" and "purification".

A witch hunt, in the general sense, is simply "the act of seeking and/or persecuting any perceived enemy, particularly when the search is conducted using extreme measures and with little regard to actual guilt or innocence."

Witch hunting and ethnic cleansing share many commonalities that make them both extremely disturbing and intolerable, and yet, both exhibit significant differences that distinguish them as seperate but similar actions. Both are forms of persecution that discriminates a certain group. Though, witch hunting goes as far as to then labels that group as a scapegoat, blaming them of a seemingly unsolvable, or oftentimes nonexistent, problem. In Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, the witch hunts are incited as Parris erroneously concludes that his daughter's condition is the result of witchcraft. McCarthyists in the United States during the 1950s suspected Communists of sabotaging the United States from within. Ethnic cleansing may sometimes be a form of a witch hunt. The Nazis persecuted Jews and blamed them for allowing Germany to become a discredited nation. Ethnic cleansing is more aimed at ridding the area of non-natives, whereas witch hunters seek to expose a conspiracy that oftentimes is also nonexistent.

It is important that our governments strive to stop all witch hunts and ethnic cleansings of any kind, should we desire a more peaceful and secure world

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