ABSTRACT
Witch hunting can be spotted in the recent panic surrounding swine flu—another scourge to be exterminated from American soil. Significantly enough, swine flu migrated from Mexico across the border and is regarded within the US with as much fear and hostility as that shown towards other migrants, such as the Mexicans themselves. Witch hunts come in different guises. While MPs in the UK are being pilloried for their expenses, witch hunting in the US is taking a different form. However, it may also pave the way for the US to revert to the position that torture is something done by others—by the “foreign witches”—and that it is not an American activity—or not any longer. Witch hunts invariably stem from an unconscious backlash that strives to preserve the hegemony of the past and to protect the culture from being invaded by what is perceived to be new and foreign.
