“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it,” the televangelist said. “And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’ True story. And so the Devil said, ‘Okay, it’s a deal.’ . . . But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another.”
Fox News anchor Shepard Smith played a clip of Robertson’s comments and offered this take: “The people of Haiti have been used and abused by their governments over the years. They have dealt with unthinkable tragedy, day in and day out. And we’re in the middle of a crisis that the Western Hemisphere has not seen in my lifetime. And 700 miles east of Miami, hundreds of thousands of desperate human beings need our help, our support, our money and our love. And they don’t need that.”
“This will play right into Obama’s hands -- humanitarian, compassionate,” Limbaugh said. “They’ll use this to burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community, in both the light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It’s made to order for him.”
Limbaugh was equally suspicious and cynical about Obama’s call for donations.
“Would you trust that the money is going to go Haiti? But would you trust that your name’s gonna end up on a mailing list for the Obama people to start asking you for campaign donations for him and other causes?”
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He added, “Besides, we’ve already donated to Haiti. It’s called the U.S. income tax.”
On Thursday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs responded to Limbaugh’s comments, saying, “In times of great crisis, there are always people that say really stupid things. I don’t know how anybody could sit where he does, having enjoyed the success that he has, and not feel some measure of sorrow for what has happened in Haiti.”
If you didn't see the pictures, it would be hard to fathom the devastation. And these two guys use it for their own ends. Robertson's remarks imply that somehow the Haitian's deserve what happened to them. That revolting from an oppressive colonial power was somehow wrong.
As for Limbaugh even a disaster on this scale cannot stop him from his vendetta against Obama.
It seems to me if you were a good Christian, a decent human being you would be saying hey listeners please give some money to help these people.
Every time when I think they can't sink any lower they do. They are two miserable excuses for human beings.
2 comments:
The truth is that they did make a pact with the devil.
Now the significance you put on that pact I guess has to do with whether you believe the devil is real or not.
But it is one of Haiti's founding myths.
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/small_axe/v009/9.2laroche.html
According to Haitian national history, the revolutionary war was launched on the eve of a religious ceremony at a place in the north called Bwa Kayiman (Bois Caiman, in French). At that ceremony on August 14, 1791, an African slave named Boukman sacrificed a pig, and both Kongo and Creole spirits descended to possess the bodies of the participants, encouraging them and fortifying them for the upcoming revolutionary war. Despite deep ambivalence on the part of intellectuals, Catholics, and the moneyed classes, Vodou has always been linked with militarism and the war of independence and, through it, the pride of national sovereignty.
So, yeah if there is a devil, Haiti made a pact with it. Might explain why even though Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island, the Dominican Republic has been far more successful.
I don't believe in the devil, but if there was one, then Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh would be bff's with it. Robertson in particular has done more to drive people from Christianity than any other living TV preacher.
As for the supposed "pact", that's disputed among reputable scholars. The fact that it's part of Haiti's foundation myths doesn't make it true: I could make a long list of the myths about America's foundation that people believe to be true, even though they are not.
What if it is true that there was such a ritual? So what? Religious practices of slaves were animist in origin, harkening back to Africa. To stop Africans from observing traditional religion, Catholic missionaries declared that traditional African religions were "satanic" and "of the devil". Catholics saying that doesn't make it true. But since they wrote the history, it became accepted as fact and repeated by fundamentalist Christians who have political as well as religious reasons for promoting a belief in a devil.
The most likely explanation for the Dominican Republic being more "successful" is that it was under mostly Spanish rule for most of 75 years after Haiti's supposed ceremony, so it had more time to develop. Also, the USA was reluctant to have anything to with Haiti (the southern states in particular didn't want their slaves to get the notion that they could overthrow their oppressors). There are plenty more reasons that are far more probable—and rational—than some appeal to christianist superstition.
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