Thoughts on Haiti

I saw an article on CNN that mentioned Pat Robertson's comments on the slave revolt in Haiti in the late 1700s-early 1800, and its potential relationship to the earthquake. I try to look at multiple sides of things, so I found a statement from the 700 club trying to clarify the comments that were made. Following their advice, I searched for "the whole video segment." I finally found a bit on YouTube. (I couldn't find a longer interview on the 700 club site to provide more context, so this is the best I could do at watching "the whole video segment.")

First, some history. This is the only slave revolt in the history of this side o the world to abolish slavery, which makes it a case with nothing to compare it to. (And really there were some legislative things that happened, too). Robertson keeps talking about how "the Haitians" revolted and won freedom from the French. Really, we're talking about native Africans brought to Haiti and forced into slavery, communities of runaway slaves living in the woods so they can have some semblance of freedom, plus some leaders who were of mixed European and African ancestry, with varied levels of education. There weren't "native Haitians" around any more (Columbus and his early folk knocked out the indigenous population on the island pretty effectively).

So, those things in mind, I want to draw attention to a couple of phrases Robertson uses:

"Under the heel of the French." - If that even comes close to describing the fact that Saint Domingue had over half of the slaves in the entire Caribbean, denied them any rights whatsoever, and caused so many slave deaths through overwork and poor conditions that they continually imported new, native-born Africans to fill their labor needs.

"Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts." - Uh, I lived there for 4 months. Has he ever gone anywhere but the beaches "full of resorts" to see the poor kids? The slums? Probably not. I LOVE Dominicans and the Dominican Republic, and living there was one of the happiest parts of my life, but I would NOT say that it's a paradise that we should use to put Haiti to shame.

"They need to have a great turning to God." - I'm all for this, but he makes it sound like this will be what will keep more of the "cursed with one thing after another" pattern from happening. How bout suggesting turning to God for comfort instead?

I'll let that be my rant, and not go on and on about the ridiculousness of thinking any just God would punish people now for the actions of people over 200 years ago, the closed-mindedness of the idea that a voodoo ceremony (especially one from THAT LONG AGO when African religions in this hemisphere still had some contact, through influx of new people, with their tradition) automatically equates to Satan worship, and the paternalistic suggestion that this rich "Christian" white American guy has the answers that will save these poor "heathen" Haitian blacks....oops, I guess I just couldn't keep it in.