The Full Enchilada

Haiti is undoubtedly the poorest and most desperate nation in our hemisphere. Many people literally eat mud to survive. It may be surprising for some to think of such misery existing not to far off the US coast. (South of florida, Haiti is on an Island right below Cuba, it shares the Island with the Dominican Republic nation.)

News outlets are buzzing with “Pat Robertson Blames Earthquake on Pact Haitians Made with Satan”. What is this about? It seems Pat Robertson was referring to the Haiti nation seeing itself as the Voodoo nation. Here’s a quote from wikipedia:

“Bois Caïman (Haitian Creole: Bwa Kayiman) is the site of the Vodou ceremony presided over by Dutty Boukman on August 14, 1791. The purpose of the ritual was to attempt to expel the French occupation, which were using the Haitians as slave labor.[1]

According to the official “History of Haiti and the Haitian Revloution”[2], in 1791 the following events occurred:

A man named Boukman, another houngan, organized on August 14, 1791, a meeting with the slaves in the mountains of the North. This meeting took the form of a Voodoo ceremony in the Bois Caiman in the northern mountains of the island. It was raining and the sky was raging with clouds; the slaves then started confessing their resentment of their condition. A woman started dancing languorously in the crowd, taken by the spirits of the loas. With a knife in her hand, she cut the throat of a pig and distributed the blood to all the participants of the meeting who swore to kill all the whites on the island. On August 22, 1791, the blacks of the North entered into a rebellion, killing all the whites they met and setting the plantations of the colony on fire. However, the French quickly captured the leader of the slaves, Boukman, and beheaded him, bringing the rebellion under control.

It is widely accepted as the starting point for the Haitian Revolution.

The ceremony was first documented in 1814 by Antoine Dalmas in his book History of the Saint-Domingue Revolution.”

Now, most other prominent religious figures such as Franklin Graham have denounced this kind of thinking, they point to Jesus and the healing of the man who was blind from birth. When the Rabbis asked Jesus who sinned, the man or his parents that he was born blind, Jesus answered that neither sinned but that it happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. Other religious leaders point out that although it is definitely very possible for something to be divine punishment, it is arrogant for anyone to point fingers because only God knows if it is so or not and because in a sense all have equally fallen short of God’s standard.

Excerpt from Pat Robertson, from the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) 700 Club show:
“And you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it.

“They were under the heel of the French, uh, you know Napoleon the 3rd and whatever, 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.’

“And, uh, they kicked the French out, you know, with Haitians revolted and got themselves free.

“But ever since they have been cursed by, by one thing after another, desperately poor.

“That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti on the other side is the Dominican Republican.

“Dominican Republic is, is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etcetera.

“Haiti is in desperate poverty.

“Same island.

“They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God and out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come. But right now we’re helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.”

“UPDATE: CBN spokesman Chris Roslan issued a statement Regarding Pat Robertson’s Comments on Haiti, saying “On today’s The 700 Club, during a segment about the devastation, suffering and humanitarian effort that is needed in Haiti, Dr. Robertson also spoke about Haiti’s history. His comments were based on the widely-discussed 1791 slave rebellion led by Boukman Dutty at Bois Caiman, where the slaves allegedly made a famous pact with the devil in exchange for victory over the French. This history, combined with the horrible state of the country, has led countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries to believe the country is cursed. Dr. Robertson never stated that the earthquake was God’s wrath. If you watch the entire video segment, Dr. Robertson’s compassion for the people of Haiti is clear. He called for prayer for them. His humanitarian arm has been working to help thousands of people in Haiti over the last year, and they are currently launching a major relief and recovery effort to help the victims of this disaster. They have sent a shipment of millions of dollars worth of medications that is now in Haiti, and their disaster team leaders are expected to arrive tomorrow and begin operations to ease the suffering.” http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/01/pat-robertson-blames-earthquake-on-pact-haitians-made-with-satan.html

Interesting Excerpt from an article on the web by someone named Tom Barrett (written 03/11/04):
“Government Of The Devil, By The Devil, And For The Devil
By Tom Barrett (03/11/04)

“Haiti is the only country in the entire world that has dedicated its government to Satan. Demonic spirits have been consulted for political decisions, and have shaped the country’s history.” Thus speaks Reverend Doug Anderson, who grew up in Haiti with missionary parents, and served there along with his wife Dawn as a missionary until 1990. The leaders of Haiti make no attempt to hide their allegiance to Satan. Haiti’s government is a government of the devil, by the devil, and for the devil.

It is a matter of well-documented historical fact that the nation of Haiti was dedicated to Satan 200 years ago. On August 14, 1791, a group of houngans (voodoo priests), led by a former slave houngan named Boukman, made a pact with the Devil at a place called Bois-Caiman. All present vowed to exterminate all of the white Frenchmen on the island. They sacrificed a black pig in a voodoo ritual at which hundreds of slaves drank the pig’s blood. In this ritual, Boukman asked Satan for his help in liberating Haiti from the French. In exchange, the voodoo priests offered to give the country to Satan for 200 years and swore to serve him. On January 1, 1804, the nation of Haiti was born and thus began a new demonic tyranny.

At the time of the pact Haiti was France’s richest colony, and was known as the “Pearl of the Antilles” for its singular beauty. But it soon became one of the world’s poorest and most benighted nations. Scoffers may say that there is no connection between the fact that Haiti was the richest nation in the hemisphere, and then became the poorest after selling its national soul to Satan. But the scoffers can’t come up with a better explanation.

Voodoo is a practice based on a mixture of African spiritism and witchcraft. Depending on the source of one’s research, between 75 and 90 percent of Haitians practice voodoo. This seems to fly in the face of the fact that the country is predominantly Catholic. But, like their African ancestors, voodoo practitioners have no problem embracing multiple religions. In fact, most who practice voodoo believe they must be Catholic first.

Until recently, voodoo was practiced in secret. Practitioners would go to the Catholic Church on Sunday, and attend voodoo ceremonies deep in the woods at other times. Voodoo was forbidden during the colonial times, and the 32 Haitian governments that followed independence also suppressed the practice because of world condemnation. But on April 8, 2003, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide approved Voodoo as an officially recognized religion in Haiti (see links below). Voodoo priests can now perform marriages and other ceremonies previously reserved for Christian religions. “An ancestral religion, Voodoo is an essential part of national identity,” Aristide said in the decree recognizing Voodoo.”

VOODOO

Anyway, so everything goes back to that big question: why does s*it happen?
And of course the other big one: Is there a God?

So why is Haiti so poor? Are they all too uneducated? If you replaced the entire Haitian population with affluent educated people (minus ALL their wealth), would they be able to rebuild Haiti into a modern prosperous nation?

If you can’t blame God, or you can’t blame people lack of faith in God, then who do you blame for such misery? Mother Nature? That may work for earthquakes, hurricanes/floods, and the like, but how about crime and poverty? How can you ‘fix’ Haiti and other nations in similar perils and poverty? Is the problem unsustainable population growth? Irresponsible procreation? Deadbeat fathers and promiscuity leading to mouths that can’t be fed? Can anything be learned from case studies of nations that became very ‘productive’ in a short period of time, or barren land/deserts becoming exporters of food? (perhaps Israel might be a good case study for that…) So how can we feed Haiti? Teach them to fish so to speak? What’s the solution?