Pat Robertson:
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, you know, Napoleon III 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, 'OK, it's a deal,' and … the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other.
JillGat at TSD:
One detail we need to clear up right away. Haiti's bargain with the devil was supposedly struck in 1791. Napoleon III wasn't elected ruler of France until 1848, and Napoleon I didn't become big cheese until 1799. The French entity whose collective heel the Haitians were under in 1791 was the Constituent Assembly. We'll assume Satan didn't screw this up and the fault lies with poor note taking on the part of Pat Robertson, who presumably still gets nervous when dealing with infernal forces. You'd think he'd be used to it by now.
There's more, much more.
And further from a Caribbean American, Dianne M. Diakité, associate professor of Religion and African American Studies at Emory University, The Myth of Voodoo.
As Robertson narrates it, in his latest fiction-disguised-as-revelation, “something happened a long time ago in Haiti,” and that something was Haiti's vodou heritage. The earthquake, an unfortunate turn of events in Haiti’s unnatural history, presents Robertson, and the Christian cohorts supporting his ministry, yet another platform to characterize Haiti as a reprobate nation destined to suffer one disaster after another under the curse of either the Christian devil or God.
African Religious Legacy
To set the record straight, the varied imperial and stateless civilizations of Africa each had their own established religious beliefs, practices and institutions well before any exposure to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Vodou, a term with endless contemplative meanings and inferences, including “god,” “spirit,” and “deep mystery” is one such religious culture that should not be misconstrued as any devil-dealing clan.
Today, libraries of reliable scholarship confirm Vodou’s credibility as a viable historic and contemporary tradition most prominent in West Africa and Haiti. This religious heritage links Haiti, Benin, Togo, and Ghana through a civilizing legacy where cognate cosmologies, philosophies, languages, medical therapies, diets, rites of passage, codes of conduct, aesthetic norms, artistic conventions, and technologies furnish entire communities with a shared sense of identity and the ritual/theological grammars required to guide their common life and transmission of humanity from one generation to the next.
Again, there's more.
Take that, Pat!
Thanks to Paul (A.) for the link to The Straight Dope and to Ann for the link to Professor Diakité.
Pat and his followers (and those like them) are increasingly being revealed as off-beat people who will harm others by simply yaking about things of which they know nothing...chilling but true and the money rolls in (on the backs of the victims of their slander and purgery).
ReplyDeleteHorrible mess Pat has created along with a few other culprets we could easy name (who have no shame)...sickness, through and through.
Instead of showing Robertson's video over and over ad infinitum, wouldn't it have made more sense to invite Robertson to debate someone who was not pulling information out of their rears? Of course, Pat would not appear to debate people who know what they're talking about. Then the newsperson could read Pat's dumbass statement and let the expert debunk.
ReplyDeleteYou shouldn't be TOO rough on poor Pat. After all, it's difficult for him to recall something that happened so long ago.
ReplyDeleteThough if you listen to him much, the 16th Century seems like just yesterday.
This is a good roundup of sources Mimi - thanks to Paul A., Ann and YOU for getting this out here.
ReplyDeleteIt is all so maddening.
Pat is old, Wade, in ways too numerous to mention. I am old, too, but not in the same ways that Pat is old.
ReplyDeleteFran, what WOULD I do without my sources?
Alas, the people who listen to Robertson and believe him to be godly and trust what he says are legion. They exist in an self-imposed isolated world where facts need not intrude. It is tragic. And dangerous.
ReplyDeleteI love Mark Harris' summation:"Pat Robertson is an ass."