ManicDDaily

Appearing on the Christian Broadcasting Network today to raise money for  Haiti, Pat Robertson gave, with conviction but seeming reluctance, an explanation for the long-term suffering of Haitians.  There was a reason, he said, that “people may not want to talk about.”

The problem, he went on, arose a long time ago when the Haitians were under the heel of the French, “Napoleon III or whatever,” and the Haitians “had gotten together” and made a “pact with the devil” to throw the French out of Haiti.  This pact had succeeded (in that the French were thrown out), but the Haitians had suffered ever since.

I’m glad that Robertson is raising funds to help Haiti, but he’s also just nuts.

Even on the most basic factual level, Robertson is wrong.  The revolt to which Robertson seems to refer was from the French under Napoleon I, that is, Napoleon Bonaparte, the guy with the hand in his waistcoat.   (Okay, okay, what’s in a roman numeral?)   As my husband who knows all things historical points out, the famous revolt against Napoleon III was in Mexico.  (Okay, okay, same hemisphere.)

The Haitian revolt against the French was also the first successful slave revolt in the New World, and led to the end of slavery in Haiti.  (Somehow, it’s hard to think of the ending of slavery as the product of a pact from the devil.)

Robertson’s “pact with the devil” seems to be inspired by the fact that the signal to start the rebellion was supposedly given, in 1791, by Dutty Boukman, a high priest of voodoo and leader of the Maroon slaves, during a nighttime religious ceremony.  (The French Revolution also influenced the rebels, but it’s my guess that it’s the voodoo ceremony that really gets to Robertson.)

I don’t pay a lot of attention to Robertson’s pronouncements, but even I have noticed a history of linking catastrophes to divine retribution.  In 2001, for example, he “totally” concurred with Jerry Falwell who said that Americans in favor of abortion, homosexuality and the separation of church and state had “helped” the World Trade Center attacks to happen by angering god.

What ever happened to the religious and philosophical conundrum of bad things happening to good people? (Was the 2004 Tsunami “helped” by Buddhism?  Is “don’t ask don’t tell” responsible for the casualties in Iraq?)

Robertson’s God seems to punish with a very broad brush.  (The problem of a fly in the ointment is resolved by the burning down of the whole pharmacy.  Serves those prescription drug users right.)

Yes, Haiti may lie upon a fault in tectonic plates, but whose fault is that?

On the good side ( the New Testament, turn-the-other-cheek side), Robertson does seem to want alleviate the  suffering of poor people.  Still one can’t help but hope that Jeudy Francia, the woman, in Port-au-Prince, who cried “there is no one, nothing, no medicines, no explanations for why my daughter is going to die,” has not had to bear the additional misery of hearing Robertson’s reasons for her pain.