Haiti has 'brought decades of torment on itself by making a pact with the devil.' That's what American evangelical Christian and all-round right-wing violence-advocator, Pat Robertson reportedly said about the earthquake that devastated Haiti last week, according to The Guardian.
That's no surprise, really. Pat Robertson's stupidity and shocking lack of theological integration have been legendary since he called on the US to assassinate Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez. Honestly, it would have been more newsworthy if he hadn't said something appalling. Disappointingly, many Christians from 'the chatroom classes' agreed with him, posting much about Vodoun (voodoo to them) bringing curses and God's judgement.
There will be enough theologians explaining disaster this week. Me, I have no answers. I think bad things just happen. Just like lots of good things (and lack of bad things) do. Hopefully you'll hear Luke 13:4-5 enough this week for me not to have to quote it. But God's vengeance for not being good evangelicals seems an unsatisfactory earthquake-precipitator, what with every country from Israel to the Vatican (and all those in between) presumably falling short of collective righteousness.
Robertson (who seems already to have forgotten the disaster of 9-11) was widely condemned for his comments, though other, more subtle fools last week prescribed 'intrusive paternalism' and a hard line from the US government to 'sort things out'. Their brand of prejudice is more widely shared, I suspect, by those who think we 'civilized' countries spend too much time bailing out 'uncivilized' ones that refuse to prepare for disaster. After all, Haiti was a basket case before the earthquake, right? Yes. But only with European and American help.
Haiti was the only slave colony ever to overthrow its French masters, in 1804. It was rewarded with a trade embargo from the US and Europe and was later forced to 'buy' the hard-won freedom for 150 million francs – a debt that crippled the Haitian economy for the next 200 years. In 1915, to protect its interests during the First World War, the US military occupied Haiti. They stayed until 1934 and killed 2,250 Haitians while there. From 1957 to 1986, vicious American-backed dictators, 'Papa Doc' and his son 'Baby Doc' Duvalier oversaw the death and exile of tens of thousands of Haitians, a dynastic regime synonymous with oppression and cruelty. But it was also anti-communist and received tens of millions of dollars in US aid and military support while the Ton Tonton Macoutes (Duvalier's notorious secret police) tortured and terrorised the nation. Under 'Baby Doc', in the '70s and '80s, so-called 'aid' came with the usual price-tags of opening markets to US companies, decimating Haiti's agricultural sector, but enriching both American farmers and investors in the new 'assembly industry' (read: 'sweatshops').
In 1991 the US aided a coup against democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former priest, who, while no Castro, did double the minimum wage, refuse some attempts at American privatization and demanded that France repay the 'reparations' for daring to overthrow their colonial slavery and tyranny. In 2004 he was forced out of Haiti at gunpoint in another coup, this time involving American, French and Canadian troops.
A legacy of abuse, destabilisation and exploitation did not cause the earthquake. But they have left Haiti unable to defend itself. If you're looking for a neat devil-oriented explanation for the suffering there today, why not examine the satanic pact western nations have made with Mammon?
