A history lesson for Pat Robertson
On the 700 Club today Pat Robertson said one of the most ignorant and offensive things I’ve heard in a long time (h/t Thinkprogress):
ROBERTSON: [S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you get us free from the prince.” True story. And so the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.” They kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free.
But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor…
Aside from being absurd on its face, Robertson’s claim doesn’t square with his own theology. Haiti has been “cursed” by, among other things, invasion, occupation, isolation and oppression at the hands of Western powers such as France and the US. So by Robertson’s logic, the US has been used as the devil’s tool. Hardly squares with his “Christian nation” theology. Furthermore, I’d like to share with Robertson a quick history lesson on “pacts with the devil” in Haiti — the French colonial rulers of Haiti found it more cost-effective to work African slaves to death than to provide them with even the barest necessities, all the while claiming Christian missionary motives for slavery (for example, Baptism was compulsory). Think for a second how that flouts the teachings of Jesus. And just to add another bit of foundational blasphemy, this oppressive regime was started under the rule of Louis XIV, who claimed to rule by divine right.
To recap: a monarch who proclaimed to have been installed by God oversaw the development of a regime that used a veneer of religion to make the systematic killing of slaves seem like something other than the moral outrage that it was. And in Robertson’s mind it was the resistors of this system who were in league with the devil.
And in case it doesn’t go without saying, the notion that God would smite hundreds of thousands of Haitians because of some alleged “pact with the devil” more than two centuries ago is just plain hateful.
On another note, The Washington Post has an extensive list of contacts for relief agencies on the ground in Haiti that need donations.
UPDATE: Matt Yglesias has a good take on the so-called “pact with the devil” the Haitian revolutionaries made. It’s especially worth emphasizing that they conceived of the white slave-owners as worshiping a separate God because of what the slaveowners did in God’s name.
UPDATE: Robertson’s spokesperson has issued a statement.