Pat Robertson Says Haiti Made a 'Pact With the Devil'

Just when I thought the dumbest sound bite of the week had come from Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson, with his Obama "runs from race like a black man runs from a cop" nonsense, in comes televangelist Pat Robertson's comments on the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Now Robertson, host of the Christian Broadcasting Network's 'The 700 Club,' has spit out some gems. First he declared that 9/11 was the result of God's wrath on America for not mandating school prayer. Later, he predicted a catastrophe in Orlando, Fla., because of "gay days" at Disney World. Then, there's his call for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

But this classic should be the granddaddy of 'em all (at 0.47 secs) ....

Now, to be fair, when Robertson said this, he was soliciting donations for the relief effort the CBN had put together. But if Robertson is this authority on God's anger and pretty much can peg when and where he gets pissed off, it's hard to see how evangelical Christians, who are the majority of viewing audience of 'The 700 Club,' would want to give money to people they believe had signed a pact with Satan and were thus cursed!

But rather than dwell on stupid old men like Robertson, it's best to debunk what he said so that people don't actually go off believing him.

The root of this whole "pact with the devil" trash goes back to a voodoo priest known as Dutty Boukman. Boukman is said to have called the slaves to arms against the French, beginning an uprising. The legend goes that he held a voodoo ritual with a few slaves, where a pig was sacrificed at a place called Bois Caimin. The ritual allegedly galvanized the black population for revolt. But nobody has ever been able to substantiate this story, nor has anyone ever found the bronze pig that was supposed to stand in Port-au-Prince as a monument, so modern historians dispute the entire story.

The likelihood is that the story was a bastardization by the French of a voodoo ritual, which they saw, but had no understanding of. Voodoo derives from several traditional African religions and came with Caribbean- and South American-bound slaves when they were brought to the West. The term "voodoo" is something made up by Hollywood.

The Boukman story has about as much credibility as American slave owners' insistence that "the natural state of Negroes is servitude" due to our being the supposed descendants of Ham, whose children were singled out for slavery because he embarrassed his drunken father, Noah. Slave owners actually twisted this passage of Genesis (Chapt. 9: 21-27) for their own sick, racist purposes.

Robertson is no better.

The real background of Haiti's poverty began when President Thomas Jefferson instituted post-revolution sanctions in 1804, which lasted nearly 60 years and economically isolated the fledgling state not only from the rest of the Caribbean but the rest of the world as well. Denied the developing economic infrastructure America had after its own revolution, the nation fell in to a cycle of assassination and despotism that spawned from class-structure conflict rooted in colonial times. It continued until President Woodrow Wilson intervened in 1915. When U.S. troops left in 1934, the Haitian military set up a new autocratic government, which, in turn, spawned further cycles of corruption and exploitation -- internal and external -- that continue to the present.

For further background on Haiti, its struggles and the fascinating origins of how the Haitian revolution came to be, check out these links:

The Louverture Project.

History of Haiti from Infoplease.

EchodHaiti.com.

Please, whatever you do, pay attention to those who are trying to help. Here's how you can help: CNN - Impact Your World.

And please, don't listen to stupid old men like Robertson. They never attempt to be part of the solution.