15424: Mambo Racine comments on Michael Norton's Article on Haitian Government Decree (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Racine125@aol.com

I would like to thank Michael Norton for his article, first of all.  It's nice to be getting coverage that doesn't employ hysterical language and negative imagery.
(Hi Michael!  Remember me?  I was in the Reuter's bureau while you were with AP, when both our offices were in the Holiday Inn.)
I'd like to point out a few things, however.  Let me take a few phrases as examples:
<<... much remains to be done to make up for centuries of ridicule and persecution... for centuries voodoo has been looked down upon as little more than superstition, and at times has been the victim of ferocious persecution.>>
It's true there has been persecution of Vodou!  But over and over I hear "Vodou has been looked down on, Vodou has been stigmatized", without those verbs ever having an object!  Looked down on by WHO?  Stigmatized by WHO?  Certainly not the majority of Haitians, as the text implies.
Norton does identify Catholics, thank you Michael!  But can't we also somehow sneak in the words, "right wing evangelical white American Protestant Christians and elite Haitians who nevertheless commission magic in secret"?  You're a journalist, you figure out how to say it in a nutshell!  LOL
:-)
This is the tendency, for those in power to think that their world view is the way the world is, period - they repeat over and over, "Vodou is stigmatized, Vodou is stigmatized...", and then they think it is!  They can't imagine that there are a whole lot of people, including the majority of people in Haiti, among whom Vodou is NOT stigmatized, but loved and respected.
Next on my agenda -
A Houngan interviewed by Norton  "suggested that construction of a central voodoo temple would 'turn good words into a good deed.'
Bad idea.  Bad, bad, bad idea!  First of all, obviously, a national Vodou peristyle violates the separation of church and state.
Worse, it violates the structure of Vodou religion, which is by definition decentralized and composed of independant clergy.  There is no "Pope" in Vodou, no bishop, no one man or woman with authority over the religion.  So who would be chosen to head this "central temple"?  Only their own initiates would submit to their authority, everyone else would sniff and snort and go away.
Thirdly, the infighting and corruption that would go on as various Houngans and Mambos vied for control would be unspeakable.  The ill-fated "Eglise Vodou d'Haiti", for example, was a supposed effort to create a central authority for the Vodou religion.  This group had their own little handbook, filled with stuff that had nothing whatsoever to do with the practice of Vodou and everything to do with the founder's "trip".  They got funding from the Haitian government to set up a "lodge" (they called it that because some of them were Masons - one was also a Roman Catholic priest-in-training who left Catholicism and came over to Vodou, bringing a lot of non-Vodou ideas with him). When the government's check cleared, so I am told by an eyewitness, they took the money out of the bank to the home of the founder of the movement. They fought over the cash, including some physical shoving and grabbing, they each snatched a portion and tucked it away, and no lodge was every built.
<<In 1986, following the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier's dictatorship, hundreds of voodoo practitioners were killed on the pretext that they had been accomplices to Duvalier's abuses.>>
A lot of people were killed because of the FACT that they had been TonTon Macoutes or in other ways accomplices to Duvalier's abuses, too!
Remember once again that the Vodou religion does not have the same "moral code" as Christianity.  Why are people surprised by this?  Vodou and Christianity are two different religions with very different views of how the spiritual realm is constituted.  Power, in Vodou, is desirable and is indicative of a good relationship with the lwa.
Even during the last gasp (I hope!) of right-wing dictatorship, the military regime of 1991 - 1994, Haitian Army personnel, "attaches", and FRAPH members regularly visited Houngans and Mambos seeking wanga (magical work) that would enable them to rob, rape and murder with impunity.  Most Houngans and Mambos obliged (although a few daring ones undid the magic after the client departed).
Now, if you believe that the Houngan on the corner has powerful magic that protects  the Macoute that killed your brother and your wife, what would you do?  And if a lot of the people in your neighborhood also have scores to settle with that Houngan and that Macoute, and you all got together in a group during the overthrow of Jean-Claude Duvalier, who do you think you would have identifed as the more dangerous enemy?
Peace and love,
Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen
"Se bon ki ra" - Good is rare     Haitian Proverb
The VODOU Page - http://members.aol.com/racine125/index.html
(Posting from Jacmel, Haiti)