16565: From Racine125@aol.com - Mambo Racine's Meditations on Christians Vs. Vodou in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Racine125@aol.com

Here I am, the resident Mambo on the list and I haven't said anything, until now, on this Haitian Christian vs. Haitian Vodouisant thing.  Now I'm ready, though, so watch out!

:-)

The original piece written by Terry Snow is bizarre enough - tales of murdered babies, people drinking pig blood and so on.  One must repeatedly remind such Christians that Christ died to take away our sins - not our brains!  Nevertheless,  the underlying cultural assumptions in Snow's piece are worth deconstructing.

What Snow is really doing is attempting to distance himself and his followers from what he thinks other people think of Haitians; as convoluted as that sounds.

The first inkling we have of Snow's agenda is that "damn (sic) of people that had burst forth from Grande Rue... This march was different than the normal ...protests that Haiti is so commonly known for. These people were happy, joyful full of excitement!"

These "normal protests that Haiti is so commonly known for"... think about these words.  Snow rejects these protests and this phenomenon, even though as an American surely he knows that demonstrations and protests have been part of each and every positive social movement in his own country from the American Revolution until present!  Moreover, Snow implies that this is a fault, a flaw in Haitians, they are commonly prone to protest and demonstrate, and this is not good.

In other words, Snow wants us to know that his people were not angry, politically motivated Haitians demonstrating because they think that in the year 2003, they ought at least to have access to clean drinking water.  Intstead, they were good little Haitians who gratefully accepted the largesse of Terry Snow as he gave them water.  (Although they were a bit rambunctious and had to be controlled by one of Snow's underlings, one of "their own kind".)

Snow, by his example, teaches his people that the preferred way of living is to repeat religious precepts, go to Christian religious meetings rather than political or social groups,  and wait on the largesse of wealthier, more economically powerful people rather than working in a secular context to improve life's conditions.

At this juncture in his narrative, and I confess to being utterly astounded, Snow invokes the phenomenon of magical materialization of wealth as evidence of divine favor!  In other words, just to prove God's favor toward Snow's way of doing things, the Almighty Himself generously replenished Snow's pockets with money when he bought drinking water for his people.  Thinking more Vodouisant than this, I could never ask for.

In fact, let me digress - I myself personally have a magical handbag made out of a Haitian calabash, which reliably gives me money on the rare occasion that I am strapped for cash - and it renders me this cash in the currency of the country where I am at the time.  So I am thankful for God's grace, just like Snow.

But back to the topic!

Protestant propaganda in Haiti is different from that in the USA - in the USA it's mostly "accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior", maybe a little anti-abortion rhetoric thrown in, but there is not often a real effort to systematically attack another religion.  This is because the United States has developed a tradition of religious liberalism and tolerance, in which "freedom of religion" means more than just "don't burn the other guy's church down"!

In Haiti, however, American and Haitian pastors take advantage of the lack of this sort of tradition, and wilfully and deliberately do what they would not, and could not, do in the United States - preach vicious hate propaganda against other religions.  The different Christian denominations even have some pretty nasty things to say about each other!  But Vodouisant-hating tops their list of preferred subjects when they get ready to preach.

When Christians in Haiti do this, it's not just a question of people from one religion analyzing and rejecting another religion.  That would never offend us.  I can examine another religion, let's say Islam, read the Koran, think about it, and reject it as misogynist.  That's my privilege, and I am sure most Muslims aren't going to lose any sleep over it.  Nor does my rejection of Islam make me hate Islam, or Muslims, or make me want to behave disrespectfully or aggressively toward Muslims - perish the thought!

Protestants in Haiti, however, preach what in the USA would be termed "hate speech".  Snow's article contains quite a bit of it, as we all can see.  Of course if Snow's religion is so great, he should be able to attract people on Christianity's own merits, he shouldn't have to tell out and out lies about Vodou, that's just basic logic.  But it goes deeper - doesn't Snow realize that he is basically asking his followers to continue telling the same lies as him?  He is not helping anyone's spiritual development in this way.

I am the head of a congregation, too.  My role is to support and encourage religious activity, just like Snow.  And like Snow, I try to encourage attitudes and ways of thinking that I think are "right".  So how come I don't whip up anti-Protestant sentiment in my peristyle?  Goodness knows the Protestants have created enough resentment, it's there and I could capitalize on it for sure.  But I won't, and I consider such behavior disgraceful for a religious leader more than for any other person.

The potential in Haiti for aggression, for violence, specifically religiously motivated violence, is something that Snow seems almost to be courting, by In a country were only fifty years ago violence against Vodouisants by Christians was systematically organized, Snow should be doing everything possible to discourage aggression.  In a society where the dominant group, *whatever* it may be, usually tramples on those whom it dominates, he should be teaching his people about the history of religious and political intolerance in Haiti and warning them not to repeat history's errors.  But I get the impression that if a mob of Snow's people trashed a peristyle, he would consider this a victory, not an abomination and a disgrace.

I remind Snow once again that "Christ died to take away our sins, not our brains"!  The attitudes that Snow is promoting are not congruent with a pluralistic, democratic society.  Doesn't it occur to him that the same intolerance and shabby thinking that he directs against his enemies now, can one day be turned against him as well, or against people or activities he values?  What Snow ought to do as a Christian, far from encouraging aggression, intolerance and economic dependency, is to contribute to the development of a free and open society, since it is God's will that we live happy and free on His earth!

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)