22113: (Arthur) Are We Using Vodou as a Scapegoat? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

Are We Using Vodou as a Scapegoat?
By Max A Joseph Jr
The Haitian Times - May 26, 2004

Once again, the singularity of Haiti’s politic was evident in the formation
of the electoral council that will oversee the next legislative and
presidential elections. It includes the Episcopalian, the Catholic and the Protestant
Churches, while Vodou, Haiti’s largest religion of which millions of Haitians are
de facto members, was not included. Could it be that a rectifying process is
under way that would involve a de-vodouization of Haiti’s society?

This typically Haitian policy of successive governments of repudiating their
predecessors’ deeds has hampered the country’s social and economic
development for the past 200 years and is showing no sign of fading away. One of the
main achievements of the Lavalas government, the official recognition of Vodou as
a state religion, has simply been erased by its exclusion in the electoral
council. .