Sounds like it boils down to the old charges of atheism in the French Revolution.
Joel Send a noteboard - 17/01/2010 03:04:45 AM
Robertson obviously has his head so far up his own ass that he can't be bothered to learn history. He said the Haitians made a pact with the devil to get rid of Napoleon III. It showed such typical ignorance of history that I dismissed it, but the full idiocy of Robertson's statements can be seen in the Christian Science Monitor article on the same subject:
Mr. Robertson’s theory that Haitian slaves made a “pact with the devil” 200 years ago in order to free themselves from the hated clutches of Napoleon Bonaparte's regime – resulting in a curse that led to the destruction of much of Port-au-Prince and a massive loss of life in Tuesday's earthquake – got the usual chuckles of disbelief among local intelligentsia about American culture.
It was bad enough that he said the successful slave revolt came during the reign of "Napoleon III, or whatever" (the Haitian Revolution led by Francois-Dominique Toussaint L'ouverture was in fact completed in 1804 when Napoleon Bonaparte ruled France, 44 years before his nephew Napoleon III came to power). But here in Haiti’s former colonial master, talk about the Robertson “theory” clouds with myth an early if awkward chapter in self-determination: the Haitian slaves are considered the first to collectively and successfully overthrow their colonial masters. In this case, the French.
After the French revolution, in 1794, the 500,000 slaves brought from Africa to work Haiti's lucrative sugar and coffee plantations, were freed by decree. But Napoleon Bonaparte, seeking empire, wealth, and territory, tried re-enslave them in 1802.
Once slaves breathed the free air, they did not wish to return to their former status as drones or fodder for empire. Toussaint L'ouverture, a house slave whose father came from Africa, and whose master, Count de Breda, educated him – stepped up. Mr. L'ouverture’s reading of French enlightenment and revolutionary writers Mirabeau and Voltaire is thought to have been extensive. The slave revolt itself took place in the name of the values and ideals of the French revolution in many readings of history here.
Haiti had been “a hell on earth” for the slaves, writes Le Monde’s history specialist, Jerome Gautheret. “Each year, 50,000 slaves were brought to Haiti to compensate for the … terrible mortality among the slaves. In such a fragile society, order could only be precarious, based on terror and violence: the French Revolution shook it in an irreversible way. In Paris, while ‘Friends of the Blacks’ pled for civil equality for all free men and gradual emancipation of the slaves, a powerful colonial party [in Haiti] tried to maintain the status quo.”
Quoted Thursday on Salon.com, UCLA anthropologist Andrew Apter says the notion of a “pact with the devil” as behind the slave victory “is so absurd it is almost funny. This notion of a pact with the devil is basically an echo of an old colonial response to the successes of the 1790s Haitian revolution.”
The problem for Haiti is that if it was a hell on earth under slavery, it was also so after the slave revolt, French historians argue. Africans plucked and sent to Haiti to work under the lash and suddenly freed were not a model constituency for civil society. Haiti went from the largest sugar exporter in the world to chaos. “The plantations were deserted. The former slaves refused to work on the places they were enslaved,” Mr. Apter said.
An emerging understanding of Haiti during this time is of an island increasingly divided between the 30,000 to 40,000 mixed race former slaves, and the more recently arrived slaves from Africa.
UCLA’s Apter argues, “the reason Haiti is poor is because Europe imposed a blockade on trade after the slave revolt in 1804, and you have an extremely polarized class structure in which a few families stepped into the positions of the former colonial plantation owners. There has been a horrible cycle of plundering and autocracy within Haitian leadership.”
Mr. Robertson’s theory that Haitian slaves made a “pact with the devil” 200 years ago in order to free themselves from the hated clutches of Napoleon Bonaparte's regime – resulting in a curse that led to the destruction of much of Port-au-Prince and a massive loss of life in Tuesday's earthquake – got the usual chuckles of disbelief among local intelligentsia about American culture.
It was bad enough that he said the successful slave revolt came during the reign of "Napoleon III, or whatever" (the Haitian Revolution led by Francois-Dominique Toussaint L'ouverture was in fact completed in 1804 when Napoleon Bonaparte ruled France, 44 years before his nephew Napoleon III came to power). But here in Haiti’s former colonial master, talk about the Robertson “theory” clouds with myth an early if awkward chapter in self-determination: the Haitian slaves are considered the first to collectively and successfully overthrow their colonial masters. In this case, the French.
After the French revolution, in 1794, the 500,000 slaves brought from Africa to work Haiti's lucrative sugar and coffee plantations, were freed by decree. But Napoleon Bonaparte, seeking empire, wealth, and territory, tried re-enslave them in 1802.
Once slaves breathed the free air, they did not wish to return to their former status as drones or fodder for empire. Toussaint L'ouverture, a house slave whose father came from Africa, and whose master, Count de Breda, educated him – stepped up. Mr. L'ouverture’s reading of French enlightenment and revolutionary writers Mirabeau and Voltaire is thought to have been extensive. The slave revolt itself took place in the name of the values and ideals of the French revolution in many readings of history here.
Haiti had been “a hell on earth” for the slaves, writes Le Monde’s history specialist, Jerome Gautheret. “Each year, 50,000 slaves were brought to Haiti to compensate for the … terrible mortality among the slaves. In such a fragile society, order could only be precarious, based on terror and violence: the French Revolution shook it in an irreversible way. In Paris, while ‘Friends of the Blacks’ pled for civil equality for all free men and gradual emancipation of the slaves, a powerful colonial party [in Haiti] tried to maintain the status quo.”
Quoted Thursday on Salon.com, UCLA anthropologist Andrew Apter says the notion of a “pact with the devil” as behind the slave victory “is so absurd it is almost funny. This notion of a pact with the devil is basically an echo of an old colonial response to the successes of the 1790s Haitian revolution.”
The problem for Haiti is that if it was a hell on earth under slavery, it was also so after the slave revolt, French historians argue. Africans plucked and sent to Haiti to work under the lash and suddenly freed were not a model constituency for civil society. Haiti went from the largest sugar exporter in the world to chaos. “The plantations were deserted. The former slaves refused to work on the places they were enslaved,” Mr. Apter said.
An emerging understanding of Haiti during this time is of an island increasingly divided between the 30,000 to 40,000 mixed race former slaves, and the more recently arrived slaves from Africa.
UCLA’s Apter argues, “the reason Haiti is poor is because Europe imposed a blockade on trade after the slave revolt in 1804, and you have an extremely polarized class structure in which a few families stepped into the positions of the former colonial plantation owners. There has been a horrible cycle of plundering and autocracy within Haitian leadership.”
You know, the contradictory and confusing logic that says that because the Revolution cherished freedom, equality and liberty, as well as the goddess of reason, that those first three things are as inimical to Christianity as the last, and anyone affirming them is, by their own admission, in league with the devil. It's a particularly stupid road for any American with even a passing knowledge of history to walk, given the close ties between the French revolutionaries and our own (and if the French really believe, as the Le Monde writer states, that the Haitians were "the first to collectively and successfully overthrow their colonial masters" they need a history refresher of their own. ) Such insults too intelligence are the reason the word "disingenuous" exists; there's a difference between being ignorant and obtuse, and only one is excusable.
Honorbound and honored to be Bonded to Mahtaliel Sedai
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
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LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Why is Limbaugh such an a$$hole?
- 16/01/2010 06:15:27 AM
833 Views
i think the world may never know. him and pat robrtson should be isolated far far away from ppl. *NM*
- 16/01/2010 07:20:36 AM
139 Views
Support your claim with evidence
- 16/01/2010 05:46:09 PM
401 Views
give me the link for the transcript word for word
- 17/01/2010 07:41:10 AM
438 Views
Do your own research, preferably before posting to begin with
- 17/01/2010 10:39:47 AM
760 Views
I appreciate what you're doing here
- 17/01/2010 10:53:44 AM
384 Views
Facts are important things
- 17/01/2010 11:37:01 AM
355 Views
Yes, they are. Let me clarify: are you defending Pat Robertson as well?
- 17/01/2010 03:47:48 PM
383 Views
Re: Do your own research, preferably before posting to begin with
- 18/01/2010 12:17:32 PM
533 Views
I thought Robertson was the biggest douchebag of all, and an idiot as well.
- 16/01/2010 06:05:15 PM
382 Views
Sounds like it boils down to the old charges of atheism in the French Revolution.
- 17/01/2010 03:04:45 AM
377 Views
The key word in that sentence is "the first slaves".
- 17/01/2010 05:18:49 PM
353 Views
I looked hard to find that reading before I posted, and couldn't see it, but it's there now.
- 17/01/2010 05:34:58 PM
360 Views
You must understand: Robertson is not from a religious family turned to politics, but the opposite.
- 17/01/2010 02:54:29 AM
376 Views