There have been many reports of what Robertson said about Haiti and
many condemnations of it; what is missing from public discourse is an
account of what exactly is outrageous about what he said.
First, just so that it’s clear what I’m talking about, here are the notorious words uttered by Pat Robertson on his program
The 700 Club on January 13, 2010 (transcription from
Media Matters, where the video can also be seen):
And, you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago
in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under
the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they
got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve
you if you will get us free from the French.” True story. And so, the
devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.” And they kicked the French out. You
know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since,
they have been cursed by one thing after the other. Desperately poor.
That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On
the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Dominican Republic.
Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, et cetera.
Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we
need to pray for them a great turning to God.
Of course, Pat Robertson’s notion of what constitutes a “true story”
can be gauged by the crackpot theory of a two-hundred-year-old plot for
global domination by Jewish bankers, Freemasons, the “Illuminati,” and
other Satanists that he expounded in his 1994 book
The New World Order. An account of its contents may be found in Michael Lind’s
Up from Conservatism: Why the Right Is Wrong for America (New York: Free Press, 1996), pp. 99–120, or on line in “
New World Order, Old World Anti-Semitism,” an article by Ephraim Radner that appeared in
Christian Century for September 13, 1995. A single paragraph from Radner’s article will give you the flavor of Robertson’s thinking:
Robertson traces the historical progress of this
conspiracy, back to Lucifer and his machinations in antiquity. In the
modem era the conspiracy has been promoted through a small secret
society founded in late 18th-century, Bavaria called the Illuminati,
whose members purportedly infiltrated Freemasonry, organized the French
Revolution, recruited Friedrick Engels and other communists to their
cause and orchestrated the Bolshexik takeover of Russia. Through their
control of international banking, the Illuminati-dominated servants of
Satan, according to Robertson, have imposed a system of national and
private credit and interest that has saddled the nation with
debilitating and enslaving debt, robbing the American people at once of
their independence and their control over their religious life.
Getting back to Robertson’s more recent outburst of paranoiac idiocy,
one should note that his so-called “true story” actually has what might
be described, if misleadingly, as a historical basis. The event that
presumably caused his febrile brain to conceive that the Haitians swore
a “pact to the devil” was a religious ceremony that reputedly took
place on August 14, 1791, at Bois Caïman in what is now Haiti under the
leadership of a slave and
vodou priest or
houdon named
Dutty Boukman. (Whether this event actually occurred seems to be a matter of
dispute.)
Boukman reputedly prophesied on that occasion that the slaves of
Saint-Domingue (as the colony occupying the territory of what is now
the Republic of Haiti was then called) would rise up and overthrow
their white masters. On August 22, an uprising began, in the course of
which Boukman was captured and killed by the French authorities. The
revolt continued without him, and in two years’ time, slavery in
Saint-Domingue was at an end. By the end of 1803, the Haitians had
overthrown and expelled the French (who, by the way, were under the
rule of Napoleon Bonaparte at the time; Napoleon III was not born until
1808).
The idea of a pact with Satan, as far as I can gather, is just more of
the sort of lurid fantasy habitually extruded by the brains of
right-wing religious fanatics like Robertson. I suspect that in his
view any religious practice much different from the Evangelical
Protestantism with which he is comfortable is Satanic worship.
But the benighted and delusional character of Robertson’s version of
history, however interesting, is really not the issue. What has made
his remarks notorious is the fact that they identify the earthquake in
Haiti, and other misfortunes that have dogged the history of that
nation, as divine retribution. This sort of utterance on his part is
nothing new. As
Media Matters points out, Robertson has a record of indulging in such prophecy:
- Remember when Jerry Falwell said, two days after the events of
September 11, 2001, “I really believe that the pagans, and the
abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are
actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the A.C.L.U.,
People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize
America, I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this
happen’”? He said that when he was appearing as Robertson’s guest on The 700 Club,
and Robertson’s reply was, “I totally concur.” Though Robertson seems
subsequently to have tried to put some distance between himself and
Falwell’s remarks (he described them
as “totally inappropriate,” a phrase that in the perverted moral
discourse of the present day passes for severe condemnation, though
really it only faults Falwell’s choice of occasion and not the content
of what he said), he also issued a written statement
that made his stance on this issue perfectly clear: “We have insulted
God at the highest level of our government. Then, we say, ‘Why does
this happen?’ It is happening because God Almighty is lifting His
protection from us.”
- On The 700 Club for September 12, 2005, Robertson
intimated—though he did not plainly assert—that the occurrence of the
Hurricane Katrina disaster and terrorist attacks on the US was due to
the legality of abortion here (transcript again from Media Matters):
We have killed over 40 million unborn babies in America. I was reading,
yesterday, a book that was very interesting about what God has to say
in the Old Testament about those who shed innocent blood. And he used
the term that those who do this, “the land will vomit you out.” . . .
You look at the book of Leviticus and see what it says there. And this
author of this said, “Well, ‘vomit out’ means you are not able to
defend yourself.” But have we found we are unable somehow to defend
ourselves against some of the attacks that are coming against us,
either by terrorists or now by natural disaster? Could they be
connected in some way? And he goes down the list of the things that God
says will cause a nation to lose its possession, and to be vomited out.
And the amazing thing is, a judge has now got to say, “I will support
the wholesale slaughter of innocent children” in order to get confirmed
to the bench.
- On The 700 Club for January 5, 2006, Robertson attributed
the stroke that paralyzed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the
murder of his predecessor Yitzhak Rabin to their having tried to divide
God’s land, in defiance of biblical prophesy. Robertson said
(transcript again from Media Matters):
The prophet Joel makes it very clear that God has enmity against those
who, quote, “divide my land.” God considers this land to be his. You
read the Bible, he says, “This is my land.” And for any prime minister
of Israel who decides he going carve it up and give it away, God says,
“No. This is mine.” And the same thing—I had a wonderful meeting with
Yitzhak Rabin in 1974. He was tragically assassinated, and it was
terrible thing that happened, but nevertheless, he was dead. And now
Ariel Sharon, who was again a very likeable person, a delightful person
to be with. I prayed with him personally. But here he is at the point
of death. He was dividing God’s land, and I would say woe unto any
prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU,
the United Nations or United States of America. God said, “This land
belongs to me, you better leave it alone.”
By the way, the passage to which Robertson alludes is this one:
For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes
of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them
down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with
them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land,
and have cast lots for my people, and have traded a boy for a
prostitute, and have sold a girl for wine and have drunk it. (Joel
3:1–3, English Standard Version)
Setting aside the question of how anyone in his right mind can take a
bit of ancient literature purported to record divine utterances as a
title deed to an entire country, it is obvious that the passage
promises divine judgment upon foreign nations that have conquered the
land of Israel and dispersed the Israelites among other nations, not
upon Israelites in possession of the land who have given away some of
it.
So Robertson has been at this sort of thing for a while, and we can
expect that as long as he is with us he will provide more of it. What I
find curious, and rather frustrating, about the reaction to his remarks
in public written media is how elliptical the comments have been.
Trolling through the Google and Google News
search results
for “Pat Robertson Haiti,” what I find, besides bare reports of what he
said, consists almost entirely of remarks or exclamations on how
outrageous, offensive, absurd, insane, moronic, insensitive, inhumane,
and so on it is, or he is. What I have not found is an explanation of
what exactly is outrageous, offensive, and so on about it.
Perhaps it is felt that the point is too obvious to merit explanation. Well, I grant that it is obvious
that what Robertson said is outrageous and so on. I do not question that for a moment. What I want to know is:
why is it outrageous? What makes it so? Is it the idea that the catastrophes that have befallen the people of Haiti—
mutatis mutandis
the people of New Orleans, of New York City, of the United States, and
so on—are in some measure the fault of the victims? Is it the idea that
the victims, or some of them, or some of their ancestors, have incurred
God’s wrath? Is it the pretense to prophetic knowledge of how God works
in the world? Is it not the thoughts themselves but merely the act of
giving public utterance to them? (Were they merely, as Robertson said
of Jerry Falwell’s remarks about the September 11 attacks, “totally
inappropriate”?) It may well be that different people have different
reasons for being outraged by Robertson’s remarks. But if there are so
many reasons, why have I heard so little about any of them?
I have, as of the moment of writing, seen only one published comment on
Robertson’s remarks that contains any analysis or explanation at all:
an entry by Ronald Lindsay in the blog of the Center for Inquiry under
the title “
One Cheer (Amid a Chorus of Boos) for Pat Robertson.” Lindsay offers Robertson a left-handed commendation for exposing by his example the absurdity of religious belief. He writes:
In recent years, in response to increased critical examination of
religion, many liberal religious apologists have claimed that these
critiques of religion have it all wrong. There is no all-powerful,
personal God, overseeing and intervening in our world, who guides
hurricanes away or toward land depending on His will. Instead, there is
only some nebulous spirit or life-force that fills us with joy, and
makes us want to join hands and sing “Kumbaya.” In fact, some scholars,
such as Karen Armstrong, argue that religion is not about belief in a
personal God at all, but about commitment and activity.
For the ordinary believer this is all rubbish. Ordinary
believers—and they do believe—have faith in a robust God, who can
deliver them
from evil (or not). Pat Robertson reflects the views of the ordinary
believer. You see them all the time on TV being interviewed after some
natural disaster. They claim they prayed to God to spare them from the
tornado/hurricane/earthquake and God answered their prayers. Notably,
the people who died can’t speak to the issue of why
their
prayers were not answered, but Robertson at
least tries to offer an explanation. The victims were cursed for some
reason, and in the case of Haiti it was because of an imprudent pact
with the Devil. (Is there ever a prudent pact with the Devil?)
Of course, Pat Robertson’s claim is absurd. But his claim usefully
underscores the absurdity of religious belief in general, instead of
obscuring it with a veil of touchy-feely doubletalk.
In other words, Robertson, in Lindsay’s view, is a
reductio ad absurdum of religious belief, and thus a walking argument for atheism. Sophisticated apologists for religion like
Karen Armstrong
try to disown the excesses of such cranks, but their notions of what it
means to believe in God have little bearing on what ordinary religious
people actually believe. Ordinary religious people believe in a God
that intervenes in the affairs of the world to reward the faithful and
punish the unfaithful—the God of Pat Robertson, or something very like
it. Many of them may dislike Robertson’s conclusions, but they are
committed to the same premises and the same logic. His absurdities are
therefore theirs.
Thus Lindsay. Now there is an obvious
non sequitur here.
Granted that, as Lindsay claims, the lofty sophistications of theology
do not reflect the beliefs of ordinary religious people, and granted
that, as he also claims, the beliefs of ordinary religious people
entail the absurd conclusions of a Pat Robertson, it does not follow
that Robertson’s conclusions exhibit “the absurdity of religious belief
in general.” All that follows is that they exhibit the absurdities of
common forms of religious belief.
That conclusion, however, seems to me notable by itself; and it
suggests to me an explanation of why so little has been said about what
was outrageous in Robertson’s remarks. Most people who believe in God,
I suspect, would disavow any claim to prophetic insight. They would
deny that they know what worldly events may be attributed to God’s
influence, or what God “means” by them. Yet nearly all such people
believe that worldly events do show God’s influence and that God does
mean something by them. So even if they disclaim
knowledge
of how God works in the world, they feel free—or perhaps “compelled”
would be more like it—to venture judgments about such matters. The lone
survivor of an automobile collision says, “God must have kept me alive
for a reason!” Oh, and did he cause everyone else to be killed for an
equally good reason? Someone makes repeated efforts to succeed in a
certain line of work before finally giving up: “God must have meant me
for other things.” Well, that is one way to reassure yourself that you
made the right choice: pretend that your perfectly ordinary human
decision had divine authorization. And so on.
People who think this way may find Robertson’s conclusions offensive
because it is inhumane toward the victims of catastrophe to believe
such things; or they may condemn his giving public utterance to such
conclusions as “totally inappropriate”; neither objection has anything
to do with the truth or falsehood of the conclusions. Such objections
leave standing the possibility that what Robertson says, his historical
delusions aside, may be perfectly true: they merely fault him for
saying or perhaps merely
believing
such things. I suspect that the reason why we do not hear much about
what is outrageous in his remarks is that identifying it means
identifying what is outrageous in widely and strongly held religious
beliefs, namely the idea that God’s actions and intentions can be
discerned in worldly events.
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