Comments by Rev. Pat Robertson today suggesting that an ancient curse on Haiti was responsible for this week’s earthquake spurred a dumbfounded response from the White House, and then backpedalling by Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network.
On his television show “700 Club,” Robertson said “Something happened a long time ago in Haiti. ... They got together and swore a pact to the Devil…. They said, ‘We will serve you if you get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the Devil said, ‘Okay, 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 another.”
Obviously the earthquake in Haiti this week was a consequence of a pact with Satan made a century ago.
Senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett, appearing on “Good Morning America,” said she was “speechless” about Robertson’s comments. “That’s not the attitude that expresses the spirit of the president or the American people, so I thought it was a pretty stunning comment to make,” Jarrett said.
Robertson’s organization, the Christian Broadcasting Network, issued a statement stating that his comments were both factual and objective, and that Haiti’s history has led “countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries to believe the country is cursed.”
For Pat Robertson to recount a xenophobic legend as historical fact is bizarre enough, but he also seems to believe that there is some sort of objective evidence or scholarly consensus that Haiti has been cursed. It is certainly true that Haiti has been cursed with grinding poverty, low literacy rates, and occasional natural disasters. But the real cause of the 7.0 earthquake that devastated the country was a not curse from God, but instead friction along the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden Fault, an east-west ridge between two tectonic plates below Haiti.
Where did Robertson get the idea of a curse?
Caribbean cultures
