Revolution Online, January 19, 2010
Pat Robertson's Obscene Rant on Haiti: Insanity... and the Outlook of a Slavemaster
On his January 14 700 Club Christian Broadcasting Network television show, Christian fascist Pat Robertson offered his opinion on why the Haitian people were stricken by the devastating January 12 earthquake: "[S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. Napoleon the Third and whatever. And 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, 'OK, it's a deal.' They kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. ... They need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God."
So, according to Robertson, the Haitian people have only themselves to blame for the January 12 earthquake and the fact that "they have been cursed by one thing after the other" for two centuries. Why? Because from 1791-1804, the slaves there carried out an armed rebellion and—with no help from an imaginary devil—overthrew their French overlords and declared themselves a free people. (Why is it, by the way, that the Pat Robertsons of the world always proclaim that people who rise up against slavery in one form or another have made a "pact with the devil" and, by extension, that the slave masters and oppressors always have "god on their side"?)
Ever since, the people of Haiti have been made to pay for their defiance, including a murderous U.S. occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934, while today Haiti remains a destitute U.S. neo-colony, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere whose flimsy homes and buildings quickly crumbled when the earthquake struck, burying tens of thousands under the rubble and severely injuring many more.
This is the horror that Pat Robertson argues is of the Haitian people's own making. And this is the kind of reactionary utterances this Christian fascist has made many times before, in the service of empire. Here are a few of them:
- He opposes the science of evolution. In November 2005, eight Dover, Pennsylvania, school board members were not re-elected, mainly because they had instituted a policy of requiring high school biology teachers to tell students that evolution "is not a fact," and to offer Intelligent Design as an alternative explanation for the origin and development of life. Robertson's reaction for throwing out the eight school board members? He threatened the entire city of Dover with punishment from god. "I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city."
- He opposes abortion and fervently preaches that women should meekly subordinate themselves to men. At the 1992 Republican National Convention, where he was warmly welcomed, he said that the "feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."
- The cause of the horrific devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005? God's anger over abortion, according to Robertson. "We have killed over 40 million unborn babies in America. ... Some of the attacks that are coming against us either by terrorists or now by natural disaster, could they be connected in some way?"
Over the years, the U.S. mass media and ruling class politicians have treated Robertson's insane, and insanely reactionary, opinions as legitimate, and have given space for them in public discourse, even as they sometimes issue tepid criticism, wondering aloud whether he may at times go "too far" and be "off-color." Robertson's "pact with the devil" comments after the Haiti earthquake drew less-than-withering criticism from President Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, who told reporters that "at times of great crisis there are always people who say really stupid things." Are these merely "stupid things," Mr. Gibbs?
No, they are the views of a longtime apologist for the crimes against humanity committed by U.S. imperialism, and at the same time a well-connected political operative for the Christian fascist movement, which seeks to bring about a theocracy based on a literal interpretation of the Bible. This is a person who ran for president in 1998 and was considered a viable candidate.
At the same time, the U.S. media have directed much attention to how large numbers of Haitians have turned to god for an explanation of the earthquake. There have been reports of how tens of thousands of Haitians have been spending the nights in the streets, singing hymns and calling out the Gospel. The New York Times describes singing going on in the streets of Port-Au-Prince on January 13: "One phrase in Creole could be heard repeatedly... 'Beni Swa Leternel,' they say. 'Blessed be the Lord.'"
And each time someone is pulled alive from the rubble, U.S. politicians and commentators shout about "a miracle," downplaying or completely ignoring the fact that the saving of lives is not due to any "miracle" but to the Herculean, collective efforts of the Haitian people themselves, often digging through concrete with nothing but their bloodied bare hands. One article tells of a Haitian woman, Anne-Marie Morel, raising her arms to the sky after a neighbor is found alive, saying "it's a miracle." But another neighbor, Remi Polevard, who tells the reporter that he has five children buried under nearby debris, shouts back at Morel: "Nonsense, there is no God and no miracle."
You are correct, Remi Polevard. There is no god, and people need to understand that the earthquake is the result of natural causes, but that what is happening now is not at all "natural" and instead is a powerful example of the workings of the capitalist-imperialist system. And it is essential for the oppressed people of Haiti, and all oppressed peoples, to climb out of the ignorance and superstition into which they have been driven and kept by their masters—to examine and understand the world as it really is, and on that basis to radically transform the world as they radically transform themselves, so that the very man-made oppression and misery are things of the past and humanity has truly emancipated itself.
As Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, says in Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, referring to the centuries and centuries of horror that the masses have suffered, and who are told by their oppressors that it is all due to a god "who works in mysterious ways": "How much of this has to go on, and how long does it take, before it becomes clear that if such a god existed, it would indeed be a cruel, vicious, sick, twisted, and truly monstrous god? That no sane and decent person would want to bow down to or follow such a god. And that it is very fortunate that no such god exists—and very liberating to finally come to that realization."
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