Democracy needs fertile cultural ground to survive. When the cultural ground is toxic, e.g. African cultures, authoritarian regimes are your only option.
Posted on 02/06/2010 6:02:35 AM PST by reaganaut1
Thanks!
African culture is largely resistant to outside influence, whereas Japan and most of Asia, say, are highly permeable. They have quickly taken the best of western culture eg and made the most of it while retaining as much of their original cultures as they want. African cultures are poor at this, and Haiti culture appears not to be able to do it at all.
I, as a Christian, don’t want to give Satan a foothold in my house, or life, so am careful about what I bring into it. The evil is in me, and I have the choice to do whats right or not. Read the part of the Bible about eating meat sacrificed to idols. Like Dirty Harry said, “Mans got to know his limitations.” :)
It seems evil to me to maintain this culture thru continual aid.
Shintoists, Taoists and Hindus do not have similar beliefs. There is an ethical component to all these religions, and they also have a theological system of one sort or another.
Voodoo has nothing, and the African religions upon which it is based are also lacking in any ethical or philosophical framework. They are nothing but the most primitive form of religion, which is essentially an attempt to control or placate the things that people fear and provides no foundation for human social life.
Something else that is never discussed is the African cultural “value” of getting over on someone else. For Americans, this is best illustrated in the Brer Rabbit fables. The “moral” of the story was never to do what is right but to get over on whomever you’re dealing with. I read this great essay years ago (wish I could remember where) about the way this paradigm still affects sub-Saharan Africa and Haiti. Those is charge will say and do whatever they have to in order to secure money, food or what-have-you, then to use it only for personal gain. They get over on both the givers and on the intended recipients. This is a mark of pride for them and those still starving will accept it instead of rising up.I wish I could be clearer but I explain it better speaking.
Looks like a charming fellow.
As the article says, "It's about culture, not race".
No mention of Robertson?
Haiti’s problems start from its very origins under the French.
To begin with, there is a shortage of arable land, so the vast majority of crops were for export, not food. So from the very beginning, slaves were only fed the bare minimum of food, mostly dried fish and whatever crop was available. Many slaves died of overwork and starvation.
For this reason, that Haiti was pretty much a “death camp”. When slaves were purchased in Africa, only the troublesome and violent slaves were sent to Haiti. The “good” slaves were sent to America.
So when the slaves finally revolted in Haiti, they had no hesitation whatever in butchering their overlords. But from that point, the “death camp” was run by the slaves, at least in so far as the contentious French, British, and American powers would let them. For years thereafter, Haiti was a pawn in their games.
The only honest government in Haiti’s history was the US Marine Corps.
btt
Voodoo (Haiti), Sanaeria & Arara (Cuba) and Candomble (Brazil) all have their roots in the slaves taken from the Nigerian Yoruba tribe. The Yoruba practice the original form of the shamanic religion using a pantheon of “orishas” (spirit guardian) which the Caribbean and Brazilian variants have adapted to the Catholic saints. This pantheon does not number in the hundreds, it numbers a dozen or so.
You cannot understand the retrograde power of voodoo in Haiti unless you understand the reign of repressive terror under “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his death squads the Ton Ton Macoute. Like many suppressive regimes actively and passively supported by the us (Bautista’s Cuba, many others), we did precious little to encourage a democratic government, rather, we saw any regime that was anti-communist to be in our interest to support, particular if the repression and poverty led to a groundswell of support for reform, even reforms of the sort we fought our Revolution from Britain over.
Instead of helping democratic institutions grow in the 3rd World, our foreign policy has an embarrassing record taking the easy way out and providing many repressive regimes with arms and police training (School of the Americas). This is not a popular message on this forum, but it IS history and a large part of the reason why we have leftist governments erupting in South America and much of the developing world.
Marxism doesn’t take root in the West in its revolutionary guise (they use surrogate causes like environmentalism, climate, etc.) because our standard of living does not give the Marxists ammunition via the misery index. Conservatives are blind on this issue and will never understand how we, the good guys, can be so hated in the world. Where you don’t have misery, you don’t have revolution, period.
The daughter-in-law, and her children, of President Stenio Vincent had to flee Haiti when he left office. She lived in the lap of luxury during her father-in-law’s reign, but she wound up as my aunt’s maid in NY. We all called her Mrs. Vincent. I never new what her first name was. Anyway, she eventually had to be let go because she was scaring my cousins half to death with her voodoo talk.
Voodoo has avenging orishas, the Bible has an avenging god, Voodoo has compassionate orishas, the Bible has compassionate saints. Papa Doc Duvalier’s death squads maintained a reign of terror over Haiti through the use of Voodoo. They made it into an instrument of repression by adding strong elements of violence and retribution. Google Ton Ton Macoute. The only religious recourse for a beaten down populace within Haiti’sv historic paradigm was to oppose the Macoutes with a counter magic as they had no weapons or organizational skills or education or foreign support with which to overcome that regime.
How many times have you prayed for the destruction or correction of your enemies? How is that not spell casting?
Nice, thanks!
Democracy needs fertile cultural ground to survive. When the cultural ground is toxic, e.g. African cultures, authoritarian regimes are your only option.
So Christianity = Voodoo?
Voodoo is a symptom of an underlying disability.
Based on empirical evidence we can conclude that Christianity is the antidote.
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