This is the message from Sunday - I thought it was worth posting here.
Our response to Haiti: Where is God in Tragedy?
La Presse reporter Chantal Guy was in Port-au-Prince when the quake struck. She shares this exclusive report with the Toronto Star, Thursday Jan 14 2010:
PORT-AU-PRINCE–On the highways and the streets, they are walking, by the hundreds, in silence.
This kind of silence is rare in Port-au-Prince.
Some bear their dead, covered in sheets, on stretchers. They don't know where to go.
Those who aren't walking sit in groups in front of homes that are no longer livable, scattered in waves all the way to the gardens of the legislature, where makeshift camps have sprung up.
"God is angry," a man calls to us.
A woman's long wail pierces the air from the mountain. Just one.
…
From where I'm writing, the starry sky is cloudless. Earlier we heard people praying and singing. Yes, there are many prayers in Port-au-Prince – a city where the words "God" and "Jesus" are everywhere.
One might think they can't hear.
While many of us responded with shock and deep concern, often we have that nagging question of “Why?” in the back of our heads. Why does this happen? Like Chantal Guy, you might be angry with God and say that he is not there, he is not listening.
Some of you might have heard, and been horrified by, Pat Robertson’s answer to the “Why?” question.
This is a quote from Robertson on the day after the tragedy:
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, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the Devil said, okay it's a deal.
Robertson believes that God has cursed Haiti because of that supposed pact with the devil over two hundred years ago. All of Haiti’s troubles, including this earthquake, are punishment from God.
Haiti’s History
The tragedy of Haiti — which, along with the Dominican Republic, makes up the island of Hispaniola — begins with Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas. Estimates of the island's Taino population at that moment are as high as eight million. Eighteen years later, the native population was about 50,000. By time the French came, in the second half of the 17th century, there were no natives left at all. They had been worked to death, murdered and decimated by European disease. The French took the western third of the island and named the territory Saint-Domingue.
The French turned the colony into a plantation economy, powered by slave labour. The wealth Haiti generated for France was enormous. In 1776, it was generating "more revenue than all 13 North American colonies combined." By 1789, the colony supplied three-fourths of the world's sugar. But that wealth came on the backs of the slaves that produced it. 29,000 African slaves were arriving in Haiti every year, just to keep the population stable. One third died within three years of their arrival. Those that lived suffered the whip, rape, and terrible tortures.
In 1791, the slave uprising began. Thirteen years later, the French had been routed and the new leaders reclaimed the island's Indian name, “Ayiti.” According to one historian, it is the only example of "an enslaved people breaking its own chains and using military might to defeat a powerful colonial power."
Independent Haiti started with a devastated economy and infrastructure as well as the hostility of much of the rest of the world's rulers. The Haitians had burned the French off the island. The US and Europe isolated Haiti. Soon it was an era of gunboat diplomacy, with Germany, France, England and the US sending ships into Haitian waters to enforce their demands.
Twenty years after independence, as the king's King Charles X warships cruised just over the horizon from the Haitian capital, a French emissary demanded 150 million gold francs in exchange for recognizing the new republic. The implicit alternative was invasion and re-enslavement.
It was a huge sum, about five times Haiti's annual export revenue. Haiti's then-president reluctantly agreed, taking on a crushing debt.
The US was the main aggressor against Haiti: it sent warships to Haiti at least 30 times from 1849 to 1915. From 1915 to 1934, the Americans outright occupied Haiti. After the Americans left, twelve years of repressive stability followed. Then a period marked by military coups culminated in the army's installing Dr. François Duvalier in 1957.
"Papa Doc," and his son Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") would rule Haiti until protests forced the latter dictator to flee in 1986. In 1982 a Canadian parliamentary committee had described their rule as a "kleptocracy." Both tyrannical thieves were propped up by the US because of their anticommunist rhetoric during the Cold War.
The military took over and ruled Haiti, except for a few months, until 1990 when Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected. Seven months later, the military staged another bloody coup, and Aristide soon went into exile.
In 1994, Haiti was occupied by a multinational force that was dominated by US troops.
Aristide resumed his presidency until 1996, but he was elected again in 2000. In early 2004, the opposition was in military control of a large part of Haiti. Aristide was forced from power in February; he said he was kidnapped by the US.
A multinational interim force with eventually 3,600 troops was formed. Canada played a major role in this force.
That year, floods in May and September claimed 5,000 Haitian lives. Others died in the continuing political violence.
In 2008, Haiti was once again devastated, this time by storms and hurricanes. At least 800 people died and a million were left homeless.
Back to this strange idea that Haiti was cursed because of a pact with the devil – the slaves who revolted would have followed their African animistic religions. Merged together, and along with some aspects of Christianity, these religions became Voudun or Voodoo. The Haitians may have said prayers and made sacrifices to their gods before going into battle, but, as violent and terrible a religion as voodoo is, it is not devil worship – a pact with the devil would not have been in the Haitians’ worldview.
And it only takes this simple reading of Haiti's history to realize that God has not cursed Haiti – the so-called “Christian” nations of France, Britain, Germany and the US have cursed it, though. The reason that Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas is because the West has kept it that way, punishing these upstart slaves for trying to win their freedom.
The reason that the storms of 2008, and the earthquake of 2010, have caused such damage and loss of life in Haiti is because of the poverty.
Why?
It is so easy to turn to the question, “Why,” at a time like this. “Why does this happen?” “Why does God let it happen?” “Why does God make it happen?”
The survivors of the earthquake, camped overnight in St. Pierre's Plaza, Port-au-Prince, sang a hymn whose lines say,
God, you are the one who gave me life.
Why are we suffering?
I'm not so sure that I have a good answer to that question, except that our world is broken and there are times that her brokenness rears its head very violently.
Asking “Why?” can get us into the place of the man who cried “God is angry!”, or the journalist who said “God is deaf!” or Pat Robertson who would blame this tragedy on the Haitians themselves and on God.
Maybe the better question is “Where is God?”
Two preachers wrote eloquently about this in their blogs:
Jim Wallis:
I also want to say a word about God and evil. Pat Robertson said that Haiti’s earthquake was caused because of the country’s “pact with the devil.” I don’t even know what he means, nor do I care. But I want to say this: My God does not cause evil. God is not a vengeful and retributive being, waiting to strike us down; instead, God is in the very midst of this tragedy, suffering with those who are suffering. When evil strikes, it’s easy to ask, where is God? The answer is simple: God is suffering with those who are suffering.
John Piper
Jesus in Haiti
After the Earthquake –
Do you consider safety, or your health,
A sign from me?
I am not awed by might, nor struck by wealth,
Or poverty.
O, I am struck! And crushed. Buried, I wince,
And dying, pray,
A sympathetic Priest in Port-au-Prince,
Even today.
But there, in those United States the boot
Is on my face.
“Saul, Saul,” I ask, “Why do you persecute
And not embrace?”
Your King, I lift my arms to you in peace
And patient grief;
And summon now to Haiti enemies
For my relief.
God is with Those who Suffer
Jesus is there – he says, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.
... ”Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” - Matthew 25
What should we do?
In Romans 8, Paul, speaking of natural disasters, says that the whole earth is groaning as if in childbirth. He says: “The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.” (Romans 8:19)
The groaning is the time for us to reveal ourselves as children of God – children of the compassionate One, the merciful One, the loving One.
Reveal yourself
Pray – God says to Moses in Exodus, “I have heard the groaning of my people.”
He says in the Psalms: "Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise," says the LORD. "I will protect them from those who malign them." (Psalm 12:5). Pray for food and water supplies, for coordination and wisdom for the NGO workers on the ground, for comfort for those who mourn, for justice for Haiti.
Give – We have a connection to Haiti Partners. Donations to World Vision are matched dollar for dollar by the Canadian government. The Royal Bank of Canada has also instituted a donor matching program.
Continue your support – We have a lot of past to make up for! Keep up your support for Haiti; help as we work among the Haitians in the Dominican Republic; support Haiti Partners; come to the book launch on January 24 (www.haitipartners.org); advocate for Haiti.
Remember – We so quickly forget about tragedies. Haiti could have used this much attention before the earthquake! It has already fallen off the top trending twitters. Keep the story alive.
Support – Let the Haitians in Canada that you are acquainted with know that you are with them.
