> -----Original Message-----
> From: JIM HICKS
> Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 2:07 PM

> The last couple of paragraphs of an excellent op ed article 
> in today's NYT;

And an op-ed article from a Duke associate professor of history in today's _The News & Observer_ that has an interesting perspective I've not seen on the roots of world enmity toward Haiti for the last two centuries:

<http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/columnists_blogs/other_views/story/297426.html>

"Haiti: The root of misfortune

"BY FRED S. NAIDEN 

"CHAPEL HILL -- The evangelist Pat Robertson's remark that Haiti bargained with the devil and got an earthquake has met with indignation. Yet Robertson is right. Haiti did bargain with the devil, but not Robertson's devil. Two hundred years ago, Haiti bargained with the devil of revolution. This bargain was not Haiti's fault. The country had no choice. It has suffered the consequences since.

"Little known to Americans, the Haitian revolution of the 1790s was one of the most important events of the 18th century. Decades or centuries ahead of other countries in the Third World, Haiti won not just independence, but also long-term freedom from foreign intervention. Rarer still, it won economic autonomy and cultural self-determination. Colonialism, slavery, the plantation system - the Haitian revolution put an end to all of it. The revolution was a success, and that is how politically correct history books, not just in Haiti but elsewhere, portray this event.

"This portrayal obscures the tragedy of Haiti's choice. Once Haiti declared independence, and became the world's first black republic, the United States refused to recognize it, and France - albeit unsuccessfully - challenged it, invading Haiti with an army sent by Napoleon. The price of Haiti's victory was military despotism over the Haitian people. To secure the country's autonomy, Haiti forbade whites from owning property. To secure self-determination, it banished the Catholic Church...." 

Talk about upsetting two important institutions in the world. It gets more interesting.

Dan
_______________________________________________________
Dan Becker,  Exec. Dir.      "The thing that destroyed 
Raleigh Historic               Babylon and Nineveh was 
Districts Commission        too much Waldorf Astoria."
[log in to unmask]                    -- Elbert Hubbard,
919/516-2632                 The Philistine, Feb. 1909

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