Vodun Practitioners Attacked At Ceremony For Haiti Earthquake Victims Options

Vodun practitioners attacked at ceremony for Haiti earthquake victims
By The Associated Press, February 23, 2010, 5:00PM
http://bit.ly/cR1ukz

(IMG:http://media.nola.com/religion_impact/photo/haiti-earthquake-voodoo-destructionjpg-f70ce7a4187dfa8b_large.jpg)

Angry crowds in a seaside slum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, attacked a group of
Voodoo (Vodun) practitioners Tuesday, pelting them with rocks and halting a
ceremony meant to honor victims of last month's deadly earthquake.

Vodouists gathered in Cite Soleil where thousands of quake survivors live in
tents and depend on food aid. Praying and singing, the group was trying to
conjure spirits to guide lost souls when a crowd of evangelicals started
shouting. Some threw rocks while others urinated on Voodoo (Vodun)symbols. When
police left, the crowd destroyed the altars and Voodoo (Vodun) offerings of
food and rum.

(IMG:http://media.nola.com/religion_impact/photo/haiti-earthquake-voodoo-followersjpg-9a69345cd621ec19_medium.jpg)

(Photo: Voodoo (Vodun) followers watch as a crowd screams at them Tuesday as
they try to hold a ceremony in the Cite Soleil neighborhood of Port-au-Prince,
Haiti. http://bit.ly/cR1ukz)

"We were here preparing for prayer when these others came and took over," said
Sante Joseph, an evangelical worshipper in Cite Soleil, near the capital's
port, who joined the angry crowd in a concrete outdoor civic center.

Tensions have been running high since the Jan. 12 earthquake killed an
estimated 200,000 people and left more than 1 million homeless. More than 150
machete-wielding men attacked a World Food Program convoy Monday on the road
between Haiti's second-largest city of Cap-Haitien and Port-au-Prince. There
were no injuries but Chilean peacekeepers could not prevent the men from
stealing the food, U.N. spokesman Michel Bonnardeaux said.

Religious tension has also increased: Baptists, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses,
Scientologists, Mormons and other missionaries have flocked to Haiti in droves
since the earthquake to feed the homeless, treat the injured and jockey for
souls. Some Voodoo (Vodun)practitioners have said they've converted to
Christianity for fear they will lose out on aid or a belief that the earthquake
was a warning from God.

"Much of this has to do with the aid coming in," said Max Beauvoir, a Voodoo
(Vodun) priest and head of a Voodoo (Vodun) association. "Many missionaries
oppose Voodoo (Vodun). I hope this does not start a war of religions because
many of our practitioners are being harassed now unlike any other time that I
remember."

Voodoo, or Vodou as preferred by Haitians, evolved in the 17th century when the
French brought slaves to Haiti from West Africa. Slaves forced to practice
Catholicism remained loyal to their African spirits in secret by adopting
Catholic saints to coincide with African spirits, and today many Haitians
consider themselves followers of both religions. Voodoo's followers believe in
reincarnation, one God and a pantheon of spirits. Voodoo (Vodun)leaders say
that although they do not believe in evil spirits, some followers pray for the
spirits to do evil.

"There's absolutely a heightened spiritual conflict between Christianity and
Voodoo (Vodun) since the quake," said Pastor Frank Amedia of the Miami-based
Touch Heaven Ministries who has been distributing food in Haiti and
proselytizing.

"We would give food to the needy in the short term, but if they refused to give
up Voodoo (Vodun), I'm not sure we would continue to support them in the long
term because we wouldn't want to perpetuate that practice. We equate it with
witchcraft, which is contrary to the Gospel."

A magnitude-4.7 quake, meanwhile, rattled the capital at 1:26 a.m. Tuesday,
followed by a smaller aftershock whose magnitude was still unknown, said Eric
Calais, a geophysicist from Purdue University who is studying seismic activity
in Haiti.

A magnitude-4.7 aftershock struck Monday, followed by two other small tremors.
Both Tuesday's quake and Monday's aftershock struck near the epicenter of the
Jan. 12 quake. The U.S. Geological Survey in Colorado usually detects Haitian
quakes of magnitude 4 and above, but smaller tremors often are not detected due
to a lack of seismometers in Haiti.

Some walls that had toppled in last month's quake spilled onto the street
Tuesday and damaged telephone polls split in half. There were no reports of
injuries.

"It feels like the earth is shaking all the time since last month," said
Ermithe Josephe, 48, who is still sleeping outside in a tent next to her
crumpled house. "We can't sleep with all of these aftershocks and we're too
afraid to go to work sometimes."

Last month's earthquake occurred along the east-west Enriquillo Fault, where
two pieces of the Earth's crust slide by each other in opposite directions. The
USGS said Tuesday there is between a 5 percent and 15 percent probability that
another magnitude-7 quake would occur on the Enriquillo in the next 50 years.

Paisley Dodds of The Associated Press wrote this report.

**********************************************
Forwarded by Ezili's Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
***********************************************

That's just disgraceful.

God--and I mean the Creator of All--is so far above us or our cares it's ridiculous. What intercessors we choose are up to us, and just because one doesn't agree with another doesn't give the first the right to kick the second's ass. :/ This is why I don't like Christians as a general rule, although I've no problem with the core of the religion. I don't understand what the death of a political prisoner 2000 years ago has to do with ME, NOW, although what he and others like Buddha taught has a great deal to do with ME, NOW, as all religions have the same basic belief system at their cores. Basically, be nice, play well with others--and if you can't, go be an ascetic out in the wilderness somewhere as that's perfectly OK too, share what you've got, and realise there's a hell of a lot more to this world than right here, right now. :/ These Christian missionaries have missed the point, IMO.

Besides, Voodoo is native to Haiti. Whatever its flaws, and I'm sure it has quite a few as all human constructs do, people are familiar with it there. They know it in ways most Americans never will, and that familiarity counts for quite a lot. Evangelical Christianity is a foreign system to them, at least based on what I've read, though others may disagree. Those missionaries are so far out of line it's ridiculous.

Maybe the secondary earthquakes are a sign for the evangelicals to actually *do something helpful* and not stand around starting fights? Hmm.

Just sayin.'

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/blablabla.gif)

Edit: Petrus, your post went in at the same time as mine. I just read it. Great points! Esp:

I'm really getting fed up with Christians recently, to be honest. I'm damn sick of them, and their dominant attitude. All many of the rest of us want to do, is what we've been designed for; to minister to people in the type of empowered, practical way that they really need, especially given the fact that they're generally not willing to step up to the plate and do anything really useful themselves.

Guess what, guys? Sometimes ministry means working on both sides of the veil, and interacting with other kinds of spirits besides what we find within immediate physical reality. We (and when I say we here, I mean anyone who has been called to work with spirit in order to try and help people, regardless of their path) ARE NOT Satanic or demonic for wanting to do that, either; we're wanting to do what God specifically designed us to do for people. It's also something which has been done for as long as humanity has been in existence.

And:

The rest of us want to do what is needed, in order for people to heal, and contrary to what you might believe, that doesn't always stop when people die. Sometimes we work with spirits that Christians consider "dark," or uncomfortable, yes; but my single biggest problem with the Christians I knew in the end, is that they were not willing to work with their shadows. I was having a lot of Cthonic dreams when I first walked away from Christianity; it was a frightening scenario at the time, but the end result was that I was able to leave the fear of Hell behind, for the most part. As the saying goes, no pain, no gain. If you're not willing to risk looking at, and going into the darkness occasionally, you're not going to attain progressively higher and higher levels of light. I understand now, that that is why things like the Goetia are actually necessary.

I pray that as a path, Vodun is somehow able to survive this. From what little I have seen of it, that faith is extremely hands on and practically oriented. That makes it very valuable, and it must not be lost.

AMEN.

This post has been edited by Darkmage: Feb 25 2010, 03:21 PM

Edit: Petrus, your post went in at the same time as mine. I just read it. Great points! Esp:

Thanks, Darkmage.

NOT in order to do anything to actually harm them, but purely as a prank, part me of just had the idea, that I wish we could evoke Forcalor, ask him to manifest somewhat larger than usual, and then fly down and land in the middle of a crowd of the missionaries on Haiti.

"I heard you've been picking on my Voudon friends. Would you care to explain to me what the problem is?" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/diablo.gif)