LAND OF PROPHETS // Paolo Woods SUMMARY: On January 12th 2010, moments after the earthquake, thousands of dazed Haitians raised their hands to the heavens. Prayer and religious songs broke the silence of the first nights. In the days that followed, Evangelical pastors launched a massive conversion campaign in the country. They described Haiti as a land of sin and devil worshipers, and the earthquake as divine punishment for their wrongdoings.
After the disaster, and in the months leading up to the presidential elections, the feeling of Haiti being cursed became widespread among its people. The resent cholera epidemic, which the World Health Organization estimates will afflict 800,000 Haitians, has only served to reinforce this view. Everywhere, in Voodoo temples, in Protestant and Catholic churches an obsession with repentance has grown. Religious leaders assert the metaphysical origins of the tragedies that have befallen Haiti.
Little by little, a battle for the souls of the Haitians has emerged among the three competing religious traditions of the country. In huge Evangelical crusades, among American missionaries, at the Voodoo festival of the Dead, and in the Catholic Cathedral in Port-au-Prince, God is invoked to save the Haitian people.
Haiti is a phantom state, where NGOs try to fill the vacuum left by an ineffective government. It is a country that continues to attempt to survive despite the messianic prophecies, mostly coming from the American Evangelical world, that it is a doomed island of witchcraft and spells.
The prism of religion allows us to understand the conflict that exists in Haitian society. The conflict of western Christianity versus African animism, dictatorship versus democracy, mass indoctrination versus individualism. Over the course of more than 50 interviews (including the Bishop of Port-au-Prince, the Chief of Haitian Voodoo, a Pastor running for President, and the Prime Minister), and many ceremonies, “Haiti, Land of Prophets” depicts a nation beyond its natural disasters.
It is through religions, and the cultural conflicts they produce, that Haiti’s spirit, its poetry, and its people’s amazing ability to adapt is best understood.
text by Arnaud Robert
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matt@instituteartist.com Tel: +44 1225-462-968
