Why invest in Vodou in Haiti?

Years after having received a religious education imposing a critical look at popular culture and ancestral traditions strongly dominated by Vodou, it would take an intense awareness campaign among Haitians living in Haiti and in the diaspora, to get them to understand that Vodou is one of being the main obstacle to the social, economic and cultural development of Haiti. On the contrary, it is ignorance and incompetence, betrayal and ingratitude which are the basis many words of the country.

In all the great countries that have dominated universal history, and the richest nations in the world, Haiti remains one of the few or the only nation that does not value its dead, that does not venerate its ancestors and that does not do not value the meaning of the sacred word and its symbols. By choosing to import and impose a discriminatory and self-destructive education of ancestral values ​​and the vision of the Founding Fathers. With the racism and discrimination of all kinds suffered by Haitian migrants around the world, the indifference of the international community to the fate of the Haitian people, which some now recognize as a real international conspiracy, and the suffering of Haitian families victims of diseases, weapons, imported ammunition, we wonder if it wouldn’t be better to invest in and encourage traditional medicine, to rearm ourselves with the energy and ancestral beliefs to resist, and to draw inspiration from the historical greatness of the Haitian people to reinvent themselves in this new millennium of globalization.

Faced with this form of slow and progressive extermination of Haitian families, mentally, psychologically and physically, under the weight of dehumanization and despair, investing in Vodou represents one of the last alternatives available to the Haitian to redefine and renew itself, to meet the expectations of other countries going through these ordeals, and to make its assets profitable. Knowing that nature abhors a vacuum, for a long time Vodou had been abandoned to the marginalized, the poorest, mercenaries and criminals, the time has come for people of sound mind and body among the most visionaries and entrepreneurs. credible, get closer to Vodou temples to learn, understand, defend, undertake and sell the benefits and added values ​​of Vodou.

Behind the information that suggests that members of armed groups in Haiti, rightly or wrongly use secrets and recipes in Vodou to protect themselves against bullets or fire from automatic weapons, for some time now, we are surprised that Haitian academics and avant-garde journalists do not take the time to question and deepen such a relevant subject, which could place Haiti on the map of the next military powers in the world, and the first market for production and exports of shields or vests by mystical bullets in the world.

It’s a pity that such information does not even attract entrepreneurs who would also take advantage to engage in the exploration of mystical initiatory, technical and technological practices “Made in Haiti”, “100/100 Vodou”. How much do such services or mystical processes practically cost between the payment of fees and the purchase of accessories and sacrificial objects for the rituals? What are the main Vodou or Lwa spirits mobilized to achieve such results? Who are the main Hougan and Manbo who have enough power to offer such services? What is the economy of these mystical practices in Vodou?

Behind those who criticize these practices and seek to demonize the Hougans and Manbos who offer these services, there is a whole unhealthy hypocrisy coming from these people, who seek to forget that we all live in an economy dominated by capitalism, and that it is the same countries that they wish or continue to visit that massively produce and export the weapons and ammunition that kill our children and our families.

Defense has always been a sacred right. Instead of criticizing these Hougans and Manbo, who have always been left to their own devices, without training, without support in order to be able to demand better behavior from them, more responsible and beneficial to the greatest number. Before criticizing these mercantile behaviors of our greatest mystical authorities, the country must begin by recognizing in them useful, important and valued actors in the same way as the other members of other religious communities, who imported weapons in the past, and that the we continue to grant a set of rights, privileges and honours.

Faced with all the real and symbolic, mystical and secure powers that we associate with Haitian Vodou, and of which the majority of Lakou members continue to evolve in filth and misery in several corners of the country, it would be preferable that the State begins by investing in the education of the masses who practice Vodou in Haiti, while at the same time investing in the elites who must develop new cultural and mystical enterprises in Haiti.

Of the need to invest in Vodou in Haiti, to be able to better inform and train the population on knowledge and mystical skills, on the vision and the truths among all practitioners, in order to better unmask, empower and sanction the actors who line up in outlaw camps.

In the obligation to encourage the decentralization and the deconcentration of institutions and public services in the most remote corners of the country, a better understanding of the followers of this cultural community will necessarily have to pass through investments for the development, the attraction and the profitability of Vodou sites in the country. And to say that unlike other religious sectors in Haiti, Vodou is practically left to itself, having no international foundations and NGOs to finance its activities apart from a few crumbs occasionally granted by the State, and support from some members and practitioners who attend temples.

Many universities in the United States choose to invest in the scientific research projects of several dozen American universities and other national ones for several decades. These funds invested in these trips, these studies, these conferences, these laboratories for analysis, research and documentation, are in no way lost in useless and unprofitable activities. On the contrary. They participate in a form of intelligent and pragmatic rapprochement of the first world power around the most influential nation of the Caribbean, in the history of the independence of the countries of America, and in the confirmed resistance of the Haitian people with the passage of the Covid19 epidemic in the world, and yet which has barely claimed a few dozen and hundreds of victims.

During one of the last editions of the Santa Barbara congress (KOSANBA) organized in one of the most important universities in the city of New Orleans in the United States, in 2017, there were many, and particularly in qualitative and quantitative majority the researchers and American experts who shared during the meetings, the sum of the experiences carried out on ancestral traditions and Vodou in particular in Haiti. Why and how such a despised field and why such a subject is privileged in the great North American universities?

Defending investments in Vodou is a necessity and an opportunity for the Haitian State, which must begin by investing in the translation of a set of documents and multiple publications, both scientific, whose data have been collected in Haiti , before, during and after the American occupation of 1915, and up to the present day.

In the ignorance of Haitians, among the most literate continue to criticize and demonize Vodou in Haiti, as if the atomic bomb had been made in a peristyle, as if many viruses are created in humfò, as the activities of secret societies are not the image of the practices of the elite units of the great powers in the world, or that zombification is the one and only sanction invented by the Haitians and which exists in the world. However, it is these same countries, as rich and powerful, as the United States, Canada, France, and other European countries among others, which explore, exploit and expose the main dimensions of Haitian Vodou.

In the cinema, as in the army and the pharmaceutical industries, among the three most important industries and within multinationals, the practices as much as the knowledge, skills and technologies of Haitian Vodou actively participate in scientific research and profitability. mystical activities and beliefs. “Sòt ki bay, enbesil ki pa pran!”.

Dominique Domercant