Our souls are no longer for sale, Mr Evil
American televangelist Pat Robertson was 'partially right' in saying that 'black people’s souls were compromised by evil', Charo Mina Rojas writes from Haiti. But it's not because people of African ancestry sold their souls to evil, it's that the evil of colonialism took their souls and 'traded with them'.
In talking about Haiti, white American televangelist Pat Robertson was partially right. Black people’s souls were compromised by evil. However, there are obvious misleading elements in Mr Robertson's statement.
Number one, not just Haitian people’s souls were compromised, all people’s souls from African ancestry were. In Haiti, in the little corners of Central and South America, in the Caribe, in the United States, Europe and Africa, the souls of my African descendant people in Colombia – all were compromised.
Number two – and here is where Mr Robertson is so wrong – it is not that the black people sold their souls to evil. It is that the evil, colonialism – with the great assistance of religious doctrines – took the souls of African descendant people and traded with them. Then modern evils, post-colonialism and imperialism, have consistently continued the business.
Number three, it is as consequence of colonialist and imperialist evil trade practices, with African descendants souls, that black peoples in all corners are suffering under the most immoral conditions.
Number four, and here is where Mr Robertson and people like him are also so lost, the souls of African descendant peoples could be traded by the evil, but it is the spirit of those peoples that has kept their integrity through the centuries of oppression, discrimination, segregation, and exclusion. It is their spirit that has made them rebel against their oppressors and look for their freedom while in conditions of slavery, their self-determination while under colonisation, their self-assurance and consciousness while under segregation. It is the spirit of those who have been long gone from this material world, that maintains the power of struggle against all new forms of soul-trade and slavery. It is that spirit, our spirit, my spirit, what keep us today fighting for that freedom, against all forms of oppression, colonisation, and their machineries, against those evils.
Get this message evil soul traders: We black peoples, African descendant peoples, African peoples, have our spirit and the spirit of our ancestors intact and strong. We will fight you. We will defeat you. You no longer can have our souls for trade. We know that don’t please you, but we are ready.
Today, my people, Afro-descendants in Colombia, are facing those evils. Economic national and foreign policies; political interest on their ancestral lands and resources; government corruption, impunity and deliberated negligence; violence and mainstream social insensitivity, imperialism, and racism. Today, while burying the bodies of our people assassinated, under the connivance and complicity of those evils, we celebrate the life of their spirits and continue the struggle they and our ancestors planted. We stand up in struggle, as our brothers and sisters around the world. Who is with us?