Hurbon sets out two contradictions in the political history of Haitian vodou. The cult took shape under slavery and helped make the insurrection of 1791 possible, yet independent Haiti outlawed it and let church and state persecute those who served the lwa; when the elite finally accepted it as national culture from the 1930s, the Duvalier dictatorship put it to work. He rejects Gérard Barthélemy's attempt to explain Haitian society through a split between newly arrived and locally born slaves, and holds that a cult kept in a subordinate position was simply easy to manipulate. What vodou needs now is a state neutral among religions, guaranteed liberty of conscience and open public debate, since pressing every Haitian to practice would breed a fundamentalism foreign to a tolerant, syncretic tradition. A survey in the outskirts of Port-au-Prince found only 3.5 percent willing to say they practise, evidence of how deep the old shame runs.