#2076: Re: #2026: Re: Democratic Ayiti: Reply to Antoine (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Jean Poincy <caineve@idt.net>

Antoine, I can't deny the fact that I said my brain could only stretch
for the post transient authoritarian to seek for effective ways to make
Ayiti a decent livable collectivity. However, I did insinuate that one
might exist, but s/he might not be willing to announce him/herself as
such. My contention was that s/he can be found without going through
much of a selection process for two reasons: 1) Most Ayitians have an
authoritarian mentality and among them a benevolent one can be revealed.
2) The terrain as it is right now is quite fertile to wake up any
dormant authoritarian mentality. 

	The only inconvenience to these two aspects is that Ayitians and the
rest of the world are too in tune with the democratic idea and are ready
to mobilize the world army for its defense, at any cost. For finding one
who is ready to expose him/herself would be quite a task. Take a look at
how Ayitian elected officials and members of political parties behave in
conducting public affairs, you'll see through their skin the
"authoritarian gene" circulating in their veins. Beware of those who are
fighting feverishly for democracy; to muddle through the political
process and gain status, they pass on their "democratic outfit" and once
in office they do take it off with great ease and expose their true
self.

	While this perception was what makes it not necessary for me to spend
time thinking about how to find a benevolent one, I do not think it is
impossible to devise procedures to find one. I love the challenge of
complicated problems; they do keep my creativity in check.  I thank you
for the challenge. You just know how to do it, you do it quite well and
I commend you for that.

	I don't have the pretension of offering a panacea to what is so
versatile as the human mind in not knowing how one would change from one
point to the next. Antoine, you seem to ask me to provide a means of
finding a benevolent strong ruler, which can have some degree of control
over the mind of the one who seems to be a malevolent or benevolent
ruler. Keeping things as dysfunctional as they are in Ayiti where the
rule of laws is meaningless, there is no solution that can make a
benevolent strong ruler to turn malevolent or the other around. That's
another reason why I left it alone. Nonetheless, allow me to let my
imagination go wild.

	Considering "HERE" and "NOW", and what is said above, we have Ayiti in
search of democracy and no one whishes to jeopardize what they felt have
been gained and spent so far to be where Ayiti is today. Put aside my
beliefs that Ayiti can discount these efforts, I want to stay in the
reality of the current process that is evolving to show the possibility
of having an authoritarian ruler without hurting the people. Hence, it's
a given that candidates will be elected in office no matter what happens
and no one can do much about it. 
  
	At this point finding an authoritarian group or person becomes easy.
Due to the authoritarian mentality factor that most Ayitians nurture, I
say there will be a pool of authoritarians of all kind in office. It's
like doing statistics, this pool is the selected sample of the Ayitian
authoritarian population selected at random through the election
process. As a reduced size of the total population of authoritarian
individuals, it becomes much easier to operate in finding a benevolent
strong group or individual. The mode of operation would be internal coup
among the officials. With great care, the constituents would be kept out
of the loop (I did underline this point in an earlier post). 

	That alone is another form of coup to be given to the people's power to
vote as their rights to vote would be striped away or elections would be
abolished for at least a generation. To recap what I said: the effective
way of ensuring longevity of a benevolent ruler is a "coup d'Etat",
which comprises the one given to the people by a tacit mutual consent
among elected officials and the other one to perceived malevolent
elected officials, due to their incompetence and unwillingness to work
for progress. Taking the former as a given, I am concerned mainly with
the latter. 

	Now, envision a power struggle within the legislative branch, and
between it and the executive branch. Then, it will no longer be a
one-man game backed up by the military. Rather, it will be a mind game
fed by coalition building among elected officials. This stage takes into
account that the people are totally discounted and whatever the
political turmoil is, it will be the affair of elected officials.     

	The political dilemma over the election process of 97 is a perfect
illustration of the types of coup d'Etat, I've just outlined. The only
missing part is the fact that nothing is being done to ensure the
transition. More clever officials to come in my wild scenario would have
to make a similar replay or create causes to produce the same effects,
but with the intention to place the building blocks for a benevolent
strong ruler. 

	International observers would be more passive than they are today, and
the people themselves would then change their attitude and accept the
situation as relatively satisfiable.  Then, their passivity would be a
tacit acceptance to what's happening which would give legitimacy to both
coups.

	Now the building coalition process would take place by nurturing
political bonding or entering in a "political mortgage" with those
having the same political affinity or the same political parties
affiliation. (By political mortgage I mean political dues to strong
supporters whom could damage one's plan by dissociation or campaigning
against a former partisan if discontented). The affinity will be easily
identified once the officials are acting politicians and relating among
themselves. It can come from the chamber against the executive branch by
weakening him through legislations, boycotting its programs while
keeping the chambers' programs alive and constructing "must executed
bills". Corruption can help very much in this process.

	The coup can come from the executive through cooptation of some
key-members of the legislative branch. This is where the "political
mortgage" would come in full force. Having been so deeply engaged in
these political skims there is no way that members involved will not
stay head strong by their activities. The key step is the tacit mutual
consent of most elected officials to give the coup to the people. Once,
this is done the battle can begin through rules that would give strength
to the most reliable among them. The lucky one having established its
power base can begin its clean up of opposing factions, the malevolent
ones, by expulsion, alienation or neutralization.

	When observing Ayitian elected officials do we notice a sign in one
that shows their eagerness to go through another election period? They
want to stay where they are and do all they can to prevent new elections
from reoccurring. Ayitians are quite complacent with their situations
bad or good once they are getting used to it. They would be quite
resigned to live the situation in a wait and see mode. For that, they
are good.

	Well, there is nothing novel in what I am laying out here; any curious
eye will notice that these skims are at the heart of politics and
conducted in a more legal, overt, or tolerated way in other societies.
When dealing with societies, it would be intellectual arrogance from my
part to think that there is no need to look at how other societies dealt
with similar problems confronted by one's own society. 

	Political problems are universal to mankind. As they bare the same
characteristics, approaches taken by each society to resolve collective
matters differ considerably. Each will incorporate its own experience or
reality in it. That's how mankind has evolved. No group or society has
ever come out of the blue and done its own thing, their evolution has
always been based on steps that others had already taken. While adapting
them, they've gone through steps that must be taken to become a decent
livable collectivity.

	That brings me to the fallacy that in the midst of the Y2K Ayiti has to
be in diapason with more advanced societies that have taken all the
necessary steps to be there. Yes, Ayiti is in the Y2K, but it is not
"Y2K compliant", permit me to use the term. An objective look of Ayiti
would tell us that Ayiti is still in the dark ages period. No huge leap
can help it join those that are already ahead. If it is so, there will
be no learning process and this is what's missing in Ayiti. The people
have never been learning how to live (survive I should say).

	By burning the steps, yes they will find relief, but for a short period
and everything will fall apart again. No progress can ever be made that
way. Democracy, as I said zillion times, is a learning process; just
importing it can't do the job. Doing so will always fail all efforts
undertaken. 

	Ayiti has been in construction since pre-independence period and two
centuries after, no foundation has been built yet. All that has been
done is importing others' way of life and trying to fit it in. That's
why everything breaks afterwards. It's all beautiful to talk about
modernization, but modernization needs foundation to stand on. We can
spend the rest of our lives talking about a democratic Ayiti but to
never see the horizon of the process due to lack of foundation and
that's where Ayiti falters. 

	It is worth taking a look at the blueprints of the foundation that
Toussaint Louverture, Henri Christophe and Dessalines had designed as
they were set to construct an Ayiti that deserves the name of a
collectivity (aborted unfortunately). They are long gone; the country
remains the same as they left it. No one ever bothers revisiting their
blueprints to see where those that departed from them had faltered so
corrections can be made. 

	I am in no way saying what was suggested to do then must be applied
textually. Now better ways to do things are in existence. The fact that
Ayiti is in the same state makes these guys' works quite relevant and
blended with whatever more efficient in existence today, sit and imagine
the kind of Ayiti there will be. 

Again, thanks for the challenge, I really ran wild and I am ready to be
ripped apart.


Ayiti has lived, lives and will live
Mozeb