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#4249: LeGrace Benson reviews OUR LADY OF CLASS STRUGGLE
Our Lady of Class Struggle
Terry Rey.
Trenton, NJ and Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World Press, Inc. 1999.
$21.95.(pb) ISBN 0-86543-695-9
Review by LeGrace Benson
Imagine the Athenian army paying homage to their patron, Athena Parthemos
then, fortified by her favor, going out to meet the Persians. Imagine
their consternation when they discover the Persians marching forward
under the banner of Pallas Athena. This is somewhat the scene Terry Rey
presents in Our Lady of Class Struggle. Columbus invaded the Caribbean
under the protection of Nuestra Seqora and the Spanish royalty, arriving
in the flagship, Santa Maria. Nearly two centuries later captives from
Africa would be baptized as Christians in an act Rey, using Pierre
Bourdieu's telling phrase, calls "symbolic violence." The primary icon
of "New World" Christianity then and into the present is the Virgin Mary
in the various honorific personae devised for her by the faithful.
Drawing upon a wide-ranging scholarship and several years of carefully
designed and conducted field research, Rey uses his eight chapters to
unfold the details that structuring a paradoxical fact: The Blessed
Virgin is patron, protectress, advocate and comforter of both sides in
the struggle between the Haitian elite and poor. Not only is Mary Queen
of Heaven for Christians rich and indigent, she also walks with the
powerful West African-Kreyol female spirit, Ezuli. Rey concludes, "...one
can read the story of Haiti's epic class struggle in the history of its
cult of the Virgin Mary." He adds, "...the sincerity of their devotion
is unquestionable, and certain Haitian expressions of devotion to Mary
are ...beautiful and moving..."
Impressed though he may be, Rey keeps a distance from his research,
basing his investigations and conclusions on theory developed out of
Gramsci, Weber and Bourdieu. It is the latter's notions of "symbolic
violence," "field," (of religion in this case), and "habitus," (which
Bourdieu calls, "...durable, transposable dispositions, structured
structures predisposed to function as structuring structures...") that
Rey skillfully utilizes as his primary intellectual tools to create a
descriptive analysis of certain Haitian religious beliefs and practices.
His insights into the perduring class struggles hint imply a possibility
that the religious habitus may even be the source of factors with as much
or more determining force than the well-known economic and political
contentions.
Rey makes a poignant comparison between two of his informants, one
impoverished, the other from a family of great wealth, selecting them for
exemplification because he twice had opportunities to observe both at
the same Marian feast. To return to our initial analogue, it is as though
the Athenians and the Persians had stopped together at the same temple
to Athena in advance of proceeding with their battle. In Haiti during
the period of the Cidras coup, Rey observed poor individuals who prayed
to the Virgin of Perpetual Help for the return of President Aristide.
Some of them saw the hand of the Virgin in the visit of Pope John Paul II
with his admonishment to the government of Jean-Claude Duvalier to make
changes in favor of the destitute population. They were sure the Virgin
of Perpetual Help would intervene again to save them. In barbed
contrast, General Cidras, a Protestant, exhorted the people while
standing on a balcony over the unfurled banner of Our Lady of Perpetual
Help. Catholics of the elite were sure that the Virgin would save the
country from democracy and show the poor how much better off they were
under Duvalier. Our Lady would teach the poor "...not to hate the
bourgeois..." and "...bring them peace and calm." Rey reports the
extraordinary apparitions of the Virgin to Sister Altagrbce, a Haitian
nun, who reported that the Virgin pronounced in visions the evil of the
American (US) intervention to return Aristide, and gave instruction to
the elite to fast and pray diligently against this eventuality.
The author prepares a road to enable the reader to comprehend this
antilogy of Marianisms of the elite and of the poor equally under the
presumed guidance and assistance of the same national patroness. In
addition to the familiar historical writings and documents, he often
brings forward material from little-used Haitian documents to provide
support for his investigations into theological and sociological
interpretations, the history of Haitian Marianism, and the detailing of
the important relationships between ideas and images of the Virgin and
those associated with Ezuli. He examines these latter relationships and
their interpretations as conflation, of dissimulation, syncretism and of
assimilation, going beyond each to agree with Desmangles (in The Faces of
the Gods) that Ezili and the Virgin exist in "symbiosis," as do many
other features of Haitian religious practice and belief. To use a Haitian
phrase (that Rey does not employ) Mary and Ezili "walk with" one
another. "...Mary has been adopted and welcomed by Haitians as an
important spiritual force, operating side-by-side with Ezuli-each
functioning in a complex mosaic among the many lwas and saints who may be
invoked in the daily struggle to survive and the quest for health and the
fullness of life." The twinned fabulous feminine powers flank the
otherwise unbearable reality of many Haitian's daily lives. Rey's
discussion shows a familiarity with the works of such scholars as Karen
M. Brown, Leslie Desmangles, Laennec Hurbon, Michel Laguerre, Alfred
Metraux and Maya Deren; moreover exhibits the fruits of extensive
experience with the life of churches and Vodou communities of several
locations in Haiti.
Our Lady of Class Struggle takes on the task of making sense of the
conditions of the Haitian religious field and habitus which are
everywhere and throughout Haitian history complex, subtle and frequently
contradictory. Theoretical positions proposed by Pierre Bourdieu provide
Rey with the major part of his heuristic tools. (Rey would probably
prefer the word "framework.") This capacious but rigorous instrumentum
affords inclusion of ideas from the early writings of Karl Marx, of
Antonio Gramsci before and during his imprisonment, and of Max Weber's
proposals in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and The
Sociology of Religion. No ideologue, Rey wisely reminds us that Marx
claimed for himself that he was "no Marxist." By including Gramsci's
personal endurance of several kinds of painful physical and social
marginalization, he ties a validating understanding of the underpinnings
of the theory to insights into Haitian religious sensibilities. The
results of Rey's comprehensive field work show how Weber's otherwise
invaluable work cannot, however, be used to explain Haitian elite
devotion. Whereas Weber firmly posits that for the ruling classes the
"...need for salvation is remote and alien," the reports Rey includes in
this book indicate that this cannot be true for Haiti.
There are important components of the larger Haitian religious field
which make but scant appearance here. Protestants, who vigorously
exclude any devotion to Mary or any personage other than the members of
the Trinity, are understandably out of sight. Perhaps there will be a
book to follow in which the iconic use of Jesus Christ as a political,
economic, and religious figure can be detailed. There is the diverse
religious habitus of the small but growing Haitian "middle" which needs
much research and analysis to be better understood. There is the large
question of Haitians of every corner of the field and from every possible
habitus who are in diaspora. It would be both instructive and fascinating
to read results of Rey's instruments of research and analysis as applied
to these populations. That is another piece of work for another several
years; perhaps with a team of collaborating researchers. It would be a
huge undertaking.
Those who study the arts of Haiti would certainly find interesting what
more Rey might have to say about the visual images of Haitian Marianisms
coupled necessarily with images of Ezuli. The book's only illustration
is that on the cover. Rey mentions this as an example of works that
"...enrich her [Our Lady's] image with characteristics of Ezuli..." The
work in question is a Virgin and Child by the late Ishmail, an artist
working mostly in and near Deschapelles. Ishmail, according to his
testimony to Rey, whom he trusted, was an houngan. Yet according to a
blan researcher (whom the artist had just met) discussing some similar
works with the artist at an upscale gallery in Pitionville, when asked to
discuss the relationship between the images of the Virgin and those of
Ezuli, protested strongly: "No, no. I am a Catholic Christian. The works
have nothing to do with Ezuli or Vodou." Reading Rey's book reveals how
both of Ishmail's assertions can be true.
Rey leaves unanswered the question of why the Marian visual images in
Haiti, including those aggregations which become Mary-as-Ezuli, are
nearly without exception of European Renaissance or late Byzantine
derivation. A Marian image even so slightly localized such as Paul
Gauguin's "Ia Orana Maria," (Ave, Maria) presenting a woman and child of
Tahiti with the aureoles of sanctity, is rare in Haitian art. There are
some exceptional Ezuli's that should be thought of as Haitian
natif-natal, notably those of Hector Hyppolite, and the "Queen Erzuli
[sic]" of Robert St. Brice at Musie d' Art Haotien du Collhge St.
Pierre, Port-au-Prince. But even St. Brice's may have an Italian
background: it is entirely likely that the artist would have seen Piero
della Francesco's red-robed Madonna-as-Mediatrix-of-Salvation in one of
the books of Renaissance art in the library of the Centre d'Art in
Port-au-Prince. The Byzantine style of the Ismail Virgin and Child on the
cover of Our Lady of Class Struggle was, according to one
collector/expert, the result of the artist's developing his signature
style subsequent to Mrs. Mary Ann Whitney's suggestions and sharing of a
book of images at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital compound. It is
intriguing to speculate as to why a people of such great pride and
self-awareness, whether poor or elite, have not developed more
distinctively "Haitian" visual images of either Mary or Ezuli.
Rey does focus on the images as imbricated in the struggles; and who
would disagree that Haiti was born in struggle and remains locked in
battle for place, for resources, above all for control. Yet despite
combat, there is konbit. Historians, economists and sociologists
exclusively attend to the combats, these being what consumes time,
treasure and souls. But every instance could be shown to have another
side, the konbit (collective work to complete a community task), the
lakou (literally the group of closely related or close friends living in
proximity; figuratively any durable, close-knit group), and fanmi/famille
(the family, nearly always an extended family). Rey himself mentions the
TKL, Ti Komonite Legliz (Small Church Communities) describing their
efforts as (in part) related to the notions of the Mary of the
Magnificat. This Mary, far from being the subservient role-model of the
institutional Church, sings a praise song to God that begins with
reverence followed immediately by the self-confident declaration, "...For
behold all generations shall call me Blessed!" For Haitian Christians
outside the elite, the lines following that are profoundly consequential:
"He [the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob] has brought down the mighty from
their seat, and has exalted the humble and meek. He has filled the hungry
with good things, but the rich he has sent empty away." The emphasis is
on the victory of the meek but with the same breath comfort, support,
rejoicing that God is present with them. The Magnificat Mary is
uniquivocally on the side of the poor in the implied struggle. Clearly
there is a contest; just as clearly the comfort and collaboration.
Similarly the konbit functions in the labor of bringing nourishment out
of the soil. So too the lakou in establishing and maintaining the web of
familiar and usually comfortable relationships that enable many Haitians
to survive. So too the family, an institution that in every aspect of
Haitian life, whether among the poorest or among the richest of the elite
is a source of assistance, protection, passing along of traditions,
education at whatever possible level, and, of course, comfort. While Rey
leaves discussion of such manifestations to one side, it is evident from
the reports he brings forth that Our Lady of Perpetual Help/Ezuli Freda,
or Our Lady of Czestochowa/Ezuli Danto moves as easily in the households
of recycled boards and sheet metal as in the gated grand houses up on the
hills. Compassion chooses no side. How might a study that systematically
broadened the focus to include observations of assistance, and even
participation within and across economic and family class lines affect
our understanding not only the imageries and their uses, but the
direction and style of the struggle itself?
Perhaps it is here that a part of the paradox is resolved. The woman who
invokes the assistance of Mary to keep a disorderly and unpredictable
democracy at bay projects her own sense of sympathetic protection. The
woman of Grand Bassin who lifts her hands to shout at Our Lady of Lourdes
impels the Mother of Healing All to bring a suffering family out of the
destitution imposed by the mighty. Both women are tautly circumscribed
in their own moves toward clemency, yet each expects boundless grace from
Mary.
>From the point of view of studies and experiments by a number of
researchers over several decades, one might take issue with the
fundamental assertion Rey uses from Bourdieu: "...since the history of
the individual is never anything other than a specification of the
collective history of his group or class, each individual system of
dispositions may be seen as a structural variation of all other group or
class habitus."
Given, both Bourdieu and Rey give more latitude to the individual than
these words would suggest, and would agree that the statement does not
exclude the role, sometimes powerful, of individuals. Nevertheless the
position raises questions. It can be argued that the "direction of the
gaze" of an artist or a prophet, hence the production of ideas and images
even those that are novel, are fully determined by place and time within
the social habitus. Perhaps most of what is even apparently unique and
remarkable can be shown to be anchored in the prevailing attitudes and
tacit presumptions. Bourdieu claims that this is so much the case that in
order to understand the ideas and images of a certain time and place, it
is necessary to understand the codes of the relevant habitus; that
nothing can be comprehended without this knowledge. There is such strong
evidence to support this that contrary data are obscured, especially for
those who deal primarily with alpha-numeric and iconic codes in the
course of their investigations.
However, interesting consequences derive from the apparent facts of the
perceptions by humans and other creatures that appear to be genetically
developed over eons in reciprocity with the niche or usual habitat
structures, that is, the affordances for survival behaviors that are
present and require accurate, direct and immediate apprehension. The
color and sheen of ripe fruits is an example. The edge-phenomena and
sharp change in textural gradient that specify a dangerous drop in
terrain is another. Such findings imply that in addition to, perhaps
undergirding, the socially-determined codes, there is a fundament of
information available to human perceptions, usable by rulers, artists,
poets, prophets and housewives anywhere anytime; everywhere and always
the same. Our social circumstances do direct our gaze ("attention").
They do teach us particular kinds of importance ("detection" and
"discrimination"); do create and provide the sounds, gestures and marks
by which we communicate what we have discovered or learned. The
unspeakably meaningful depiction of Mary with her dead son that
Michaelangelo found in his block of marble does requires knowing a code
to know this is the Virgin Mary with the body of the crucified Christ.
Yet it requires the uncoded experience of being in a mortal body, of
perceiving/experiencing the state of being mortal related to other
mortals to be grasped in its depths. It is this fundament that supports
the code and renders it of interest. Haitian Marianisms provide an
opportunity to explore such a notion further.
Given that engagement with some form of feminine elevation to deity seems
well-nigh universal, dating back some 30,000 years, are there
survival-information-features that lie beneath the codes used in Haiti,
and to what extent are they directly apprehended? What would then help
explain the strong appeal for aspects of Ezuli and other aspects of Vodou
that seem to fetch and captivate attention of many, unlikely non-Haitian
beholders? Rey writes, "...perhaps the symbiotic assimilation of Mary
and Ezili strikes for Haitians a functional balance that either figure in
and of herself could neither achieve nor offer." What if this "functional
balance" occurs at the level of uncodable perceptions? Rey ( and also
Bourdieu) seems aware of the minute and unique delicacy of the system of
belief and practice of individuals, and of the exigencies that move such
individuals to take one or another direction of political belief and
action. They both present details as though in fact, less determined than
the conceptual model. A consideration of "genetic" apprehensions of the
world might well prove compatible with Rey's investigations and analysis.
Our Lady of Class Struggle broaches a conversational opening about
politics, religion, and the uses of imagery in Haiti, all within the
crucially important frame of class struggle reality. Rey brings many
voices to this conversation. Unusually for most contemporary
investigators, he gives a well-described place to elite religious
practice and belief. Perhaps because many elite men conduct most of their
lives outside (perhaps even "out of sight of") the church, the
description is largely limited to women. It is not as clear that this is
similar among the poor. It would be helpful to see more data and
rationale regarding gender differentials. In any case, line are open now
for several directions of inquiry and discussion.
It is to be hoped that Haitians and Haitianists of various points of
view and several relevant disciplines will read and begin to continue the
discussion. Out Lady of Class Struggle posits a model for the next
efforts to study, discover and discuss the social structures, the class
struggles and the religious fervor that characterize Haiti. While there
is abundant information for researchers in several fields, Rey's the
writing is accessible to any reader interested in a fuller understanding
of Haiti. He defines all technical and theoretic terms, and provides
detailed documentation to make this contentious subject about contentions
approachable by readers of whatsoever political or religious stance. It
is a work of transparent scholarship, giving due regard and respect to
Haitians of many sides of class struggle or religious commitment. It is
"must read" for inhabitants of Corbettland.