a1247: Re: a1236: Re: a1221: Spelling of Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Karioka9@cs.com

Msiekolo@aol.com wrote:

> Etymologically, he explained, the word comes from the
> french "Haïr" meaning to Hate and with the suffix TI which
> turn as Syen implying Hate ourself ".

Funny, I learned the same thing in high school circa 1970 from a very angry
French priest who taught us that the verb "haïtiser" meant to make a country
move backward. Lately I have learned to accept that the R.P. Atis, who was a
"pretre-ouvrier" (worker-priest), was not necessarily racist, that perhaps he
did not hate all Haitians but only the petty-bourgeois fringe he was sent, as
a punishment, to keep within France's sphere of influence (francophonie,
neo-colonialism, etc).  After reading Auguste Magloire who coined the phrase
"dynamisme de recul" (dynamic of backwardeness) a hundred years ago (and the
smartest of the smart, Prof. Leslie a.k.a "President" Manigat, who has
appropriated the phrase without always crediting its source), it has become
clear that the French only named something very sick that was always there,
and that must be rooted out from Haitian culture (see Gramsci, i.e. the
dominant culture being the culture of the dominant classes). Unfortunately
those who have been spoiled by that sickness are not necessarily the ones to
root it out.

Daniel Simidor