a1901: One Island, two peoples -- one destiny? Haiti and the Dominican Republic (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: karioka9@cs.com

[First impresions of Haiti by a Jamaican friend and comrade, posted here with his permission.  DS]

I am back in Jamaica after a very interesting trip to Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

I was of course struck by the poverty especially in Port-Au Prince and the
VERY terrible roads. It is not so much that the roads are bad much like they are in Jamaica but some of the roads appeared to be overflowing with
sewerage.  I found this totally unacceptable and cringed when I saw people
having to step in it in order to go to work or school or just hanging out on the corner. I wondered if people have fatalistically accepted this kind of situation or if there are ever demonstrations. There might have been a
blocked road on the day we were going to Cap Haitian but I was unable to get much information as to what it was about except to be told that we had to travel an alternative route to get out of the Port-Au-Prince.

The countryside was far more tolerable, less overcrowded, though the
deforestation was painfully obvious. So often there were small trucks
carrying pieces of chopped up trees. We passed several coal yards where there was black soot alround.

We went first to Jacmel and then to Cap Haitien where we overnighted. Yes I
agree with you that coming from Jamaica the beach was not the main attraction but in terms of going to Jacmel it served as a way seeing as much of the countryside as possible.

I found the people quite beautiful and unbowed despite the poverty, and very industrious. The most pleasant sight was seeing all  these children dressed in various school uniforms going to school.  Driving on the roads with people crossing in front of you as if from nowhere was quite a challenge. But despite all this I didn't feel the aggression that I get when driving the roads in Jamaica. There seemed to be a sense of understanding between motorists and pedestrians and between motorists that it didn''t make sense going at each other's throat over a sitution they had no control over.

Going to Cap Haitian was perhaps the most exciting part of the trip. In
Gonaives it was like being in China seeing all these people riding bicycles
especially the school children both boys and girls.

We visited the Citadel and it was quite a memorable experience. I have heard about "King" Christophe and always regarded him as some sort of quixotic person, perhaps like a Marcus Garvey, but seeing his palace and fort forced me to consider what was going on in the mind of this man. The Citadel so clearly illuminated the contradictions, the irony and the challenges that faced this first successful slave revolution. Somehow I couldn't help making comparisons with the 1917 Russsian revolution. Here was an isolated state that faced real and imagined threats, internal and external.  Those who took control were determined to survive even at the cost of re-enslaving their own people. Was Christophe the precursor to Stalin?

Having seeing this Citadel forces me to go back and reread my books on
Haitian history, especially the revolution.

There is a long stretch of Road between Gonaives and the next town which I
think is St. Marc and driving through was like travelling through the Sahara -- real dusty. People in the back of open trucks had to cover their faces from the dust.

There were some huge open markets with what seemed like a sea of humanity. I kind of wondered if there weren't more sellers than buyers because it seemed like most people were there to sell. In fact I think that most of the daily traffic is a result of people going to some market or other to sell their wares.

In the Cap Haitian harbour I saw two pigs that had swam out to sea maybe
some two hundred yards to forage in what appeared to be a dumping. This was
so symbolic of how the poverty forces both human and animal to try to
survive.

In Petionville I saw a lot of middle class people driving their SUVs though I can't say that I noticed any mansions as there are in Jamaica. There is a
knack for language as I would unexpectedly come across people who spoke
English or Spanish.

I was not able to explore the musuems of Port-Au-Prince though there seemed
to be an attempt to lay out some grandeur looking buildings. It was sad to
see the paucity of newspapers though the radio stations seemed to be quite
prolific and a lot of creole is spoken. The artists are also prolific  with a definite national style. I have always liked Haitian art unfortunately

I found the Haitian people far more friendly that the people in the DR. The
DR was surprsingly well developed even more so than Jamaica. There is poverty there of course but far less obvious than Haiti or even Jamaica. A lot of money has been spent on constructing highways and monuments. The mountains are green as opposed to those in Haiti.

Election campainging is underway in the the DR but  the campaigning seems
very superficial and almost like a carnival. I didn't get the impression of
serious ssues being discussed. It had an American flavor -- putting up glossy pictures of candidates all over the place. Unlike Jamaica, rival political parties campaign in the same space and at the same time and nobody  seems to care.

In Haiti there is a lot of concern about the EU and American hard ball
tactics of holding up funds because of disagreements with Aristide. My lack
of understanding of creole prevented me from understanding what was being
said on the radio but it appeared that people were opposed or concerend about what was happening. Apparently the French Ambassador arrogantly gave the Haitian government a lecture which upset a lot of people.

I saw very little political graffiti in Haiti and got the impression that
people had things on their minds other than Lavalas or any of the other
parties. The only thing political were banners on some roads about the recent murder of a journalist.  Seeing this banner reminded me of the sinister side to Haitian politics and the fact that one never knows when the hyenas might strike again.

Finally this trip to the Island that was once called Santo Domingo by the
Spanish and St. Domingue by the French calls for serious dialogue as to why
one side is so poor and the other so better off in comparison.  Was Haiti
destined to pay the ultimate price for daring to drive European slavers into the sea?   What are the  real reasons for the disparities? Can there be revolutionary change that does not as a strategy involve both sides of the Island?  These are the questions I throw out to those who are far more
equipped to answer than I could ever attempt.

Lloyd D'Aguilar
notobrutalpolice@aol.com