13168: Corbett: Reflections on the discussion of the Haitian elite

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

I believe our discussion concerning the Haitian elite has gotten
hopelessly confused since too many people are tying it to the behavior of
INDIVIDUALS.  What I wish to argue here is that the class of those whom
we typically refer to as the elite of Haiti constitutes a STRUCTURE OF
HAITIAN SOCIETY, and that it is the structure of the elite class in
Haitian culture than matters much more than the actions of this of that
member of the class.

Within Haitian society there is a signficant group of people who do
control a huge portion of the productive property of Haiti (land,
factories, businesses, resources) and that control and their manner of
managing those productive resources determine a great deal about daily
life in Haiti for everyone.  The elite have played this role for much
longer than Haiti has existed, being a structure of society closely
related to the slave owning planter class (French and free people of color
in Saint Domingue) in colonial times.

After independence this class, now exclusively Haitian, but a very limited
circle of Haitians, continued and solidified the structure of the role of
the elite class in Haitian society.

Inside that circle there has always been, even in colonial times,
individual differences -- regades who weren't happy or comfortable within
that structure of society, or who simply weren't interested for various
personal reasons and acted less within that power strucutre than others.

But the class as a whole has always existed, always dominated power in
Haiti over all others, even the army and even in very strong competition
with Haitian political rulers, including the most powerful dictators,
Soulouque and the Duvaliers.

The intersts of that class, the lifestyles, the schools, the types of
homes and structure of families, the penchant for the French language and
French culture, the classes relationship to other Haitians NOT in that
class -- including government employees, household employees, merchants,
even the relationship with such others as teachers in schools or,
especially in the 19th century, such people in professional positions as
doctors and dentists and such, but not members of the elite.

The essential point I make is not to condemn anyone, but to argue that
this is an identifiable CLASS of people with an identifiable life-form
and recognizable in Haitian society.  One KNOWS the elite, even if
identifying them one says of this or that person:  He's really a rebel in
his family, or she's a decided disappointment to her parents, or whatever.
Those less active at the heart of the structural role are still
known (and know themselves) from inside that structure.

Others may acquire SOME aspects of elite life.  In the Haiti of recent
times there are people from the middle class who have acquired more money,
and fancier homes, and education for their children through the university
and such, but they often have not made that extremely difficult transition
into the circle of the elite. Money and holdings ALONE do not make that
transition, and losing one's money and position, does not in any way
automatically reduce someone OUT OF the elite, who has historic familial
roots there.

There are other class groups in Haiti -- the peasants, the urban poor, the
civil servants, the members of the military, government officials, the
professional class, the merchant class and so on.

Certainly here and there members of one group or class overlaps another
(though virtually no peasants or urban poor are among the elite ever).
But by and large each group knows itself as separate from one another and
the normal everyday life in Haiti reflects this reality.  We know who we
are in any society, and we tend overwhelmingly to behave accordingly.

The elite of Haiti have ALWAYS had enormous power in dictating the terms
of everyday life in Haiti -- how it will go, who will succeed and who will
not, what will be done and tried, what not, who put in and who taken out.

The other classes have PHENOMENALLY less power to make those changes and
impacts on Haitian life.

In no way do I want to deny of denigrate the dramatic changes that have
been creeping into Haitian life since the 1970s as dreams of democracy
have entered the lives of many ordinary people, especially those growing
out of membership in community organizations of the Ti Legliz and
Tet Ansanm groups of the mid-80s.  A challenge has arisen to the absolute
dominance of the role and power of the elite in Haitian society, and there
is a great deal of turmoil connected with it.

Haiti might well be moving toward revolutionary changes away from rule by
an aristocracy of the elite and toward greater participatory democracy, or
even collapse, again, into brutal dictatorship.  It's a critical and very
uncertain time, forces are aligned in odd ways, it is an unpredictable and
quite dangerous and quite hopeful period.

But the elite are still there; and in place, and functioning as a class.

Observers need to step back a bit from personalities, and limited
functions and identifies (money, a fancy house, ownernship of some means
of production, for example).  One needs to view Haiti from some distance
of history and the historical structures which have and continue to
determine the nature of daily life in Haiti.

And if one does that; there they are:  THE ELITE.  An historical and
historic class, a group, a way of life, a culture inside a culture, a
fundamental structure of Haitian society.

Today it is very common to trash the elite, name call them as the
morally repugnant elite, blame them for all Haiti's ills.  I neither
defend  the elite nor blame the elite.  I just argue they are a
fundamental part of the structure of Haiti.

But they were not always utterly maligned.  No lesser Haitian than the
great leader and scholar-intellectual than Jean Price-Mars wrote a famous essay
on the "vocation" of the elite. (He, himself was a member of the elite and
he didn't kid himself that he was not.)  This was during the U.S.
Occupation (the one from 1915-34) and he argued that this class had an
historic obligation to come to Haiti's rescue from this invasion, saving
Haiti from the total CULTURAL and governmental destruction at the hands
of the U.S.

He chastized the elite, and urged them into a more positive role in their
country's current woes, but what is more important, I think for our
discussion, is that he knew and recognized that this group -- THE ELITE,
not only existed, but was a clearly identifyable class with historic roots
and he even thought an historic mission.

The elite may well be in a different place in Haitian history now, perhaps
on the very ropes of its existence, seemingly less dominant in the moral
leadership of the country, but still a significant and dominant part of
the structure of life in Haiti.

To pretend for a moment that the elite either don't exist, or that one
escapes membership in the class by some trival (or not so trivial) acts of
defiance, or that one just makes some money and BECOMES elite -- those
are mistakes in understanding the history and nature of the elite in
Haiti.


Bob Corbett