20500: Slavin: Le Monde diplomatique, March 04 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JPS390@aol.com

   <http://MondeDiplo.com/2004/03/05haiti>

Le Monde diplomatique

   -----------------------------------------------------

   March 2004

'THE REVOLUTION SWEPT AWAY THE PAST WITHOUT PROVIDING A MODEL TO BUILD
                             A NEW STATE'

               Haiti: two unhappy centuries of freedom
     ___________________________________________________________

   President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is in exile but he was not sent
     there by the Haitian people. They have watched as Aristide's
   band of armed thugs was replaced by those who support a movement
    with no democratic legitimacy, backed by foreign governments.
      The present power vacuum is just another crisis in Haiti's
                   200-year history of instability.

                                                    by André Linard
     ___________________________________________________________

     "WE WILL not celebrate Haitian independence, because to stage
     a party in our penniless misery we should have to dip into
     the peasant's purse and make the people eat their last
     emaciated cow. We will not celebrate: lest, while we sip wine
     from golden chalices and drunkenly toast the holy year 1804
     in our sumptuous salons at the palace, the impoverished
     peasantry, the dejected population, might curse
     independence." This quote is circulating in Haiti in its
     bicentenary year and could almost have been written to cover
     the current chaotic situation. In fact, it is a century old
     and was new when the first black republic was only 100 years
     old. Its author, Dr Rosalvo Bobo, also said: "Frankly, when I
     hear the words the Haitian people or nation, I am overcome by
     irony. We are no nation, just isolated groups and individuals
     ruled by one stigmatised group we call a government."

     Those who have become opponents of the current regime in
     Haiti express broadly the same sentiments. Many, including
     writers and artists Raoul Peck, Gary Victor, Dany Laferrière
     and Lyonel Trouillot, refused to have anything to do with
     "official celebrations that were no more than another move in
     the government's vain quest for legitimacy" (1).

     Haiti's independence in 1804 left it isolated and out of step
     with an international community that was fundamentally
     hostile to the new regime. The Haitians had broken free of
     slavery while the practice was at its height (it wasn't
     properly abolished in Cuba or Brazil for another 80 years).
     Haiti had escaped the grip of the French just as their empire
     was being established in West Africa. Although the rest of
     Latin America wanted independence, in Haiti the colonisers
     themselves had taken over. Just as the modern nation-state
     was becoming the norm in Europe, Haiti had set itself up as a
     state - without actually constituting a nation: its territory
     was populated by separate communities of distinct origin and
     without any common organisational model.

     Haiti was also an economic anomaly. While large plantations
     on vast estates dominated the rest of Central and South
     America, Haiti, for historical reasons, favoured
     smallholdings.

     On 19 November 1803 Napoleon's troops in Haiti surrendered.
     Independence was declared on the first day of the new year.
     But before then two different socio-economic plans existed,
     which it is important to examine to understand today's
     situation. One, supported by the most famous independence
     leader, the "black Spartacus", Toussaint Louverture,
     envisaged an economy based on large plantations geared
     towards exports. The other, backed by the popular movements
     of the time, preferred small-scale farming and a limited
     commercial economy.

     Toussaint won, explains Ernst Mathurin of Gramir, an NGO that
     helps Haitian farmers, but the struggle between the two
     ideals has lasted for 200 years. He says: "After 50 years, a
     compromise emerged: the peasants could develop their
     smallholdings while the elite focused on trade. Exploitation
     was no longer happening on the land, but rather when products
     were sold." This shaky compromise ended with the 1915
     invasion by the United States, which pushed the Haitian
     economy into an agricultural export-based model.

     This unresolved conflict is not the only explanation for the
     current mess. Another factor is the enduring weakness of the
     state; this allowed oppressive rulers to dominate. Jacky
     Dahomay (2) expresses this clearly: "Freedom needs an
     institutional framework. But the young Haitian state's
     weakness was that it lacked precisely that - an institutional
     dimension to freedom. The rule of law has never been the
     basis of political power in Haiti. The state inherited this
     conflation of legitimacy and force from the colonial regime."

     Mathurin agrees: "The Haitian state has always been weak. The
     revolution swept away the past without providing any model on
     which to base the construction of a new state."

     In this context, adds Dahomay, Haiti can be seen as "the
     world's only heroic nation - the essence of heroic power is
     to assume legitimacy without justification other than the
     leader's arbitrary will. A hero cannot tolerate the presence
     of other heroes." Once he has freedom on his side "he has no
     need to leave any freedom to others". This image of the
     leader as hero informs the whole of Haitian history. The
     just-deposed president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, used the idea
     by claiming a symbolic kinship with Toussaint Louverture.
     This explains how he managed to flout the rules and increase
     his personal powers, while enjoying unquestioning popularity
     among much of the Haitian population even after his downfall.

     Throughout the history of Haiti, says Dahomay, "the prince"
     has held "a power of life and death as though designed to
     maintain a permanent state of insecurity". To wield this
     power, he then has "to pull from society individuals, often
     bandits, to carry out his deathly business". For François
     Duvalier, these were the tontons macoutes (bogeymen) (3).
     Aristide's posses, sometimes called chimères, had a similar
     function. They attacked hundreds of student demonstrators in
     the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince, as uniformed
     police looked on. It was hardly surprising that the
     government was reticent in adopting the recent Organisation
     of American States (OAS) resolution on disarming armed gangs.

     For one of Haiti's finest writers, Lyonel Trouillot, "To be
     Haitian means to forge your identity with neither peers nor
     solidarity: you are not my equal and I will not be like
     you"(4). A former minister, Jean-Claude Bajeux, says: "We
     reject critics as anti-patriotic. This is expressed, whatever
     is at stake and including material agreements, through
     physical elimination." There is no doubt as to what the
     leaders of popular organisations mean when they call their
     opponents anti-patriotic low-lifes who want Aristide to go,
     and declare themselves prepared to defend him to the death:
     they mean a death threat against their opponents. The slogan
     "Aristide or death" that adorned Port-au-Prince's walls has a
     sinister double meaning. Its authors risked death when
     Aristide was overthrown just as much as his critics risked
     being killed.

     Change is in the air, but many feel that things can only get
     worse. "All hope is lost," says Bajeux. "Rationally speaking,
     this country cannot survive without a massive investment
     whose benefits might be reaped in 20 or 25 years' time. But
     we have neither investment capacity nor the capacity to
     implement a development plan."

     In 1990 Aristide moved from a parish presbytery to the
     presidential palace on a wave of popular support. Then
     widespread disillusionment spread everywhere, though it was
     not universal. He was attacked for setting up an
     anti-democratic regime and accused of enriching himself
     through illicit trafficking. The public was divided between
     three explanations. Some feel they were conned by Aristide in
     1990. A slightly less widely shared view is that he was
     changed by the 1991 coup that ousted him, his exile in the US
     and return to power in 1994. There are those who saw him as a
     victim of constraints: "se pa fôt li (it's not his fault)",
     they say in Creole, preferring to blame both his entourage
     and the international community (5).

     But these are crude analyses. The reality is that his
     election was merely a change in government, not, as many had
     hoped, a change in society. Haitians' lack of prospects
     inevitably make them disillusioned. "We live in a passport
     culture," says Philippe Mathieu, a former university
     vice-chancellor, "Haiti is a nation of migrants." For many,
     hope lies elsewhere, on sugar plantations in the Dominican
     Republic or building sites or the streets of New York, Miami
     or Montreal. Emigration was already commonplace by the 20th
     century, when many left for neighbouring countries such as
     Cuba, where big plantations needed workers.

     "Those young people who are a little thoughtful want to
     leave," says a rural nurse. It is too difficult to get by at
     home. The local way of life is viewed with contempt. Everyone
     dreams of modernity North American-style - a myth kept alive
     by the money, goods and pictures that exiled Haitians send
     back. "Migration means moving from the country to the city,"
     says Mathurin. "Rural life and agricultural work come to be
     despised." The next step is contempt for Haiti.This makes the
     consolidation of national identity impossible.

     "We have a language, a country, a history that we should make
     more of, but the bond that makes a nation is lacking," says
     Michèle Pierre-Louis, head of the Fokal cultural foundation.
     Many feel that the bicentenary could have been an opportunity
     to make that bond. "We could have done something good," says
     Bajeux, "got together friends of Haiti, drawn up a new social
     contract."

     Some NGOs are trying, within modest means, to push in this
     direction, if only to keep Haiti's history alive and give its
     youth something to identify with (although the present chaos
     has interrupted everything). Fokal is an example of such an
     initiative, as is the Centre for socio- economic research and
     training run by historian Suzy Castor. "We won't be
     celebrating," she says, "but we will try to help define who
     we really are. Not in reference to the past, but with a view
     to liberation." And to making sure that Bobo's analysis is
     not still valid in 2104.
       ________________________________________________________

     * André Linard is a journalist with the InfoSud-Syfia agency
     in Brussels

     See also : Haiti: a modern timeline

     (1) Declaration of 1 October 2003, Agence Alterpresse.

     (2) Jacky Dahomay, "La tentation tyrannique Haitienne",
     Chemins Critiques, Port-au-Prince, vol V, n° 1, January 2001.

     (3) Officially called national security volunteers, the
     tontons macoutes were a militia created by François Duvalier
     as a counterweight to the army's influence.

     (4) Lyonel Trouillot, Haiti, (re)penser la citoyenneté,
     Editions HSI, Port-au-Prince, 2001.

     (5) Haiti is still subject to an international trade embargo
     imposed after its failure to abide by OAS resolutions on
     democratisation. See Paul Farmer, "Haiti: short and bitter
     lives", Le Monde Diplomatique, English language edition, July
     2003.



                                      Translated by Gulliver Cragg


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         ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 1997-2004 Le Monde diplomatique


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J.P. Slavin
New York
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