20518: radtimes: Haiti: two unhappy centuries of freedom (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

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

Haiti: two unhappy centuries of freedom

http://mondediplo.com/2004/03/05haiti

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.

March 2004
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.


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