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20741: Blanchet: Fw: Haiti: two unhappy centuries of freedom (fwd)
From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>
From: "Le Monde diplomatique" <english@Monde-diplomatique.fr>
>
> 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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>
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