21225: Esser: Aristide and Govt of the night (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Trinidad & Tobago Express
http://www.trinidadexpress.com

April 11th 2004

Aristide and Govt of the night
by Selwyn Ryan

The leaders of Caricom have so far taken a principled stand on Haiti
and must be applauded for it. One hopes they do not capitulate to
pressure from the Bush regime and give diplomatic recognition to the
illegal and illegitimate regime that has been installed by the
American-led "coalition of the willing." If they were to do so it
would be a disaster for a majority of the Haitian people and for
Caricom member states that have only recently shown the world that
there is a democratic formula for getting rid of deeply entrenched
corrupt regimes. If one can use votes to expel the Birds from their
aviaries of avarice, one can do the same to expel Aristide if he is
indeed guilty of all the sins with which he is charged.

I have on occasion been asked to explain why Haiti has found it so
difficult to master some of the modalities that allow for peaceful
regime change such as have been the norm in the Anglophone Caribbean.
To answer this question, one would have to traverse 200 years of
Haitian history which is clearly not possible in the limited space
and time which is available to this column. We will thus have to
offer capsulised explanations with apologies to those who are more
expert on Haiti.

When crises arise, many Cassandras shrug and say "well Haiti will
always be Haiti". That phrase is however meant to imply different
things depending on who makes it and in what context. Eurocentrics
tend to claim that the problem has to do with Haiti's African
cultural realities from which it is said Haiti has never been able to
escape. In this view, Haiti-aka as "West Africa in the Caribbean"-has
not been able to make western economic and political institutions
work because it has remained isolated by a spiritual curtain and has
never had the benefit of sustained colonisation and modernisation as
have other Caricom states, notwithstanding its physical presence in
the region. Some would in fact argue that it was a mistake to have
made Haiti a full member of Caricom.

Afrocentric critics argue that "Haiti will always be Haiti" because
of what the French, the Americans and the British did in the years
after 1804 to crush the world's first black republic. In this view,
Haiti was robbed, raped and terrorised for 200 years by western
imperialism in general and American oppression in particular and that
Haiti never had a chance against that assault. According to this
view, Dessalines' victory over the French in 1809 was a "Pyrrhic" one
and the Dessalines boast that he had given the French cannibals
"blood for blood" and had "avenged America" was an idle one. Some
analysts of this school hold that the Africans of Haiti had only been
lightly tinged by French civilisation and that they were "real nigs"
under the surface. They were imperfectly socialised.

There is yet a third explanation given for the Haitian tragedy, viz,
that Dessalines and his successors consciously destroyed what the
French had left behind including the plantation system and the system
of forced labour. The Revolution also destroyed its sons and
daughters-close to half a million of them. There were thus neither
the human nor infrastructural resources on which to establish the
foundations of a modern state.

Let us explore more fully these two explanations that are
conventionally offered for Haiti's tragic predicament. Let us look
first at the argument that "culture is the only possible explanation
for Haiti's unending tragedy." Those who offer this argument about
the tenacity of culture point to voudun and its effect on the Haitian
thought process and its political culture. Western academics and
journalists like Lawrence Harrison and Robert Rotberg consistently
make this argument. Rotberg tells us flatly that "Haiti is not ready
for representative government."

Interestingly, this argument is also held by some of Haiti's hougans
or voudun practitioners. In a recent interview with Maring Jimenez, a
journalist writing for the Canadian Globe and Mail, Edward Jean-Louis
sought to locate Aristide's collapse in the world of the spirits.
According to Jean-Louis, Aristide came to power with the aid of the
voudun priests and the loas (spirits) who protected him. Aristide
mysteriously escaped several assassination attempts and became widely
known as a "Mistic" According to Jean-Louis, "Aristide had mystical
protection and physical protection. He had the spirits walking with
him. But then he offended the voudun priests and the spirit world."

Another hougan, Phillipe Castera, agreed with Jean-Louis. He claimed
that voodoo is and has always been part of Haitian politics. It was
used by L'Ouverture and Dessalines to rally slaves during the Haitian
Revolution, by Papa Doc and Baby Doc to sustain his Palace to
Cemetary regime Duvalier and by Aristide himself. As he put it, "the
National Palace is filled with the spirits of the ancestors."

Aristide, it is said, understood that voudun is part of the Haitian
consciousness and that he used the visible and invisible symbols of
the religion as part of his efforts to mobilise support-his own
symbol was the rooster. According to reports, Aristide was syncretist
as most Haitians are, and was initiated by the priests and made many
references to voudun symbols in his speeches. Some claim that he was
known to have a voudun shrine in his home.

According to this line of discourse, Aristide, like Duvalier, knew
that without voodoo, there was no order, and that without order and
stability there can be no government. There is a "government of the
day"-the borrowed western forms, and a "government of the night"
which is informed by the principles and practices of vodun.

Aristide's problem then, at least according to this line of analysis,
is that he lost the battle for the government of the night. The
"Cannibal Army" which once backed the rebel priest had since turned
against its erstwhile leader. Their god-Ogun Feray-and then
symbol-the black cross of the dead-had prevailed.

This then, and not the US and France and their neo Duvalierists
allies in Haiti, is what was responsible for Aristide's spectacular
collapse. He had lost the mandate of the spirit world. The government
of the night ultimately triumphed over the government of the day as
it has always done in Haiti. Regime Restoration is thus impossible,
however it might be resourced and rationalised.

Those who seek to explain the Haitian tragedy by reference to
external factors often begin their discourse with a discussion of the
circumstances that gave rise to the Haitian Revolution and what
followed. Slave holding regimes of 18th century never forgave Haiti.
Haiti had to be punished and made to pay reparations in cash and kind
for her historical impertinence for "turning history up side down."
In 1824, the French monarch, Charles X demanded that Haiti cough up
150m francs in reparations. He also insisted that customs duties on
French imports be halved-all as indemnity for losses sustained by
French planters. The Haitian elite, anxious to escape the diplomatic
and economic quarantine imposed against her, reluctantly capitulated.

Haiti was once one of the wealthiest economies in the new world. It
in fact used to be known as the "Pearl of the Antilles." By 1789, it
supplied three-fourths of the world's sugar. CLR James (Black
Jacobins) noted that 1,597 ships called into Haiti's ports in 1789, a
greater number that called at Marseilles. Many Frenchmen, including
creoles, became wealthy and the phrase "rich like a creole" was
frequently heard in France.

In this perspective, Haiti was made poor because it was
diplomatically quarantined and economically gouged by a vengeful and
frightened Europe and America. As one French foreign minister wrote
to American President Monroe ,"the existence of a Negro people in
arms, occupying a country it has soiled by the most criminal of acts,
is a horrible spectacle for all white nations. There are no reasons
to grant support to these brigands who have declared themselves the
enemies of all government." Monroe agreed. "We can never acknowledge
her Independence. The peace and safety of a large portion of our
union forbids us even to discuss [Haiti]." It should be noted that
the 1824 demand by the French monarch, which incidentally the Haitian
President was given a mere four hours to accept "or else", was not
the only demand that was made. Over the 19th and early 20th century,
gunboats frequently appeared in Haiti's harbours demanding
indemnities of one kind or another.

The Germans, the Americans, the French and the British all
participated in this shameful practice of occupying and looting the
Haitian treasury. What was euphemistically called "gunboat diplomacy"
was really piracy and buccaneering, modern style. Haiti never had a
chance. According to this version of Haitian history, Haitians have
been kidnapped and frog-marched by Americans for two centuries before
Aristide who personifies the Haitian Resistance. All that has changed
is the dramatis personae and the fact that the last coup was "soft"
rather than "hard" as so many have been in the past.

- To be continued
.