22220: Beckett: Response to posts on rape (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Beckett <beckett@uchicago.edu>

This post comes in the wake of the discussion of Mambo Racine's post
on Haiti, men, women, and rape. I seem to recall that about 6-8 years
ago, in Canada, there was a rape case involving Haitians. If my
memory serves correctly, the case was dismissed (or the charged was
significantly lessened) because the defense, and the judge, argued
that those involved were Haitian, and that sex, force, and indeed
rape, were different in Haitian culture. The not so subtle subtext
was that Haitian men rape women and that Haitian women should not be
protected by the law from rape, since it is a *culture of rape*.

This is no different from all the other kinds of media
representations that float around in the US and Canada (and I would
assume in Europe as well) of Haiti as a culture of violence, as a
place incapable of democracy, as a place that must be contained, etc
etc.

I know that there are a wide spectrum of political positions on this
list. But surely we can agree that the Haitian Revolution is a
significant historical event, and that it has been silenced time and
time again. The *regime change* that is still going on in Haiti right
now (however else you think of it) served to once again bolster this
image of Haiti in the foreign press... as a country in a permanent
political crisis because, again the not so subtle subtext, they are
incapable of governing themselves.

Even the stories in the New York Times of the floods in Mapou had
this feel about them. One such story began by saying (I assume in an
ironic voice, but who cares) that the flood was the best thing that
could have happened to the region, since it would now be the focus of
media attention, humanitarian aid, and so forth. Never mind that
people died. That whole families are gone. That people lost more than
the Red Cross can give back -- that houses, plots of land, cattle,
and other forms of fixed capital are gone forever.

To return to the issue of rape. If rape is a social fact in Haiti,
then we can think about why that might be so. But I would strongly
urge us not to slip into the language of suggesting that it is an
inherent part of Haitian culture.