22384: Antoine: Women react to Manbo Racine's expose (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Guy S. Antoine <webmaster@haitiforever.com>

WOMEN react to Manbo Racine's expose

I have conducted an informal survey among friends and
associates on Manbo Racine's recent claims, pertaining
to sexual violence in Haiti and generally how men and
women perceive their respective sexual roles in the society.
I have separated men's views from women's, should there
be any basis for a gender comparison of such views,
considering how differently they may affect men and
women in our society. However, the similarity or
divergence of views that I have noted does not seem to
be based on gender. Of course, there are multiple other
factors that may have influenced those observations:
nationality, social status, education, family values,
personal values, religious views, work/career experience,
amount or frequency of contacts with the majority class
in Haiti, and personal experiences. Additionally, one has
to be careful not to read too much from a sample this size.
Yet, I do think that the responses bring to light a wealth
of arguments and counter-arguments that can be useful
in evaluating a sensible approach to the very real and
complex issue of sexual violence anywhere, but particularly
in Haiti.

Here are the views from 11 women.  The men's views will
follow in the next e-mail.

WOMAN #1 wrote:

I agree that rape has most likely gone on for quite some
time in Haiti and for many reasons. It seems to have begun
being used as a more "official" political tool back in the
early 90s, right after the first coup against Aristide, and
has gotten worse. Rape is a disgusting and violent thing
that turns an act of beauty into something ugly. It happens
everywhere and I think especially in places where people
have lost respect for one another, something I have seen
happening in Haiti over the past 2 decades because of all
the political instability. I'm sure little girls are raped
in the slums and in the rural areas all the time in Haiti
because the same things happens to little girls here in the
U.S. And it happens among all races. It happens all over the
world. It would be wonderful if the women of Haiti could
unite to prevent it. But I also believe that the women of
Haiti are the strongest thing about the country and it's a
pity they can't get their foot in the door politically.
Haiti would fall apart without the women and everyone,
including the men, know this. They do the work, every bit
and every kind of work. And I'd like to give them a little
more credit for having self-respect. However, when a society
is crumbling, lots of things fall apart including how people
treat each other.

Would I deny that rape has occurred for centuries in Haiti?
No, how do you think the elite class came to be? Frenchmen
raped African women who were slaves and took the children
into the "big house" to become their children and the seeds
of the elite classes, a class borne of rape. Maybe it is
this class that has set the tone of disrespect for people in
general in Haiti.


WOMAN #2 wrote:

I am greatly offended by Mambo Racine's post. I must say
that I know no one who is as she says. Maybe she would say
that I am not close enough to what she calls Majority
Haitians. I was recently being interviewed by a Haitian
graduate student about my "identity" and I remember telling
her that I was proud of who I am: a Haitian woman. I think
most people in that "category" are strong, determined,
courageous. Most of us do not sell sex, and most of us will
not accept violence from partners. As far as the Haitian men
are concerned this student agreed with me that among friends
and family we may find some who are not 100% faithful, but
the aggressive black male portrayed in the USA and the mean
men in Haiti, are not among the people we know. Where are
they?

If rape was acceptable behavior why would it have it's own
name: Kadejak. If it was "normal" as she says, it would just
be called sex. Why would it be a threat?

I will concede that there are some violent and mean
Haitians, but for the most part we are peaceful, loving, and
respectful people.

There are some bad men in Haiti and there are some women
who think of sex as a business. There is violence against
women.
But I don't think rape is part of Haitian culture.


WOMAN #3 wrote:

There was really no room for rape in my personal experience
of Haitian culture.

Extrapolating, however, from things like Edwidge Danticat's
book, reports from Human Rights organizations working in
war torn (or in Haiti's case, political upheaval turned
"civil
war," chimere attacks, or some other kind of political
combat), rape definitely has a place in Haiti's recent
history.
Yet, I genuinely doubt that it's as prominent as trumpeted
by Mambo Racine.


WOMAN #4 wrote:

Those insulting stereotyping and blatant judgments of
Haitian men and women are some of the most venomous
lies I have ever read, and we all know that lies about the
Haitian people abound!

Now, on to her prejudice against the Haitian people and
their ideas about rape:

Most the Haitian women I know would never sit back and
allow something like that, let alone attack a fellow woman
the way the post accused. Yes, they say things about other
women, they call them bouzen, etc.. JUST LIKE
AMERICANS DO. It's not different here when the first
thing either a man or a woman does when they're mad at
a woman is call her slut, whore, bitch etc... It's the same
everywhere. And Haitian women do help each other -- a
LOT. They are more to help each other than American
women are! Good god, I'd rather have a Haitian woman
friend any day. My Haitian friends have been much more
supportive, more caring, more affectionate by leagues!
American women are more afraid of each other by FAR.

Now on to the ideas about children. I will tell you from
very very personal experience here -- rape a Haitian child
and you are going to die. Each and every Haitian mother I
know (quite a few!) will turn absolutely FERAL when it
comes to their children, *especially* their baby girls! Oh
my
god -- one woman I knew found out her daughter had been
molested and she and some of her friends re-arranged the
molester's face for life and this was just a teenage boy
that did this thing. The boy was ostracized from his family,
nobody spoke to him other than to beat the living daylights
out of him and threaten to cut off his gigit if he ever even
thought about doing something so horrid again in all of his
life. I mean it was absolutely shocking the way people
turned on this young man and the severity of the community
in getting the message across that this was NOT acceptable.

"Mambo Racine" couldn't be more wrong in my opinion. The
word "kadejak" is a very very shameful word in Haitian
culture and a person who does it is seen as a dog, a
lowlife... the worst there is.

Haitian women being defined by their vaginas. So how is that
different anywhere else? Of course women define themselves
by how many men want them -- look at a US or European
magazine if you don't believe it. We shave ourselves, die
our hair, wear torture devices on our breasts and feet, and
do all many of ridiculous things to make men want our
vaginas. And how about men? Men don't judge themselves by
the size and strength of their penises? Of course they do.
That's just the name of the game, isn't it?

As for the remark about colonists, etc... I don't think it
had anything to do with Aristide's anti-white, whatever that
stupid accusation was... Using the things Haitian people
have fought and died for in order to amass wealth is
colonialism at its finest.


WOMAN #5 wrote:

It's a smear on Haitian character. A woman's scorn that
lashes out because Manbo Racine found her roots weren't that
deep or authentic. As for the sexual accusations, reprobates
come in all forms. But they are not the acceptable norm. At
least not in the Haitian culture I was raised into.


WOMAN #6 wrote:

Ce sont les mêmes constats et conclusions des organisations
féministes travaillant sur la question de la violence contre
les femmes chez nous. Les différents numéros du journal
publié par ENFOFANM -Ayiti Fanm- vont dans le même sens.
Au point que l'organisation KAY FANM a du organiser un
Tribunal International symbolique en 1996, je crois, pour
mobiliser le pays sur la question, surtout sur l`attitude
des
hommes culturellement éduqués -oui- pour *prendre ce qui
est à eux* et sur l`impunité dont bénéficient le plus
souvent
les violeurs.

Je n`ai aucun projet de diffamation contre notre pays. Je
n'ai qu'une chose à redire à l'opinion de Manbo Racine:
d'après mon expérience d'Haïtienne et d'activiste des droits
des femmes, elle est encore en-deça de la vérité!

Les choses sont bien trop graves pour qu'on soit
complaisant. Nous nous devons de regarder les problèmes en
face afin de les résoudre. Certains hommes ne savent rien de
ce qui est transmis aux femmes par les femmes ainées. Quand
on nous apprend que *sa nou pote a se boutik nou*, de quoi
on parle sinon de *capital goods*?


WOMAN #7 wrote:

I speak as an American with a deep love for Haiti and her
people. I support them in their struggle to live a decent
life with opportunities to improve its quality by any
degree. I see how the cruelties and humiliations they have
suffered threatens to dehumanize them but amazingly, most
of them choose to stay human. This is a great lesson to me
and my admiration is enormous. This is not to say that some
do not succumb to the horrors of continual war against their
being. Their role models are cruel and vicious. They
terrorize, and rape is terrorism. This is not about
sexuality,
it's about power. This is about someone stronger abusing
someone weaker. Many times people with no personal
power, in their frustration, will use any means to feel
powerful, including the rape of someone. No matter how
young, how old, how pretty or not, this woman/girl is a
target because she is vulnerable. This is aberrant behavior,
no doubt. This is not about culture.

Women using their sexuality to charm men into doing what
they want is as old as time and, thank God, still goes on
today. You heard me. We are different beings, men and
women, and knowing how to interact in harmony is a
beautiful dance that most Americans have forgotten, if
they ever knew it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with
it. I'm not talking about sleeping your way to the top, I'm
talking about flirting, building a man up, seeming to offer
something while giving him the smile and lowered eyelashes,
and that's it!

This is not the same thing as tolerating rape as a natural
way of dealing with men. In my opinion, this is not what is
happening. I believe these rapes happen in waves, coinciding
with coups and attempted coups.

I can't say for sure what a Haitian woman's experience is in
Haiti, but my experience was mostly in Port-au-Prince and I
have often said that every Haitian man believes he is a
great lover and in those days, I could walk the streets of
the capital unmolested except for having to hold the lovers
at bay. It was always said with a smile but with no fear
that my wishes would not be respected. I never saw one bit
of evidence that the men I met, in the majority class, were
hostile towards women and I have pretty darn good radar. Nor
were the women fearful in their presence. Easy banter,
joking and pleasant conversation. Nothing like what Mambo
Racine talks about. I am not disputing her experience but
many things depend on how you deal with people. Do you treat
them with respect or disdain? I suspect you get very
different treatment depending on the answer to that
question.

I haven't been to Haiti for several years so I can't speak
of how things are today, I suspect much worse with much
more anger towards people who look like I do. However,
I'll bet that, my politics excluded, I would not have to
worry
about the threat of rape from the men of Haiti. Mostly, you
respect others, they respect you.

I'm sorry for the pain this discussion has caused. However,
it's not a bad thing to discuss and get our views and ideas
out in the open. When society rejects a certain behavior,
out loud, it lessens the occurrences of this behavior. But I
still think rape is just one of the ways the powerful
terrorize and hope to silence the majority. Killing young
men and taking their bodies, never to be seen again, as well
as violently invading a home and arresting old women and
children is more of that terror.


WOMAN #8 wrote:

While the "mambo" is correct that rape against women is a
serious problem in Haiti, she completely undermines her
point by supporting it with gross exaggerations, most of
which are more reflective of her own prejudices/bigotry
than they are of proven realities or trends. She implies
that Haitian men are particularly rape-prone--a ridiculous
insinuation at best. Sure, she supports it with several
anecdotes, but any decent social scientist will tell you
that collections of anecdotes simply can't be used to prove
social trends. And most, moreover, will tell you that the
anecdotes she gives could easily be gathered among certain
social groups in virtually any nation in our world today. Is
she aware that worldwide, 1 of every 3 women is abused
physically and/or sexually (the stat is 1 of every 4 in our
"liberated" United States)? As I say, rape is indeed a
problem in Haiti, but not one that can be either understood
or solved by demonizing Haitian men or Haitian culture.
Or by ignoring the correlation between domestic violence
and political and economic marginalization--but that's a bit
too much to get into here.

A particularly offensive part of her rampage is where she
compares her own treatment by Haitian men to the abuse of
blacks in the U.S. South. ("They view me the same way racist
white Americans of bygone years might have viewed an
'uppity nigger', and to them rape is the ideal means by
which
to 'put me in my role'.") This statement totally ignores her
own position in Haitian society, and all the social,
economic, and political privilege it affords her. As
self-serving as this comparison might be for her, I'm afraid
her situation is NOTHING like the situation of young black
men who were humiliated, jailed, beaten, castrated and/or
hung from trees in my own homeland just a few years ago
(and who, in other ways, continue to be sexually,
physically,
and socially humiliated by many of our social structures
today).

To sum up, in my opinion, what she has written is little
more than a collection of highly prejudiced and ill-founded,
but none the less dangerous, accusations of an entire nation
of people. This is nothing new for Haitians--they get it all
the time. How tragic, though, that one who claims to be a
spiritual guide trained in the wisdom of these very same
people, would repeat the atrocity once again.


WOMAN #9 wrote:

As a Haitian woman I felt deeply offended by Manbo Racine
views on Haitian society.

It is one thing for someone to express their personal
opinion, but to make general statements and attack the
character of an entire people is assuming a very heavy
responsibility that could bear devastating consequences for
Haitian women in Haiti and abroad.

I will only address a few of Manbo Racine comments since
every single one is more outrageous than the other is.

On one side she portrays Haitian men as a group of beasts
who take pleasure in raping and beating women; on the other
side she claims that Haitian women determine their worth by
the number of men who desire their vagina. A couple of
comments later, she deducts: "The fact is that Haitian men
are raised to be rapists. So please, let's not have any more
accusations of rape." Are we then to believe that the
occurrence of rape in Haiti is a non issue that should be
accepted as a fact of life? How sickening!

Manbo Racine states that rape is constantly used in Haiti
against women and girls. According to her, for the right
wing to accuse "Aristide people" of rape or vice-versa is
hypocrisy, because "it is not as though any group of men is
more guilty than any other." Are we having a contest? Rape
is rape, regardless of who commits it. "Chimeres", right
wingers, "tontons makout", if guilty of rape, should all pay
for their actions.

Then talking about how sick Haiti is, she charges that "It
won't change until Haitians want to change, but they don'
t-." How dare she downplay the courage and bravery of this
group of Africans who, against all odds and with the motto
"Libète ou Lanmò", broke the chains of slavery because they
valued change more than their own lives? How can she ignore
the struggle of the multitude that will not be intimidated
and go away? How about the thousands who boldly took to
the streets, under the gun, to fight against oppression? The
Haitian people are still paying the price of change with
their blood and will never stop fighting for change.

During slavery, mass raping of Black women was common
practice. Manbo Racine took great care to identify the
rapists as "white racists Americans of by gone years" and
differentiate them from the rest of white America. Should
not the same rule apply for Haitian rapists? Are all white
Americans raised to rape Black women? Did the raping stop
after slavery?

However, I admit that I entirely agree with Manbo Racine on
one point: no amount of intervention is going to change the
country. Not because the country is sick or because Haitians
do not want change, but because intervention has never been
about bringing changes. Quite the contrary!

Having said that, I think the rape problem in Haiti is
extremely complex. Rape everywhere is an act of violence and
should be addressed as such. In Haiti, violence against
women is intimately connected with oppression, poverty,
injustice and exploitation which have been the fate of most
Haitians but particularly that of women as mothers, "bòn" or
"restavèk".


WOMAN #10 wrote:

I was shocked by what Mambo Racine wrote and the tone
with which she wrote it which told a lot, though I don't
doubt the sincerity of her experience. I have not had this
kind of experience. I am not naive about rape that does
exist in all levels, but not to the degree of what she
expresses,
ever.

The Haitian society has much history that we as white people
have to understand and respect, if not bow down to in
humility to the forgiveness we have been given just being
allowed to walk their land. We, as white Americans, have
much arrogance that is breathed into us at birth and need to
see this log in our eye before we can see twigs in any one
else's eye. If this is not done, Haiti can grind you up and
spit you out and that is it's right. Haiti tests all
foreigners as it should. Haiti tests every day, every second
a foreigner is here through all means. Foreigners can grow
from these tests if they live in the light of respect and
humility, I believe.

In many ancient traditions, when foreigners come into a
new place, they are the ones to learn from it and adapt to
it.
As they say here, if you get to a place where everyone is
dancing on one foot, you too, dance on the same foot.
We Americans, in particular, tend to misunderstand and
therefore be very defensive and angry at the Haitian society
when we feel the distrust or the misunderstanding about
who we are, especially when we don't work at demystifying
ourselves or integrating, learning from and respecting
Haiti's culture, in all its depths.

Haiti is Grann Bridgette, she is willing to suckle us, but
we have to let go of our arrogance and western know it all
before we wither up and die away wallowing in that selfish
arrogance. There is pain involved, but if it's done the
effects can reverberate down the centuries to begin the
healing process that all our ancestors are waiting for.
This is Haiti's gift for the world, it's sad when we miss it
because of the veil over our foreign eyes.


WOMAN #11 wrote:

Truths and untruths
Comments on the text of Racine's post

True: There is a tendency to incriminate the victim when
anything bad happens: "Se ti fi w ye, sa w ta p fe nan lari
a a lè sa a?"

True: Going out at night, wearing mini-skirts or a large
"dekòlte" by a woman are perceived and often interpreted as
deliberated actions to seduce the males.

True: the Haitian society is more permissive for boys than
for girls: "Se ti kòk m genyen. Manman ti poul veye ti
poulèt ou!". Reason: when the boy has sex, there is no
trace; it is the girl that loses her virginity and becomes
pregnant. Thus, it is the girl (and her parents)'
responsibility to protect the girl's honor and what is
considered by most "her most precious gift".

What Manbo Racine reports about the police (both the joke
and the rape) is often true. A lot of Haitian men abuse
their position of power or authority (policemen, priests,
pastors, hougans...) However, I am surprised that Manbo
Racine has been threatened of rape "dozens of times". Not
a lot of women in Haiti have experienced the same.

Untrue: Her statements on women considering their vagina
as "capital goods" and about the curses they use are
certainly
not representative of everyone's social environment in
Haiti.

Tendency to generalize: "every Haitian thinks that his fists
are bigger... every woman thinks that her vagina is more
attractive..." "Haitian men are raised to be rapists". Not
only untrue, but her generalization is so huge that she has
fallen into an awful trap. She is reproducing exactly the
same behavior engaged in by sexists and racists.

Totally untrue when she pretends that "The idea of women
working together to protect each other is not just unheard
of, it is anathema".
How is it that Manbo Racine has been in Haiti for so long
and has never heard of all the "Gwoupman Fanm" ? There
are women's organizations all over the country.

SOFA (Solidarite Fanm Ayisyen) targeted rape (Kadejak) as
its Number One priority struggle for several years.

During the coup d'etat of 1991, several cases of rape were
brought to the Human Rights organizations. Several of these
cases were later brought to the Truth and Justice
Commission. This proves that rape is not accepted as normal
behavior by the Haitian people.

In an attempt to fight against impunity, several women
associations (SOFA, KAY FANM, ENFOFANM and others
have organized, a few years ago (1996, 1997 or 1998), an
International Court of Justice to judge those crimes against
women that had not been sanctioned by the Haitian Justice
system.

The same organizations joined the Ministry for Women's
Affairs and the female members of the Parliament to revise
and change all the laws that treated women in a
discriminatory way.

Two or three years ago, some of the above mentioned
organizations ran a big campaign in solidarity with a little
girl who had been raped by a prison guard while she was in
the Women's jail in Port-au-Prince. The campaign was both
against the man's behavior and the State apparatus that
allowed something like that to happen. They also brought
the case to a Haitian Court of Justice. I don't remember if
the man was jailed but he lost his job at the prison and was
forced to assume some responsibilities.

What did the author want to achieve with her text? Certainly
not to help Haitian men and women! Her text reminds me and
can be compared to the declaration made by an American that
the Haitians have something wrong with their genes.

The text reveals more about the personality of the author
than it does of the Haitian people.

Manbo Racine takes advantage of being in Haiti to try to
shut the mouth of other people. She has been there since so
and so.. As a result, she is supposed to know better and
understand better the Haitian people. She truly believes
that she knows it all. What a pity!

What is more unjust is the fact that most of the people that
Manbo Racine talks about, have no idea what she is writing
about them (most may have never seen a computer, may not
be able to read and certainly would not understand English).

One thing that Manbo Racine has still to learn: when a
country
and a people welcome you and let you make yourself at home
on their soil, the very least that you should do is to pay
Respect
to them.