24120: Beckett (discuss) social contract in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

FROM: Greg Beckett <becektt@uchicago.edu>

Recent news about the civil lawsuit (in US courts) against Toto
Constant, as well as the new report on human rights conditions and
violations in Haiti (recently posted to the list) bring a host of
fundamental issues to the foreground again, after years of silencing
them. Perhaps we can collectively try to think through these issues
on this list? For what it is worth, here is my two cents worth....

A while ago now, Michel-Rolph Trouillot diagnosed what he saw as the
major block in Haitian society as a disjuncture between the State and
the Nation. At the time, he was writing about the Duvalier regime
(which greatly exacerbated long-standing problems in Haiti), but in
many ways his analysis still holds. For all the talk in the past few
years of a "social contract" (most prominently by the Group 184),
there has been very little discussion of what a social contract
means, what it is, and what it should be. Liberal political theory
has often treated it as something that happens organically, when
economic and political conditions are just right, or right enough
that rational, individual actors can freely choose to submit to the
state in order to guarantee rights over, among other things, private
property.

I wonder how much liberal political theory even makes sense in Haiti?
The current discussions (or the ones that I am most familiar with)
tend to treat Haiti as one of an increasingly/alarmingly rising
number of "failed states." (Or worse, as Robert Rotberg terms it,
Haiti is one of those perennially weak states that cannot even get
failure quite right.) Aside from the obvious policy implications of
these academic arguments (e.g., legitimizing, even calling for new
forms of military "intervasions" around the world), state-failure
theory already presupposes a certain model of the State (as the
purveyor of "political goods," like :"security") and of political
subjects (citizens of a Nation, with a host of constitutionally
recognized rights and freedoms).

But what if we rejected this ideal notion of politics and looked at
actually existing State forms? In Haiti, to do so would seriously
preclude one from saying that the state has failed, since the State
has excelled at doing what it has historically been designed to do --
exploit the masses, facilitate oligarchies, and use violence against
certain sectors of the population. Please don't misunderstand me -- I
do not mean to argue for the legitimacy of the Haitian State. Rather,
I seek to more adequately understand the problems that we seek to
name with terms like "state failure" or "lack of social contract."

I recently read some statistics about the population in Haiti, which,
if true (and I suspect that they are), point to a matter of great
importance. I read that at least half of the population (about 4
million people) are under the age of 20, which means that they were
born after 1986, and know only the kinds of politics that
characterize this particular period of Haitian history. This is
crucial because it seems to me that the political disputes that are
driving Haiti right now are those of an earlier generation -- that
is, they have come down to us from the Duvalier regime, and the
battles to either keep it going in under a new guise, or totally
re-order social, economic, and political life in Haiti. It should go
without saying which of those alternatives is winning out these days.

So, here is the main point I would like to discuss: What kinds of
reconciliation(s) are needed to suture the profound and deep rifts in
Haiti society? How can we fully include all Haitians, as citizens?
The end of Apartheid in South Africa was greatly facilitated by the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Haiti had one back in the 1990s
too, but as far as I can tell, it did not amount to much. Aristide
saw reparations as part of this reconciliation (that is, he saw
reconciliation and truth as not only a national, but an international
issue). That now seems to be cast off the table, both by the Haitian
elite and interim government, and by the governments of Canada, the
US, and France. What forms of reconciliation are left to us? Haitian
courts have, for whatever reasons, not be able to manage the tasks --
either do to the withholding of documents and information by other
governments (Jodel Chamblian and the FRAPH documents), or because
those meant to stand trial get out of the country (Guy Phillip,
Prosper Avril), or because of corruption, intimidation, and so on
(Jean Dominique assassination trial). How do we 'write' a social
contract that will really facilitate democracy -- understood as
radical social IN-clusion -- in Haiti?

Over 15 years, and several regimes later, Trouillot's words still
ring true: "The long overdue reconciliation of state and nation
requires the fundamental understanding that, in Haiti, the peasantry
[we should include here the urban poor] IS the nation."