29030: Karen Ashmore: Book Review of Haiti, Rising Flames from Burning Ashes (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Karen Ashmore

Here is a review of a book written by one of our fellow list members. Book
Review of Haiti, Rising Flames from Burning Ashes: Haiti the Phoenix by
Hyppolite Pierre University Press of America, 2006

A Passionate Portrait of Haiti"
by Adam Minson and Dan Erikson

Link:  <http://www.thedialogue.org/publications/oped/july06/minson_0724.asp>
http://www.thedialogue.org/publications/oped/july06/minson_0724.asp

Hyppolite Pierre has emerged as one of the most thoughtful and provocative
young Haitian scholars in the United States who have been trying to advance
to solutions to the plight of their home country. In his new book, Pierre,
who is the adjunct professor of comparative politics at the Community
College of Baltimore, investigates Haitian history to identify the origins
of the country's current political situation. Not surprisingly, he argues
that Haiti's development has been crippled by the embrace of predatory
political traditions, and he offers fresh historical examples that Haitian
leaders might follow.

Pierre's diagnosis of Haiti's political ailments is dead-on. This battered
country has suffered from the repeated triumph of opportunism over
pragmatism, resulting social and political mistrust, the reliance on
violence as the ultimate problem-solver, and the centralization of power.

But is Haiti really that unique? While Pierre's coverage of the political
history is exhaustive and well-analyzed, his insistence on Haiti's
historical uniqueness fails to explain why many now-successful post-colonial
republics were also born in violent revolution and struggled through years
of brutish, mistrustful, and corrupt politics.

Why does Haiti's history hang so heavily around its neck? What truly sets
Haiti apart from much of the developing world isn't its frequent political
upheaval, but rather its harrowing economic backslide and economic
degradation over the last 200 years - exacerbated by the episodic
intervention of the great powers in the affairs of this small state created
by slaves who fought for their freedom. Throughout its history, the notion
of Haitian sovereignty has been a notably flexible concept both within and
outside Haiti. Pierre makes this link between the political and economic
roots of violence when he writes that "the obsession with political power
resulting from the weaknesses in the economy has always been so intense that
vital questions are rarely explored."

Pierre's book was published just a few months before Rene Preval was
inaugurated for a second time as Haiti's president, thus earning a second
chance to become the most democratic and perhaps the most pragmatic head of
state in modern Haiti. But in the absence of a new social contract or a
viable political compromise, populist appeals will continue to resonate with
the millions of Haitians who live on less then $2 a day, yet Haiti
desperately needs a political pragmatist who can make peace with the
country's fractious elites and win the confidence of the international
community to maintain the flow of foreign aid. The electoral victory of René
Preval may offer the chance for greater democratic stability, but it remains
to be seen whether the U.S. and the international community can break the
cycle of intervention and neglect and work effectively with the new Haitian
leadership.

Pierre concludes his book by writing that "Haiti is like a Phoenix buried
under her own ashes, barely visible and looking vile. But under these ashes
hides a dim but brash, unyielding and consuming fire." Pierre means the
metaphor as a symbol of hope, but it can be easily be seen as one of
despair. Are the Haitian people doomed to choose between ashes and fire? The
author closes the book by invoking the words of former Haitian leader
Alexandre Pétion that "freedom means freedom." But Pétion's political career
began with the assassination of Haiti's first leader, Jean-Jacques
Dessalines, in 1806. As Pierre passionately argues in his new work, although
more than two hundred years have passed since gaining independence, most
Haitians can barely perceive their freedom in the midst of the lawlessness
and deprivation that threatens to keep both democracy and development at
bay.

Adam Minson was program assistant to the Haiti program of the Inter-American
Dialogue from 2003 - 2006. Dan Erikson is senior associate for U.S. policy
and director of Caribbean programs at the Dialogue.