#4225: Antoine comments on Village Voice's article (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Guy Antoine <GuyAntoine@windowsonhaiti.com>


"I'm extremely upset, but I'll tell you one thing, and I'm gonna 
spell it out for you, in Creole. B-A-F-F-I-M M-A-M-Y-A-N.
You will have to answer to Baffim Mamyan. You don't know 
what I mean, you will know. . . . This is the last person in your 
life you are going to . . . treat like this, abuse like this, verbally,
socially. . . . Baffim Mamyan will have to answer with you. 
And I'm not joking. I'm from Haiti. I was born in Gonaive, 
and Gonaive people NEVER, NEVER play with people. I'm 
scientific; you may laugh as much as you want. But spiritually, 
you and I, we have a rendezvous. Never forget that in your life."

Chilling story...  Besides the sheer irrationality that runs through it
and that plays havoc on progressive intercultural relations, and
besides the stubbornness of the reporter in representing Vodou
as nothing other than glorified witchcraft, who is B-a-f-f-i-m
M-a-m-y-a-n?

Inquiring minds want to know.  Then again, perhaps the ignorant
among us are truly blessed.  In some fields of pseudo-science,
anyway.

God, whoever you may be, protect us from Baffim Mamyan
and the nightmares he might inflict on those among us whose
minds are hotly receptive to the occult and the irrational!

The story of Mrs. Marie Dorismond though is a poignant 
portrayal of a most courageous, grieving mother who lost what
can never be replaced to brutality run rampant in New York 
City  under the administration of a most insensitive mayor and
a bumbling police commissioner.  Her attributions to The Lord
of her faith ('If you touch my hair, you're gonna pay for it.') 
appear to be of an order less than Mamyanesque, and rather
the expression of someone who has an undying faith that Justice
will finally prevail. A sense of justice that is curiously not
uncommon among people who have been chronically deprived
of such.  Mrs. Dorismond has been in fact a profile of Dignity
and Courage in Pain.  May her story emerge unscathed from 
the sordidness of the so-called "voodoo justice" that has been
wrapped around it.

Guy S. Antoine
Look through the Windows on Haiti - www.WindowsonHaiti.com
--------------------------------------------------
This was a comment about:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0024/noel.shtml
Police Brutality and Voodoo Justice
by Peter Noel
Rudy, Race, and Religion in the Wake of Louima and Dorismond