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20741: Blanchet: Fw: Haiti: two unhappy centuries of freedom (fwd)



From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>

From: "Le Monde diplomatique" <english@Monde-diplomatique.fr>

>
>    Le Monde diplomatique
>
>    -----------------------------------------------------
>
>    March 2004
>
> 'THE REVOLUTION SWEPT AWAY THE PAST WITHOUT PROVIDING A MODEL TO BUILD
>                              A NEW STATE'
>
>                Haiti: two unhappy centuries of freedom
>      ___________________________________________________________
>
>    President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is in exile but he was not sent
>      there by the Haitian people. They have watched as Aristide's
>    band of armed thugs was replaced by those who support a movement
>     with no democratic legitimacy, backed by foreign governments.
>       The present power vacuum is just another crisis in Haiti's
>                    200-year history of instability.
>
>                                                     by André Linard
>      ___________________________________________________________
>
>      "WE WILL not celebrate Haitian independence, because to stage
>      a party in our penniless misery we should have to dip into
>      the peasant's purse and make the people eat their last
>      emaciated cow. We will not celebrate: lest, while we sip wine
>      from golden chalices and drunkenly toast the holy year 1804
>      in our sumptuous salons at the palace, the impoverished
>      peasantry, the dejected population, might curse
>      independence." This quote is circulating in Haiti in its
>      bicentenary year and could almost have been written to cover
>      the current chaotic situation. In fact, it is a century old
>      and was new when the first black republic was only 100 years
>      old. Its author, Dr Rosalvo Bobo, also said: "Frankly, when I
>      hear the words the Haitian people or nation, I am overcome by
>      irony. We are no nation, just isolated groups and individuals
>      ruled by one stigmatised group we call a government."
>
>      Those who have become opponents of the current regime in
>      Haiti express broadly the same sentiments. Many, including
>      writers and artists Raoul Peck, Gary Victor, Dany Laferrière
>      and Lyonel Trouillot, refused to have anything to do with
>      "official celebrations that were no more than another move in
>      the government's vain quest for legitimacy" (1).
>
>      Haiti's independence in 1804 left it isolated and out of step
>      with an international community that was fundamentally
>      hostile to the new regime. The Haitians had broken free of
>      slavery while the practice was at its height (it wasn't
>      properly abolished in Cuba or Brazil for another 80 years).
>      Haiti had escaped the grip of the French just as their empire
>      was being established in West Africa. Although the rest of
>      Latin America wanted independence, in Haiti the colonisers
>      themselves had taken over. Just as the modern nation-state
>      was becoming the norm in Europe, Haiti had set itself up as a
>      state - without actually constituting a nation: its territory
>      was populated by separate communities of distinct origin and
>      without any common organisational model.
>
>      Haiti was also an economic anomaly. While large plantations
>      on vast estates dominated the rest of Central and South
>      America, Haiti, for historical reasons, favoured
>      smallholdings.
>
>      On 19 November 1803 Napoleon's troops in Haiti surrendered.
>      Independence was declared on the first day of the new year.
>      But before then two different socio-economic plans existed,
>      which it is important to examine to understand today's
>      situation. One, supported by the most famous independence
>      leader, the "black Spartacus", Toussaint Louverture,
>      envisaged an economy based on large plantations geared
>      towards exports. The other, backed by the popular movements
>      of the time, preferred small-scale farming and a limited
>      commercial economy.
>
>      Toussaint won, explains Ernst Mathurin of Gramir, an NGO that
>      helps Haitian farmers, but the struggle between the two
>      ideals has lasted for 200 years. He says: "After 50 years, a
>      compromise emerged: the peasants could develop their
>      smallholdings while the elite focused on trade. Exploitation
>      was no longer happening on the land, but rather when products
>      were sold." This shaky compromise ended with the 1915
>      invasion by the United States, which pushed the Haitian
>      economy into an agricultural export-based model.
>
>      This unresolved conflict is not the only explanation for the
>      current mess. Another factor is the enduring weakness of the
>      state; this allowed oppressive rulers to dominate. Jacky
>      Dahomay (2) expresses this clearly: "Freedom needs an
>      institutional framework. But the young Haitian state's
>      weakness was that it lacked precisely that - an institutional
>      dimension to freedom. The rule of law has never been the
>      basis of political power in Haiti. The state inherited this
>      conflation of legitimacy and force from the colonial regime."
>
>      Mathurin agrees: "The Haitian state has always been weak. The
>      revolution swept away the past without providing any model on
>      which to base the construction of a new state."
>
>      In this context, adds Dahomay, Haiti can be seen as "the
>      world's only heroic nation - the essence of heroic power is
>      to assume legitimacy without justification other than the
>      leader's arbitrary will. A hero cannot tolerate the presence
>      of other heroes." Once he has freedom on his side "he has no
>      need to leave any freedom to others". This image of the
>      leader as hero informs the whole of Haitian history. The
>      just-deposed president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, used the idea
>      by claiming a symbolic kinship with Toussaint Louverture.
>      This explains how he managed to flout the rules and increase
>      his personal powers, while enjoying unquestioning popularity
>      among much of the Haitian population even after his downfall.
>
>      Throughout the history of Haiti, says Dahomay, "the prince"
>      has held "a power of life and death as though designed to
>      maintain a permanent state of insecurity". To wield this
>      power, he then has "to pull from society individuals, often
>      bandits, to carry out his deathly business". For François
>      Duvalier, these were the tontons macoutes (bogeymen) (3).
>      Aristide's posses, sometimes called chimères, had a similar
>      function. They attacked hundreds of student demonstrators in
>      the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince, as uniformed
>      police looked on. It was hardly surprising that the
>      government was reticent in adopting the recent Organisation
>      of American States (OAS) resolution on disarming armed gangs.
>
>      For one of Haiti's finest writers, Lyonel Trouillot, "To be
>      Haitian means to forge your identity with neither peers nor
>      solidarity: you are not my equal and I will not be like
>      you"(4). A former minister, Jean-Claude Bajeux, says: "We
>      reject critics as anti-patriotic. This is expressed, whatever
>      is at stake and including material agreements, through
>      physical elimination." There is no doubt as to what the
>      leaders of popular organisations mean when they call their
>      opponents anti-patriotic low-lifes who want Aristide to go,
>      and declare themselves prepared to defend him to the death:
>      they mean a death threat against their opponents. The slogan
>      "Aristide or death" that adorned Port-au-Prince's walls has a
>      sinister double meaning. Its authors risked death when
>      Aristide was overthrown just as much as his critics risked
>      being killed.
>
>      Change is in the air, but many feel that things can only get
>      worse. "All hope is lost," says Bajeux. "Rationally speaking,
>      this country cannot survive without a massive investment
>      whose benefits might be reaped in 20 or 25 years' time. But
>      we have neither investment capacity nor the capacity to
>      implement a development plan."
>
>      In 1990 Aristide moved from a parish presbytery to the
>      presidential palace on a wave of popular support. Then
>      widespread disillusionment spread everywhere, though it was
>      not universal. He was attacked for setting up an
>      anti-democratic regime and accused of enriching himself
>      through illicit trafficking. The public was divided between
>      three explanations. Some feel they were conned by Aristide in
>      1990. A slightly less widely shared view is that he was
>      changed by the 1991 coup that ousted him, his exile in the US
>      and return to power in 1994. There are those who saw him as a
>      victim of constraints: "se pa fôt li (it's not his fault)",
>      they say in Creole, preferring to blame both his entourage
>      and the international community (5).
>
>      But these are crude analyses. The reality is that his
>      election was merely a change in government, not, as many had
>      hoped, a change in society. Haitians' lack of prospects
>      inevitably make them disillusioned. "We live in a passport
>      culture," says Philippe Mathieu, a former university
>      vice-chancellor, "Haiti is a nation of migrants." For many,
>      hope lies elsewhere, on sugar plantations in the Dominican
>      Republic or building sites or the streets of New York, Miami
>      or Montreal. Emigration was already commonplace by the 20th
>      century, when many left for neighbouring countries such as
>      Cuba, where big plantations needed workers.
>
>      "Those young people who are a little thoughtful want to
>      leave," says a rural nurse. It is too difficult to get by at
>      home. The local way of life is viewed with contempt. Everyone
>      dreams of modernity North American-style - a myth kept alive
>      by the money, goods and pictures that exiled Haitians send
>      back. "Migration means moving from the country to the city,"
>      says Mathurin. "Rural life and agricultural work come to be
>      despised." The next step is contempt for Haiti.This makes the
>      consolidation of national identity impossible.
>
>      "We have a language, a country, a history that we should make
>      more of, but the bond that makes a nation is lacking," says
>      Michèle Pierre-Louis, head of the Fokal cultural foundation.
>      Many feel that the bicentenary could have been an opportunity
>      to make that bond. "We could have done something good," says
>      Bajeux, "got together friends of Haiti, drawn up a new social
>      contract."
>
>      Some NGOs are trying, within modest means, to push in this
>      direction, if only to keep Haiti's history alive and give its
>      youth something to identify with (although the present chaos
>      has interrupted everything). Fokal is an example of such an
>      initiative, as is the Centre for socio- economic research and
>      training run by historian Suzy Castor. "We won't be
>      celebrating," she says, "but we will try to help define who
>      we really are. Not in reference to the past, but with a view
>      to liberation." And to making sure that Bobo's analysis is
>      not still valid in 2104.
>        ________________________________________________________
>
>      * André Linard is a journalist with the InfoSud-Syfia agency
>      in Brussels
>
>      See also : Haiti: a modern timeline
>
>      (1) Declaration of 1 October 2003, Agence Alterpresse.
>
>      (2) Jacky Dahomay, "La tentation tyrannique Haitienne",
>      Chemins Critiques, Port-au-Prince, vol V, n° 1, January 2001.
>
>      (3) Officially called national security volunteers, the
>      tontons macoutes were a militia created by François Duvalier
>      as a counterweight to the army's influence.
>
>      (4) Lyonel Trouillot, Haiti, (re)penser la citoyenneté,
>      Editions HSI, Port-au-Prince, 2001.
>
>      (5) Haiti is still subject to an international trade embargo
>      imposed after its failure to abide by OAS resolutions on
>      democratisation. See Paul Farmer, "Haiti: short and bitter
>      lives", Le Monde Diplomatique, English language edition, July
>      2003.
>
>
>
>                                       Translated by Gulliver Cragg
>
>
>        ________________________________________________________
>
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>
>    <http://MondeDiplo.com/2004/03/05haiti>