Haiti's two unfinished universal and national revolutions... ...The one of 1804 destroyed for itself and for humanity the gangrene of slavery of man by man ...and the revolution of 1986, which brought an end for itself and also for humanity the stronghold of the dictators... ...As such, the Revolution of 1804 and the one closest to us in 1986 will be no more vain conquests, an incomplete rupture; Haiti will experience its golden age -- the one it has been tackling for over five hundred years!

Haiti: An unfinished revolution

By Jean H Charles


Haiti had two unfinished universal and national revolutions. The one of 1804 destroyed for itself and for humanity the gangrene of slavery of man by man and the revolution of 1986, which brought an end for itself and also for humanity the stronghold of the dictators. After 1986, the non-violent mass movement that forced the departure of Duvalier has educated those in the Philippines, Poland and Nicaragua. It continues to educate today in the Arab world, where Tunisia gave the signal to eradicate almost all Arab dictators, while the Syrian people today continue to fight to unseat their dictator.

However, after 1804 and twenty five years after the end of the Duvalier era, Haiti is still a flop, to use the language of a colleague who has nostalgia for a former Port-au-Prince.

"The former Champ de Mars, the place of choice for families to relax and stroll, this place of my youth when I studied every night for years ... is no more. It is handed over to dealers (badly) boucanés, to car scrubbers, to thieves and phone robbers, it is hard not to remember the effective management of the city by the mayor Franck Romain in the early 1980s during the Duvalier era.”

In an essay published recently in Caribbean News Now and reproduced in the Nassau Guardian, “Haiti’s failed 25 years experience with democracy,” I decried the failure of the democratic era in Haiti. The achievements of the Revolution of 1986 were as short-lived as the Revolution of 1804, when the revolutionary experience ended in 1806 after the assassination of its founder, Jean Jacques Dessalines.

The signatories of the Act of Independence of 1804 did not agree to build a nation that would be hospitable to all. Those who had in mind to remove the settlers to settle themselves had the upper hand in 1806. They built a Haiti close to their vision. They used education or the non access to education as a barrier to prevent the masses from getting into the path of civilization.

The mass of slaves who took refuge in the hills of Haiti in 1804 is now, two hundred years later, the peasants, uneducated and without economic support from the state of Haiti. Now they rush to the gates of the capital and the provincial towns, occupying any empty space and compromising any planned organized urban development.

The Revolution of 1986, with the new 1987 Constitution, should have put Haiti on the true course. It was different. The organic institutions of Haiti such as the Catholic Church, the army, the Voodoo and even the press have failed the country.

First of all, the army seized the Revolution, not to bring Haiti to where milk and honey abound but into anarchy and a democratic spree, with people who could neither read nor write and could not understand that with rights also come responsibilities. Neo-liberalism, with its doctrine that growth can happen without personal wealth for all, was installed as the ruler of the economic game. The local economy, under immeasurable international influences, soon collapsed under a blitz from the Americans, the Chinese and now the Dominicans. Most of the local industries were closed, to be relocated in the Dominican Republic. The Haitian rice industry, freshly rebuilt by Taiwan, was destroyed by imported rice from Arkansas.

The Catholic Church, Breton in its origin that had accompanied the young Haiti in 1860 to the table where the bread of education and training was delivered in the towns, is now in the hands of the native clergy. It should have extended to the rural counties the mission of continuing the civilizing action started by the Breton clergy.

Instead it gave a rather poisoned apple, packaged with liberation theology and the venom of the social power of dissension, hatred of one against other and a race to the bottom, where the sense of ethics, lack of patriotism, organized theft of state assets are now the rule of the game. From the kingdom of meritocracy we went to the realm of the mediocrity of meritocracy. The government, which includes the executive, the judiciary, the legislature and the public service, confuses the brazen search of self-interest to service to the public good.

Voodoo, still underground, has not yet found its St Patrick to transform this rich cultural heritage into a national and universal mythology to enrich the imagination of young Haitians, as would be the world's youth, and as the Iliad and the Odyssey did by transforming those seeking great human values that are called courage, resilience, friendliness and brotherhood and joie de vivre.

And the people who believe in voodoo as an act of faith would be endowed with true antidotes that are called education, health, and training and economic development, freeing the devotees from the opium of the pseudo-religious constraints.

Finally, the press has become the country's image, a press bidonvillisée, rising one above the other, not to help each other to go higher but following the experience of Rwanda, where violence has led an entire nation to tear each other apart without even asking the question why?

This essay is not part of a series to lament once more about the troubles and the misfortunes of Haiti. It is rather a call to action for Haiti to return to its civilizing mission of yesteryear. It seeks men and women who want to add value in building a Haiti fit for Toussaint Louverture, Jean Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe. A Haiti that cares first for those most in need of relief and support: the peasant masses confused and uneducated.

They are now at the door of the cities in rags and tatters, under-capitalized by neo-liberalism, recklessness national governments, and the revenge of nature that was not protected by a benevolent hand. Uneducated and untrained, they doubt even their own humanity as they seek shelter anywhere in defiance of the human sense of self-preservation.

I propose that:

• The ONI (the Office of National Identification) should be found in all communal sections providing to each farmer a Haitian national identification.

• the Haitian government, through the Department of Agriculture, Planning, Interior, the Ministry for the Status of peasant and the Ministry of Extreme Poverty, the Ministry of Environment and Social Affairs and Fayes accompanies the myriad of NGOs to initiate a massive operation of jobs, literacy and training in all areas and all communal sections directed mainly to agriculture, reforestation, livestock and crafts.

• The program of literacy, basic education and continuing civics becomes not only a responsibility for the state but also of the elite. Man and women must become Haitian citizens, aware of their rights but also aware of their civic duty to pay their taxes and provide for the common good.

• The government should engage in its kingly responsibility to transform the state into a nation where Haiti would provide sound institutions and good infrastructure throughout the republic from the city to the countryside.

• The elite, those who have succeeded in spite of the unfavorable national conditions, reach out to those who are left behind to create a nation where living together is an experience shared and supported by all.

• The Haitian Diaspora must stop or rather amplify its vocation of monthly subsistence to commit to a partnership of nation-building and sustainable endogenous industries.

• The NGOs in general and MINUSTHA cease their particular industry that exists for itself, not for those under their mission, and funds to serve.

As such the Revolution of 1804 and the one closest to us in 1986 will be no more vain conquests, an incomplete rupture; Haiti will experience its golden age -- the one it has been tackling for over five hundred years!

December 08, 2012

Caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

The British Caribbean and its history

By Franklyn W Knight:


The English-speaking population of the Caribbean represents less than 20 per cent of the conventionally defined region. That definition describes a Caribbean composed of the island chain from the Bahamas and the Dutch ABC islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao plus the mainland enclaves of Belize, Guyana and Suriname. Sometimes Bermuda is included although its 68,000 additional souls hardly change the proportion.

In the 1980s a new political definition became popular. It added the Central American states but omitted Cuba, displaying more the political bias of the United States of America rather than the reality of Caribbean affairs and the peculiar history of the region. The driving force behind the conventional definition of the Caribbean was a certain uniformity of history. The states of the conventional Caribbean were inordinately influenced by the interrelated sugar revolutions that convulsed the region between the 17th and the 19th centuries.

These sugar revolutions radically transformed the political, social, occupational, economic, demographic, and environmental structure of most of the Caribbean islands. Sugar was the principal driving force but it was not the only one and not all the islands succumbed to those revolutions. The massive importation of Africans - more than 10 million between 1518 and 1870 - made possible the transformation of the vast region between the northeast of Brazil, the Antilles, the Magdalena-Cauca river valleys of Colombia and a huge swath of the southern part of what today is called the United States of America. But African slavery affected every country in the Americas to some degree.

Slavery, of course, existed long before Christopher Columbus and his ill-fated caravels wandered into the Caribbean. Slaves constituted an integral part of Roman expansion and colonisation of most of Western Europe. The preferred slaves of Romans came from the region that today comprises Germany. But the word itself derives from the Slavic peoples who formed the greater proportion of people who were traded in the slave markets of the Mediterranean. Europeans continued to enslave one another until the middle of the 19th century, although mostly in Russia. And Muslim states enslaved captured Europeans in the Mediterranean until the Napoleonic Wars.

African and indigenous American peoples also enslaved one another. Throughout the continent of Africa, stronger states subordinated weaker states and subjected their conquered peoples to some form of slavery. Among other occupations, male slaves were employed as warriors or protectors of harems and religious sites. In Mexico a system of slavery called Tlacotli existed until the arrival of Hernán Cortés in 1521.

Slavery in the Americas reconstructed by the Europeans and their slaves finds no precedence anywhere else in the world. Neither in Europe, Africa nor among the indigenous societies of the Americas did the practice demonstrate the rigidity and suffocating mutually reinforcing cleavages developed after 1518. Only in the European American colonies were race and colour essential aspects of enslavement. Only in the Americas did slavery perform a vitally important economic function, assets that could independently generate wealth. The American slave society and the American slave-holding society were fundamentally different.

Nevertheless, the way the history of the Caribbean is taught, especially in the British Caribbean, leaves much to be desired. It tends to be excessively centred on the British Caribbean experience and neglects the integral connection with the non-Anglophone Caribbean or with the wider Americas.

To begin, not all Africans arrived in the Americas as merchandise. Several Hispanised Africans arrived with the Iberians in the first century of conquest and colonisation. Columbus recruited travel companions such as Juan Garrido and Pedro Alonso Niño from among the large free black population that lived in Andalucía, in cities from Málaga to Huelva. Nuflo de Olano who accompanied Vasco Nuñez de Balboa across the Isthmus of Panama was probably a bought African slave. Juan Valiente who accompanied Hernán Cortés to Mexico was described as black. So was Estebanico who wandered for 10 years with Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca from Florida to Mexico by way of Louisiana and Texas.

These free blacks, like their fellow adventurers, spawned a large, free, mixed population wherever they went. There were blacks and descendants of blacks all across the Americas who were never enslaved. They formed pockets of free population in cities, especially port cities like Havana, New Orleans, Vera Cruz, Porto Bello, Cartagena, Lima, Salvador de Bahia and Buenos Aires. And the town of El Cobre in eastern Cuba had a town council of freed and semi-free residents between 1680 and 1780.

During the 19th century another group of free Africans arrived along with Chinese and Indians from the Asian subcontinent to assist in the transition from slave labour to wage labour across the Caribbean. While smaller than the imported numbers of the commercial transatlantic slave trade, these immigrants are a part of the history that should not be neglected.

The massive importation of Africans was necessary because, unlike the narratives of Bartolomé de las Casas, the population of the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean in 1492 was not as large as the friar supposed. The Caribbean islands may have had a combined population of just about one million. That population could not support the increased labour demands of export-oriented plantations. The decline of the Native American population between 1500 and about 1650 was extremely complex and not the result of the single or simplistic explanation of Spanish genocide. Indeed, genocide is an inappropriate description for the decline of the Tainos of the Antilles.

But slavery is not the only theme in which moving the boundaries beyond time and space offers rewards. Hispaniola had a relatively early sugar complex - as early as 1512. The distillation of rum has a history preceding the English arrival in Barbados. Rum was distilled in the 13th century by Benedictine monks in Lebanon. Maroons were not really instrumental in the process of disintegration of the Caribbean slave society, and their role in the Haitian revolution seems highly exaggerated. Finally, the peasant society in the Caribbean goes back to the 16th century.

July 07, 2010

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International

Port au Prince, Haiti: Nou Bouke! We are exhausted!

By Jean H Charles:


This graffiti is now covering most of the remaining walls of Port au Prince, Haiti. During election time, candidates commandeered slogans and graffiti on the walls for a price. This slogan Nou Bouke (pronounced key) has nothing to do with politics; it is the cry of exasperation of a people that have endured misery, deception, earthquake, hurricane and ill governance constantly for the past sixty years!

I received last week a challenge from a brother from Jamaica now living in the Turks and Caicos asking me to clarify or expand on the issue of governance and democracy in Haiti, the relevance of the demise from Haiti and the forced exile to South Africa of Jean Bertrand Aristide and last but not least the issue of redemption to Haiti from France. I welcome the challenge hoping neither of us will be a winner but the larger community will benefit in knowledge and understanding from the exchange.

On the issue of redemption for past slavery, one will be surprised to find out I have single-handed initiated the process for putting on the table the issue of redemption for Haiti. It all started during a cursory visit to a bookstore in downtown Port au Prince. I came upon an issue of Paris Match where I read that a legislator from Martinique has succeeded in having the French Parliament pass a resolution condemning slavery as an act of cruel and inhuman treatment inflicted by France upon million of slaves. My legal mind told me that France has opened a hole that will make it liable and vulnerable to demand for compensation from former colonies in general and from Haiti in particular.

In a follow up conversation with my father, a retired chief judge of Haiti Civil Court and past Dean of a law school, I revived the discussion concerning the pros and cons of such an approach. On a strict construction of the law, the doctrine of clean hands and the doctrine of viability of an action in criminal matters are in full force. France cannot continue to benefit from the billion of dollars in retribution paid by Haiti while it has enjoyed the forced labor and the sweat of generations of slaves enriching named French citizens individually and the nation as whole for several centuries. Haiti has conquered its freedom on its own, paying a price in gold to have that freedom recognized by France is unconscionable morally and it is illegal now, considering the resolution passed by the French Parliament. There was a guest in my home at that conversation; he was a personal advisor of Jean Bertrand Aristide. He brought the issue to the President, the rest was history.

President Aristide could have called upon the best legal minds of the world, including those from France to make the legal case for Haiti for retribution in light of this new development. He chose instead to pursue a political and demagogic road poisoning for ever the legal advantage. At the other end of the spectrum France and Belgium owe the rest of their former colonies an obligation to help extract the virus of distrust, dissent and internal fratricide injected into the ethos and the culture of most of the former French and Belgium colonies. From Congo to Madagascar, from Haiti to Gabon and from Senegal to Tunisia, the story is the same with some variances, France meddling and the sequels of French culture is at the heart of the poor governance, the internal fighting and the robbing of the natural resources depriving the citizens of enjoying in peace their God given national endowment.

Should President Aristide have been deposed from power and sent to exile? This debate will continue for generations yet the truth of the matter is Aristide was deposed by a popular movement of the people of Haiti led by students who found his policies of dividing the already disjointed Haitian family too much to endure. As usual, France and the United States have come at the end to claim the paternity of the movement and lead the transition to their own advantage. Sending Aristide to exile was a small price to pay to bring about solace to million of Haitian families.

Under the Duvalier regime, the repression was codified and led by uniformed tonton macoutes, under Arisitide, the repression, the kidnapping and the killings were done by thugs, hired renegade paid by the government with not even a uniform to claim the appearance of a state enterprise. His complete disregard for law and order was putting the nation at its core into the path of disintegration. This axiom enshrined in the Preamble of the, Constitution of the United States is of value to the people of Haiti as well as the people of the world:

“All men are created equal; they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute a new government. It is the duty of the people to rise and to defend themselves against that tyrant.”

We often tend to follow the politics that the mice are smaller than the rats, as such we can live with the mice. Duvalier’s son was better than Duvalier therefore we can live with him. Arisitide was better than Duvalier fils therefore he is acceptable. Preval is better than Aristide, we should give him a chance.

The principle of democracy is a simple one. I have often called upon Ernest Renan as my preferred prophet for spreading the message. You shall defend your frontiers and your territory with all your might! You shall instill into the souls of your citizen the love and the admiration of the founding fathers! You shall take all the necessary measures to insure that no one is left behind!

In Haiti today the people are crying nou Bouke! nou Bouke! We have enough of this government that is interested in perpetuating itself while playing a scant view of the welfare of its people. Confirmed reports have informed me that before the earthquake some 900 projects vetted by Haiti’s own service of business promotion that would bring jobs for the Haitian people have been blocked by the Haitian government because graft has not been tendered for a final approval. After the earthquake the only reconstruction firms that can obtain a permit to start demolition projects are those introduced by or retained with the first Lady of Haiti.

It might be time for Haiti and for the friends of Haiti to plan regime change in Haiti, if the country should enjoy free and fair elections leading to democracy. The Haitian people did have their Friday of Crucifixion for too long it is time now for them to have their Easter Sunday. It is also the quickest way to bring about a minimum of coordination to the avalanche of help brought about by the international community to the gallant people of Haiti averting as such a second disaster.

It was a brother from Jamaica who sparked the Haitian revolution changing the world for ever and for the better! His name was Bookman. Would you, my dear brother from Jamaica, lend a hand again?

March 20, 2010

caribbeannetnews

Bahamas Blog International

The earthquake in Haiti requires the world's human response

By Wellington C Ramos:


Ever since the black people of this Caribbean country fought and defeated the French to gain their independence in 1804, this nation has been left by most European countries to just go downhill. For the people who have no knowledge of the Haitian Revolution, they should take some time to study it. During the era of colonialism, England, France, Holland, Portugal, Spain and other European countries roamed the planet earth, landed on different continents, slaughtered the indigenous people of most lands, made them slaves and took out all of their wealth and natural resources back to their respective homelands.

The landing of Christopher Columbus in this part of the world in 1492 set the pace for this exploitation to begin, with the approval of the Catholic Spanish Pope Alexander the V1 in the Treaty of Tordesillas signed by Spain and Portugal in 1494. With the exception of Brazil, Spain was given all the land and people in the Americas and the Caribbean while Portugal had the continent of Africa for themselves.

England, France and Holland protested this bold move by the Catholic Pope and pledged to fight against this unlawful treaty. The British formed a group called privateers, who were highly trained to navigate the high seas and look for non-British vessels, capture them, take their cargoes and kill all the sailors on board. In addition, they signed agreements with Spain to temporarily occupy some of their illegal territories with the intention to stay on them permanently. The French did this on the Spanish island of Hispaniola in the early 1600s which eventually developed into two countries, one by the name of Haiti and the other the Dominican Republic. Today, these two countries are divided and their relationship remains strained up to this day because of their cultural and historical differences.

The British did the same thing in 1638 by getting permission to cut logwood and mahogany from the Spanish crown in one of their occupied territories in Central America that was under the Captaincy General of Granados, which capital was in Guatemala City and New Spain that had its capital in Mexico City. The Mexican government, in a treaty with England, later renounced their claim to Belize. While the Guatemalan government kept hanging on to their unlawful claim.

Like the French, the British had no intention of leaving because they said from the beginning that they will never honor the treaty that was signed between Spain and Portugal giving them both titles to the entire Americas, Caribbean and Africa. Today, that settlement has led to the emergence of a nation called Belize that is struggling to maintain its independence but still haunted by a Guatemalan claim because of Europeans’ unlawful actions.

The Haitians were able to defeat France with the help of their ancestors and their powerful war god “Ogun”, one of the most powerful gods in the religion of the Yoruba people, who mostly live in the country of Nigeria on the African continent. Most Haitians are descendants of various African cultures that were brought from the continent of Africa during slavery.

Many Europeans look down on African people with disdain as if they are uncivilized, backward and stupid even up to this day. Yet they know that the first people on this planet earth were black people and great civilizations existed on the continent of Africa long before the Europeans set foot on the African continent. In fact many African kings and queens sponsored expeditions and invasions of several territories in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. The Empires of Mali like; King Askia Mohammad, Songhay and Ghana are typical examples.

The Haitians are still looked upon by many Europeans and some Caribbean people as evil people but this assertion is far from the truth. They are entitled to practice whatever religion they chose to practice like everybody else to save their own souls. For me it is laughable for anyone to believe that the Europeans are interested in saving the souls of other people after all the atrocities they have committed upon the people of this planet.

Europeans must accept the fact that Christianity is not the only religion on earth. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and several other religions are common on this planet earth. As a Garifuna person, it took me some time to accept and understand my own culture’s religion, which is also based on African ancestral rites called “Dugu”. I have accepted it and will not depart from my religion just to remain a Christian. This religion has provided me with solace and healing over the years.

The country of Haiti needs the entire world to be on its side at this current moment because a natural disaster can occur anywhere at any time. If there are any people in this world who have suffered and been punished, enough they are the Haitian people and enough is enough. Several people have died in this country and the structural damages and human suffering done nationwide is severe. Looking at the news has brought tears to my eyes because as a human being, I have feelings and these people are all God’s children like me.

There is enough in this world to give every human being in this world who is in need of something but we have got to rid ourselves from this culture of greed and selfishness and just give. We all shall die one day and everything we possess will remain here after we have departed this planet earth.

January 18, 2010

caribbeannetnews

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International