Haiti and the issue of colour

By Jean H Charles



There has been recently continuous chatting on the Haitian cyber space regarding the issue of colour.

The chatting might have been caused by the pictures sent by those opposing the government of the inaugural ball, where most were of light skin colour, in a sea of black skinned Haitians in the country.

It might also have been caused by the rejection of the proposed prime minister, Gerard Rouzier, by the Haitian parliament. Gerard Rouzier is a mulatto; the Parliament is in majority black. Haiti for the past sixty years has been discriminating against the mulattos on the political side. They can succeed economically but they should not occupy high political positions in the government. This form of discrimination has been a secret code of modus operandi in the Haitian political panorama.

The debate started with an essay by one of the most talented Haitian economists cum agronomists, Jean Erich Rene, titled The Issue of Colour Is an Old Story in Haiti.

Daly Valet the director of one of the most important newspapers in the country, Le Matin, responded: the issue of colour is not dead!

I have entered into the fray to conclude and rule that the issue of colour is indeed alive and well in Haiti.

I have often commented in my column that Haiti and Guyana occupy the last wagon on the economic locomotive of the Caribbean. That situation is due chiefly because of the issue of colour. In Guyana, the PPP (People’s Progressive Party) with a majority of Indo Guyanese and white descendants of the Portuguese (52%) hold control of power with a clear disdain of the black minority (48%) who took refuge in the PNC (People’s National Congress). It is a country with two heads, one looking on the right and the other head looking on the left.

Thank God, Haiti does not have this radical political division, but on the political, social and economic side, Haiti, after the assassination of its founding father Jean Jacques Dessalines, is also a country with two heads; one looking at the right the other looking at the left.

Dessalines wanted to create a country where black and mulatto would live in peace and harmony in a hospitable Haiti. He failed lamentably in that dream. To immortalize the sentiment of hospitality, he offered his daughter Celimene to Alexander Petion. He was rejected. Dessalines believing that Petion had rejected Celimene because she was black never forgave him.

In fact, two hundred years later, Haiti has less inter marriage between black and mulatto than the United States, which started its experience of nation building only forty years ago, circa 1968. America in general, downtown Brooklyn in particular, has more marriages between white and black than Haiti between mulatto and black (of course, all proportion respected).

Henry Christophe, the second president of the country, was so vexed by that situation he took refuge in the northern part of Haiti when the parliament led by Alexander Petion in cohorts with the French took the decision to strip him of most the presidential powers.
On his way from Port au Prince to Cape Haitian he ordered to kill all the mulattos with the quip that “these citizens will never become true Haitians!”

The kingdom of Henry Christophe was destroyed seventeen years later with all the ethos of nation building sentiments. The republic of Alexander Petion survived for 150 years. It is a republic with disdain for the majority of the Haitian population that gravitated to the mountains to people rural Haiti. The only state presence in the rural village has been and is a decrepit school where the teachers arrive at 12.00 pm to leave at 2.00 pm.

During those 150 years there were two window opening opportunities. The first one occurred in 1902 when Antenor Firmin opposed Nord Alexis in the presidential election. The second took place in 1930 when Jean Price Mars was running against Louis Eugene Roy. Both Antenor Firmin and Jean Price Mars were advocating the concept that the Haitian elite should take in consideration the fate of the majority poor in bringing about fundamental change in the way the country treated its citizens.

On each of these occasions, the Haitian parliament supported by international hands has defeated these champions of human rights and of hospitality for all. They have forestalled all efforts towards nation building.

Jean Price Mars, an eminent anthropologist, crisscrossed the country with his lectures about the intrinsic beauty of the black race. He was indeed the forefather of the concept of black is beautiful. Yet his school was prostituted by the politicians such as Lorimer Denis, Francois Duvalier, Dumarsais Estime into a concept that now it is time for blacks to have their fair share to the detriment of all others.

That philosophy, called noirisme, is now the politics of the day. It started with Dumarsais Estime as president in 1946; it did have a hiatus under the presidency of Paul E Magloire, who ruled under the ostrich ideology that the issue of race is not important and it is over.

The noirisme concept came back with a vengeance under Francois and his son Jean Claude Duvalier. It has been muted into a clan politics in full force under Jean Bertrand Aristide and Rene Preval.

These successive governments have refused to look into the welfare of the majority of the population. The Duvalier clan, the Lavalas clan, and the Lespwa (Preval) have lived high and well while the people were vegetating in misery. It was one of the most elaborate political schemes of imposture that now is entrenched after sixty years on the Haitian firmament. They are pretending that their unlimited ambition, greed and avarice are in harmony with the fundamental interests of the nation.

The correct solution, pruned by Mars and Firmin, was Haiti should belong to all its children, black and mulattos -- rural Haiti as well as the Diaspora; they should all enjoy the abundant and the resilient resources of the country.

The year 2011 represents for Haiti a new beginning. Akin to 1902 with Antenor Firmin and 1930 with Jean Price Mars, Haiti is yearning for a country where the rule of law is in force where the peasants are seen like human beings with the right to health, education, spiritual and material prosperity.

Joseph Michel Martelly who won on the political platform of repons paysan (the peasant challenge) can play the ostrich game like Paul Eugene Magloire and pretend that the issue of colour is dead and over.

He can also extend the life of the predatory culture of Aristide and Preval that pays no attention to the distress of the population.

He can also, because he has been elected with a large mandate to bring about radical change into the Haitian ethos, challenge the retrograde mentality of exclusion so proper to Haiti and to the Haitians.

He should put an end to the political, economic and social discrimination against rural Haiti that comprises 85 percent of the population. He should also attack the social and the political discrimination against the Diaspora (4 percent of the population) and last but not least he should stop the political discrimination against the mulattos (1 percent of the population).

That culture of discrimination cannot end with pious wishes but must be confronted with laser beam targeted affirmative action of economic incubation for the rural and urban poor. The government should immediately take steps to facilitate the voting process of the Haitian residents in foreign lands in the Haitian consulates or any other facility provided by organizations such as Woman’s League of voters or its equivalent.

Last but not least, President Martelly should end the political discrimination against the mulattos. It may have been his intention in nominating Gerard Rouzier as his prime minister, but he must engage first into the leadership of education and training before making such a bold step. Machiavelli is still right. It is never easy to bring about a new form of political order.

The year 2012 will be the Guyanese year. Presidential elections will take place. The indo Guyanese and the black Guyanese will have to decide to create the rule of law in their own country where all the composites – black, indo and white -- will enjoy the bliss of hospitality for all.

When this is done, the Caribbean will enter into a new era where the concept of one market of good and human services is possible from The Bahamas to Belize. The two social gangrenes of the region, Haiti and Guyana, have put their house in order. Their citizens will travel to enjoy, buy and socialize in the sister nations. They will be no more, international nomads always seeking for a better sky to compensate for an unfriendly home, inhospitable to their human needs and aspirations.

July 4, 2011

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Bahamian Politics Blog

Haiti, the big picture

By Jean H Charles



The Haitian people, after the birth of democracy some twenty-five years ago (the Haitian Constitution was adopted on March 29, 1987), have put their faith in three leaders to lead them on the road towards development. Michel Joseph Martelly is the last one.

There was first Gerard Gourgue, who never made it to the balloting box as the election was disrupted by gunfire on the sad day of November 28, 1987. The military regime in place then, allegedly under international directive (the Reagan government mistakenly attributed leftist leanings to Gerard Gourgue) opened fire on innocent people in line for voting, committing the crime of lese democracy. Dozens were killed, the proceedings were disrupted, and Gerard Gourgue, a fiery human rights lawyer, never made it onto the altar of the national frontispiece.

The convulsion brought in a slew of de facto governments until the election of 1991, when the Haitian people chose a fiery anti-American cum leftist leaning, former Catholic priest Jean Bertrand Aristide as their leader. The experience was cathartic. Aristide turned out to be a divisive personality bent on pulling apart the very fabric of the Haitian national ethos. Twice ejected out of the country, he is now back home, allegedly as a private citizen interested mainly in the area of education.

There was in between Rene Preval, a nemesis of Jean Bertrand Aristide, the beneficiary of choice of the international community. He was not, because of his persona and his lack of commitment to the welfare of the people, a popular choice.

Some twenty-five years later, after the departure of the dictator Jean Claude Duvalier, the Haitian people have chosen an iconoclast music band leader, Joseph Michel Martelly, to avenge the country and to create a nation that shall become hospitable to all.

The birthing of this dawn of democracy was not easy. As elaborated in my previous columns, the government as well as a large section of the international community tried to convince the electoral board that the popular voice should be ignored to the benefit at first of the candidate of the government in power (Jude Celestin). Later, in the second round, the call was to shake the numbers for the benefit of the wife (Mirlande Manigat) of a former president, elected twenty years ago under a cloud of illegitimacy.

The big picture is: Haiti and its people for the past five hundred years have been seeking its own place in the sun. During the first three hundred years, a bloated colonial class has been living off the land like princes and princesses from the slave labour of the masses who will become the citizens of the first black independent nation in the world.

During the last two hundred years, special interest groups, have succeeded as would have said Alan Beattie (False Economy) to halt and even send in reverse all economic progress in the country.

The literature on sustainable development is now interested in seeking out why some countries succeed and why others fail. I have been for a long time perusing the reasons why Haiti has been and has remained a constant basket case. Some of the reasons are deep and structural. Some are circumstantial.

Because of my long and personal relationship with Henry Namphy (the strong man General after the departure of Jean Claude Duvalier) and Gerard Gourgue, I have tried to reconcile both military and civilian leaders for the sake of the nation. I either did not try hard enough, or the animosity between the two men was too deep and to entrenched. The end result, Haiti missed twenty-five years of solace and good governance!

The structural impediments are many and varied. Using a page story from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, I would say at the beginning: “Knowing the right thing to do to enrich your nation is hard enough; bringing people with you to get it done is even harder.” The founding fathers, Toussaint Louverture, Jean Jacques Dessalines and Henry Christophe knew how to transform the mass of slaves into productive and creative citizens.

They could not rally the team of the other generals to conceive and build a nation hospitable to all after winning the war of independence. As such Haiti lapsed during its first century into fratricidal struggles brought about by interest groups that captured the resources of the country and dragged the nation down.

Around 1911, came about Dr Jean Price Mars, Haiti’s own Dr Martin Luther King, who taught the nation it must love itself and engage in nation building. The politicians transformed his doctrine into a clan policy entrenched in the Haitian ethos today.

Haiti suffered also for a long time from the resource curse as depicted in Pirates of the Caribbean. It was first its majestic mountains filled with mahogany trees that attracted the French and the Spanish. Later gold and sugar cane made this island the pearl of the Antilles.

After independence, corruption and mismanagement exacerbated the resource curse whereby Haiti became the failed-state poster child of the Western Hemisphere. Through dictatorship, military government and illiberal democracy, the nation did not deliver any significant services to its citizen.

Joseph Michel Martelly has demystified the last bastion of literati and pundits who could not believe that the Haitian people would identify themselves with a commoner in politics, backed only by his passion for Haiti as his pedigree, on his way to the higher office.

I am predicting the Martelly government will be a success for Haiti and for the region. He will have enough Haitian people at home and in the Diaspora, as well as well intentioned members and nations of the international community who will lend a hand to build a nation that will at last create an aura of hospitability for all.

After five hundred years, it is about time!

April 9, 2011

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Bahamas Blog International

Rene Preval, the Haitian president, an evaluation, five years later

By Jean H Charles



Five years ago, as President Rene Preval was being inaugurated for a second, non-consecutive term, my sister Maggie, who went to school with the president (albeit her junior) at the George Marc Institute, commented around the kitchen table that it will be a disaster for the country of Haiti in the next five years. I argued instead that she should wait at least for six months to pass such a judgment. Five years later, using the lowest standard of evaluation, Rene Preval is one of the most inept and callous heads of government that Haiti has ever had in the modern, post democracy era!

I will hasten to say that the positive side of this characterization is that I dare to write this column, having its publication in Haiti, the Caribbean and in the rest of the world without the fear of being persecuted or thrown into jail.

I will hasten to say also that his ineptness is shared by most if not all the members of his government. If the president is himself indecisive, no one is on the way of his minister of tourism of being an active minister instead of one with only a draft master plan still at the stage of a draft, five years later.

The prime minister, who doubles his portfolio with one of minister of planning, one year after the earthquake has not understood that a junior minister of coordination for the activities of the NGOs (his director at the ministry of planning would be an excellent choice) is crucial and fundamental for a minimum effectiveness in the delivery of services by the international organizations.

Rene Preval offered no plan in his campaign. He ran his government on an ad hoc basis, pulling a solution out of his sleeve, with no follow up and no evaluation. He had, though, his lion’s share of disaster that befell the country during his term: inundation and flood in Gonaives and in Mapou, earthquake in Port au Prince, Jacmel and Petit Goave and cholera epidemic brought into the Artibonite region by the United Nations.

He has also received an avalanche of support from all corners of the world. This support is completely wasted, bringing no impact or, rather, a negative impact to the people of Haiti because the president and his government did not use positive leadership to channel and synergize the assistance.

I have in a previous column shone a light into the leadership capacity or the lack thereof of the president. In addressing an evaluation de fin de régime, it is proper to revisit Rene Preval in his inner workings.

A student of the Belgium state university, President Preval is surrounded by classmates or friends of his time in Belgium: Paul Denis (his minister of Justice), Dr Alex Larsen (his minister of health and population), amongst others.

The Belgium cultural legacy in the former colonies is one of divisiveness. The colonial empire it amassed through the centuries, especially in Africa, has turned into a legacy of failed nations (Congo Brazzaville), filled with hatred and racism that produced genocide in Rwanda, famine and fragmentation in Burundi. The country of Belgium, albeit the seat of the European Community, is a land divided amongst itself, where the concept of nation is a hollow one.

Rene Preval has brought into Haiti from Belgium the culture of a political animal, where politics is used as an instrument or scientific tool to reward friends and remain in power on the front or on the backside as long as possible. Nihilism is elevated to the standard of excellence.

Rene Preval is also the embodiment of the Haitian ethos well encapsulated in the story of Bouqui and ti malice. Bouqui is the naïve brother who puts all his faith in the cunning and malicious ti malice. He uses all the artifices such as lies, deception, disguised affection to get the lion’s share of the family legacy, leaving his brother (Bouqui) in extreme misery.

The international community has found a fertile incubator in this government to create a land of make believe in Haiti. Amidst massive outpouring of assistance, the individual or the collective repercussion is minimal at best, negative at worst.

Item: the car rental business is one of the fastest growing enterprises in the country because of the need of each international worker to have his own car with his own driver. Uncontrolled drug money recycled into the rental car sector has killed the mom and pop storefront.

Reviewing all the sectors of the economy, Rene Preval has registered an F or a failure rate. An agronomist by training, the environment has not indicated any incremental stop in its degradation. With the exception of the north and the extreme south of Haiti, the remaining forest land (2 percent) is in an accelerated slide towards desertification.

In the area of agriculture and agro-business, the Dominican Republic has become the food basket of the Republic of Haiti. Eggs (1 million units per day), plantain, even coconut water are imported for resale in Haiti. One hundred large trailers filled with cement are brought into Haiti every day from the Dominican Republic.

The security segment has exhibited a significant improvement from its low point of poor morale, recurring kidnapping and lack of policing. Yet the large majority of the hinterland operates without a police presence. There is no discussion or timetable in terms of building Haiti’s own military force for the protection of its border, enhancing its environment and securing its population against disaster and drug contraband.

Creating a culture of the rule of law was Preval’s leitmotiv in assuming power. Five years later, he failed (allegedly for lack of time) in naming a chief of the Supreme Court. At election time, the government deployed with strength the power of the state, as a bandit use his arsenal of resources and munitions for his own candidates. To his credit, the president as a man and his government in general is unobtrusive. Social peace, although tenuous, is maintained, even favoured.

In health and public hygiene, a cholera epidemic brought into the country by a UN contingent has tested the strength of the health apparatus. The collection of garbage is still a subject of contention between the mayors of the large cities (including the capital), deprived of the means to do so, and a callous centralized government more inclined to do politics with the resources instead of caring for the welfare of its citizens.

The best characterization of Rene Preval and its governance is one of a Teflon president turning the country into a Teflon nation.

Item: to keep the men off his back, he promoted during the World Cup the soccer mania in the country. All day, Barcelona vs. Real Madrid and nonstop commentary about Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo is now the rule in Haiti. Industrial and administrative production is at a low point -- a soccer game between Real Madrid and Barcelona takes precedence over the business of the state.

Item: road building has been the government panacea. The result five years later is unfinished roads to nowhere and a woman pre-eminently promoted on the tractor as the way to the future. Yet the crowded streets of the Port au Prince need repairs that could unclog the daily giant traffic bottleneck, leaving adults and children under stress more customary in the western capitals.

Item: the Preval government has created a new class of well endowed citizens. They are the public employees at the policy level. They have at their disposal the national and the international resources, used with arrogance for their own benefit not for the benefit of the ordinary citizen.

The international community, in particular the MINUSTAH, with the resources of the whole world in their hands, taking its cue from the government, has perfected the Teflon culture to its limit. I am still awaiting one nation from the pack that would become a conscientious objector in helping the world shed a light into the big scam of the mission of stabilization. OXFAM, from my empirical observation one of the best NGOs in Haiti, is leaving this summer. Is it a signal that the Teflon culture and corruption is choking the best and the brightest?

On March 20, 2011, the people of Haiti will go back to the polls to elect a new president and a new government. Will it be a break from the past or will the Preval culture of squalor and ti malice over hospitality for all continue to haunt Haiti for another twenty years?

March 12, 2011

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Bahamas Blog International