THOUGHT FOR MY CHILDREN
(The Story of HAITI: High Hopes Turned Sour)
by Okey Onyegbule
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This is a story about the island country of Haiti. I begin this paper with a preface which conveys my introduction to the country.
In 2004, I met Pascale Anglade in New York City at a mutual friends party. On striking up a conversation, I was informed she was Haitian and I briefly suspended belief. I did so because the little I had learned of Haiti suggested to me it was a Negro nation and being very fair skinned, she did not fit my stereotype. I urged her to show proof and she spoke a few sentences in Creole (which I obviously did not understand) to make her
point.
To cut a long story short, following that serendipitous (for me) chance meeting, we are now married and blessed with two boys Christian 3 yrs and 2 months, and Olivier 1 yr and 4 months. As it were, our children are born to me, a Nigerian naturalized in the US, and Pascale, a Quebecois (Canadian) of Haitian origin.
Having visited Nigeria during our courtship in 2004, my wife suggested it might be time after all to visit her homeland Haiti. I agreed. Besides acceding to my parents-in-law desire to see their grandchildren, this was an excellent opportunity to understand my wife's roots.
I shall break this paper into four disparate parts;
Chapter 1 (Meet the Family)
Chapter 2 (History of Haiti)
Chapter 3 (Pact with the Devil)
Chapter 4 (My Own Thoughts & Commentary)
Epilogue
CHAPTER ONE
(Meet the Family)
We arrived Port-au-Prince December 22 2009 on an American Airlines flight
following hours of an uneventful flight from Charlotte, NC. We were met at the airport by my parents-in-law, Georges and Mireille Anglade. After clearing immigration and customs, we were ushered to a waiting van by Papa and a coterie of porters all clamoring to carry a piece of our luggage. Papa "settled" them on loading the luggage in the van and we were on our way. What struck me was how similar the scene at the airport was to my own country Nigeria. The chaos and shifty porters seemed rather familiar and I was constantly on guard (as I am when visiting my own home)
We arrived the family compound on Rue Mont Joli. There to welcome us at dinner were a handful of relatives including Tonton (Uncle) Phil, Tante (Aunty) Malou, Mon-Oncle Gaston, Mama Jeanne (Matriarch of the family), Tonton Jean-Claude, Tante Dolores, and a host of others. There was also Wildon the houseboy (or houseman since he was hardly a boy), Jessica his daughter, and Alourdes
the cook. We settled into dinner and I being starved, devoured the delicious meal while enjoying the exceptionally warm company. I also observed at once, how strong the bond was within the family. They appeared inseparable which I considered truly magnificent. To appreciate its measure, I will provide a little narrative about the family.
The family lives in a beautiful, forested piece of property right in the middle of an otherwise heavily urban (not in a pleasant sense) Port-au-Prince. Driving into Rue Mont-Joli, the entrance to the family estate, seems like entering into an Eden - entirely incongruous and in stark contrast to the streets outside it. Such was the vision of Georges Baussan, my wife's great-grandfather. Grandpa as he is known is long gone but left a legacy which is worth a marvel. Grandpa who I understand was as close to Negro in color as you could get for a mulatto, came from a long line of privilege. His own great grandfather
Baussan, was a Frenchman who married and sired a son with an Igbo ex-slave woman (I am Igbo). Legend has it that he sought out the Igbo (Negro) wife for strategic reasons. Right after the slave revolution, the white colonists could only retain property if they had a black (mulatto) child who was deemed heir to the estate. And so it was that Grandpa's grandpa (let's call him grandpa squared), a mulatto was heir to a sizable estate and small fortune, along with its attendant privilege.
Grandpa squared was an only child and bore a son also. His son went on to become a lawyer in the mid 19th century and rose to become a Senator with very close ties to the Presidency. So much that he named the President godfather to his own son, Georges Baussan (Grandpa). Grandpa was sent to boarding school in Paris - as I understand it under the patronage of the President - before he was ten years of age. He stayed in Paris into adulthood, eventually earning a
bachelor's degree in Architecture somewhere in the late 19th century.
Grandpa returned to Haiti and married. He had five children with his first wife who died rather young. He remarried and took for a second wife Alice Elie (a light skinned mulatto), from whom my wife's lineage emerges. Grandpa and Elie had four children in the following order; Maman Jeanne (now 92 yrs), Pierro (now deceased), Maman Marcelle (died last year at 89yrs), and lastly Mon-Oncle Gaston (a very hearty 78yrs).
Grandpa at some point, returned to Paris with the entire family in the 1920's to further himself professionally. Pierro was born during this period while Maman Jean and Maman Marcelle were about 8 and 6 respectively. On completing his studies, Grandpa returned to Haiti but without Maman Jean and Maman Marcelle, both remaining in Paris to attend boarding school. They were now about 13 and 11 years respectively.
Grandpa flourished on returning to Haiti.
He was commissioned to design the Presidential Palace and the surrounding Parliamentary buildings (all which remain very modern today, a testament to his vision and genius). It should come as little surprise he got such plum assignments given his heritage and pedigree. Grandpa did well enough from his profession to purchase 45 Acres of what was then a wooded forest in 1931 (incidentally, the same year Mon Uncle Gaston was born). Grandpa rehabilitated the land (which had very poor top soil) over many years and planted trees all over it. He built his first house on the property in 1939. Maman Jean now occupies the original house and standing in her bedroom, one has a clear, sweeping view of the Ports downtown Port au Prince. A large colonial five bedroom house, it must have been considered palatial at a time when most occupied tenements.
Maman Jeanne married and had two sons, Jean-Jacques and Gilbert. Pierro had five daughters (Colette, Martinne,
Alice, Michaelle & Jacqueline) who live within an earshot of one another and meet for dinner, without exception, every weekend. Maman Marcelle had three children, Mirellle (my mother-in-law), Marilisse, and Jean-Claude. Then we have 78 yr old Mon Uncle Gaston, a confirmed bachelor with no children (that we know of) who relishes his freedom and independence in a beautiful two bedroom home on three stories, which he refers to as his bachelor pad.
Today, all the descendants of Georges Baussan occupy some part of this Eden created between 1931 and 1939. Some part of the property has been sold off to outsiders but it still remains at its core, the Baussan Estate. I also note that somehow, the women following marriage, never left the family compound, rather their husbands invariably followed them to the Baussan Estate where they established their own homes - lending credence to a Matriarchic leaning culture. And so, a visit to this magnificent Eden
is eerily reminiscent of a walk through my own family compound in Umuahia, Nigeria, where my grandfather, an insufferable polygamist and landowner, kept his many wives and army of children.
Christmas Eve Party
As a matter of tradition, the family holds a Christmas eve party, rotating host duties from one family to the other and so on, through the years. This year, it would be hosted by Tante Michaelle, the youngest daughter of Pierro. We arrived the party at about 9 pm having put the boys (Christian and Olivier to bed). We were perhaps the sixth set of guests to arrive. As we sipped on our cocktails, the house became gradually flooded with family members.
Mon-Oncle Gaston, (a favorite of mine) pulled up a chair beside me and began to regale me with tales of years gone by. I could decipher from his stories, early years of privilege followed by years of (relative) difficulty under the Duvalier's (Francois and Jean-Claude).
At
some point that evening I turned to my wife and asked, why is everyone here mulatto? (fair-skinned). She looked at me and shrugged! I swept through the crowd once more and the only negroes present were both waiters, a manservant, and myself. At this moment, I recall a conversation I had with my wife years ago before we married. In July 2004, we were attending her sister Dominique's wedding in Montreal and on being introduced to the late Maman Marcelle (my wife's grandma), she asked puzzlingly, "but why is he so dark"? My wife tried in the most polite way to explain to me that where she came from, people married "their own kind". Her own sister Dominique, whose wedding we were attending, was marrying a Caucasian (German), which in theory must have seemed perfectly acceptable to Maman Marcelle.
I shrugged the entire July 2004 incident off under the assumption that Maman Marcelle's sensibilities were warped in time and surely outdated. And so I was
all the more shocked that in December 2009, amongst family members much younger than myself, there seemed to be couples (married and otherwise) who were exclusively mulatto, not a trace of vintage negro.
This incident naturally sensitized my radar and I turned quasi-sociologist during the rest of my visit. I observed very carefully scenes within and beyond the family estate. Within the estate, all the servants and maids were invariably black (negro) without exception. Pascale mentioned to me that some of the present servants are offspring of Grandpa's own servants. This perpetual serfdom smacked of indentured servitude but I kept on taking mental notes. I recall asking myself, but where are the mulatto servants and serfs? Surely there must be some mulattos who due to a lack of ability, could not attain bourgeois status. I found none! Not even amongst stragglers in urban Port au Prince. That suggested to me that the mulattos might be hiding their
"village idiots" in closets at home.
CHAPTER 2
(History of The Republic)
My curiosity now in high gear, I began to ask questions. I asked whomever's ear I could bend. My curiosity must have seemed flattering and cute initially but as the questions continued, I suspect they might have become slightly irritating (particularly to my father-in-law who was most at my mercy). On a leisurely afternoon visit, mon-oncle Gaston finally gave me a book titled "The Black Jacobins" in the earnest hope I would once and for all let him alone. With a characteristic wise old jowl, he exclaimed, "my son, you will find all your answers in this book". And boy, did I?
The story begins with Christophe Columbus landing on the island in 1492-93 which he promptly christened "Hispaniola". At the time, the island was supposedly occupied by a half million "Arawak Indians". Columbus secured the island for Isabella, Queen of Spain and Patron to
Columbus. Having landed on the eastern shore of the island (known today as The Dominican Republic), Columbus sought to learn from the local Indians where the gold treasure was hidden and they pointed him to the western part of the island (now known as Haiti).
Columbus and his merry band of buccaneers had some success in coercing out of the local Indians, bounty and artifacts of unknown value. Having secured the island for Spain, he would soon leave to uncover new lands and treasures including the United States. Word got around and sooner or later, a group of French buccaneers appeared on the western shores of Hispaniola.
The French buccaneers fought the few Spaniard's who'd been left on the island to protect it and succeeded in pushing them further east (into what is today Dominican Republic). These buccaneers settled in nicely and began marauding the Indians in search of gold and other treasure. They did have some success but along the
way uncovered what was perhaps, the greatest treasure of the 16th and 17th century. They discovered the local soil as perhaps the most arable anywhere in the world, bar none.
The French re-christened western Hispaniola, "Saint Domingue"
Soon enough, land grab followed and plantations surfaced everywhere particularly in Le Cap, the northern part of St Domingue facing the Atlantic Ocean (the south opens up to the Caribbean Sea). It is noted on record that the population of Indians dwindled drastically from 500,000 upon the arrival of Columbus (1492), to less than 60,000 by the mid 16th century.
At this time, Britain had pioneered the African slave trade and was doing some handsome business in their colonies. The new French Planters on St Domingue sought out the Brits who assured them that African slaves were much better suited to the type of labor required to exploit the fertile, arable lands. And so by the mid 16th century, the first
batch of African slaves arrived the shores of St. Domingue, complete in chain and balls.
Without going into the well documented gory details of this slave era, I note that by the late 18th century (following 200 years of uninterrupted slave trade), St Domingue was quite possibly, the most valuable piece of real estate on the face of the western hemisphere. The coffee and sugarcane plantations produced per square mile, more than two-thirds in excess of any colony the British controlled. Without question, this was France's crown jewel, so much that France as at 1789 - the height of St Domingue's production - derived 150 million Francs, as much as a third of its national output (Gross Domestic Product) from it.
The Slave Revolution (1791-1804)
Following the French revolution and "Bastille" on July 14, 1790, the slaves became
sensitized to the notion of liberty and equality for all men. By now (after 200 years of slavery), there were quite a few wealthy mulatto slave-owners (often direct offspring of white colonists) and a few free blacks (who had purchased their freedom from French masters). As of mid 18th century, their offspring were sufficiently privileged that they were sent to Paris to study. They still lacked basic rights in St Domingue despite their Parisian education and worldliness. But they were well educated to such an extent as to appreciate the broad implications of what had just occurred in France. They wanted out of the subordination to the French colonists, but this would prove more difficult and bloody than the French revolution which inspired it.
To cut a long story short, the mulattos who were on average more privileged (and certainly by a long shot, better educated than the field negroes), led several failed insurrections including one by Vincent
Oge, a wealthy mulatto. Oge, who allegedly conspired with the British (themselves envious of, and coveting France's colony) was captured and publicly tortured to death in a method referred to as "being broken on a wheel", to set an example for all who harbored ideas about liberty.
Following 13 years of insurrections and civil war, a leader finally emerged from the shadows of chaos. Francois-Dominique Toussaint (Breda) L'Ouverture, a Negro house slave to Count le Breda. Toussaint consolidated power and by 1802, named himself Emperor of St Domingue, while still pledging allegiance to the French. What followed was an intriguing power struggle between the then world powers, Britain, France, Spain and The United States, for control of this prosperous piece of real estate. Toussaint, on his journey to victory conquered the British, Spanish and French armies. In the end, after many treacheries by the above mentioned powers, Toussaint agreed to step
aside to allow for a power sharing agreement with France. For his co-operation, Bonaparte thanked Toussaint by deportation to France where he was imprisoned and left to die from untreated symptoms of pneumonia in an asylum.
However, at the time of his surrender and deportation, Toussaint had groomed revolutionary protégés such as Generals Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Henry Christophe, and Alexandre Petion. Enraged by France's treachery, Dessalines concluded with a particularly brutal finality, the war with Napoleon's army.
Dessalines promptly renamed the Island "Ayiti" after an Arawak Indian term, ordering the massacre of white French on a scale both revolting and unmatched to date. He named himself Emperor in 1804 and after a brief two-year reign, was assassinated (allegedly betrayed by Petion and Christophe who reached an accord to split St Domingue into North and South). Christophe named himself the absolute ruler of the north while
Petion, a believer in democracy got himself elected in the south. I note that Petion reverted to absolutism when he found it impossible to govern democratically. Christophe took his own life in 1920 when he fell ill and was threatened with a coup d'état .
Following Henry Christophe's death, the North and South were re-amalgamated and placed under unified government. Petion died in power of ill health having named a successor.
In both north and south, Christophe and Petion believed the French would be back and fortified themselves in preparation for another war with France (which never came). Christophe built the Citadel (in what is known today as Cap Haitien) which remains an architectural and engineering marvel - a fortress which could hold 10,000 men and an armada of arms.
Haiti's Foreign Relations from the Revolution to Date
As I noted above, Haiti in that period, became a pawn used by global powers in their own quests to
outdo one another. Having rid itself of France (or so it thought), Haiti traded primarily with the US and Britain. To be sure, Toussaint was not above treachery in diplomacy as he often used each of these powers against the other. It is alleged that Alexander Hamilton (who himself was born in the Caribbean), the first US Treasury Secretary, drafted the first constitution of Haiti presented for ratification by Toussaint in 1802. Haiti enjoyed a good relationship with Samuel Adams (who succeeded George Washington) but fell out of favor with the US under the presidency of Thomas Jefferson (himself, a slave owner).
It should be noted that the US may owe its present form to Haiti whose resistance to Bonaparte forced the Louisiana Purchase. Bonaparte purchased Louisiana from the Spaniards in 1899 with designs on the US. Part of the effort to retake St Domingue might have been an effort to establish a beachhead on which he would assault the US. While
Jefferson and his anti-abolitionist cabinet reviled the Haitian slaves for their temerity at carrying out a revolution - as in setting a bad example that might be emulated by their own slaves in the US, he (Jefferson) was also aware of the threat that Bonaparte presented.
Adam's supplied arms to Toussaint in his many wars but Jefferson put an end to this alliance and initially pledged to help Bonaparte suppress the slave insurrectionists. But on second thought, Jefferson decided to stay neutral, not quite sure which was worse, the threat of spread of insurrectionist ideology or an assault by imperialist Bonaparte. For Bonaparte's part, as it became obvious France had lost Haiti for good, he asked Talleyrand (his Foreign Secretary) to negotiate a sale of the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States. For a total consideration of 60 million Francs and 18 million Francs in cancelled debt ($15 million), the
Americans got 14 current US states and 2 Canadian provinces, without question the most propitious real estate purchase of any era.
So it is quite plausible that the US has to thank, Toussaint and his band of revolutionaries, for keeping Bonaparte at bay by their ferocious resistance to the French army which allegedly lost as many as 60,000 men in the war with Haiti. Odd though it might appear and despite the preceding narrative, the US never recognized Haiti as an independent state till Abraham Lincoln came to power. Lincoln finally recognized Haiti in 1864 (or thereabout), long after France itself had acknowledged Haiti's independence (and that is another story which we shall get to). Despite such acknowledgements, it is believed that the same powers conspired to isolate Haiti diplomatically since the revolution to date.
To be sure, no French President or head of government has visited Haiti since its defeat at the hands of the
revolutionaries.
The US, having resumed some trade with Haiti occupied it in 1915 under Woodrow Wilson. The pretext was a preemptive occupation at the threat of growing relations between Haiti and the Federal Republic of Germany. Fearing Germany's intention, the US occupied Haiti amongst 6 other central American states to check the Germans. This occupation lasted 19 years and was only ended in 1934 by Franklin Roosevelt when pressured by troubles at home (Great Depression) to abandon the expensive occupation.
By then however, the US had heavily entrenched its interests on the island and even handpicked an obscure physician by the name of Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier, whom it would groom for leadership (or shall we say, protect it's interests). As we now know, "Papa Doc" Duvalier with the help of the military junta, assumed power in 1956. A deteriorating economic situation turned into a full blown economic mudslide as a result of ensuing
corruption and mismanagement. A confirmed despot, Duvalier with assistance of his private secret police (Tonton Macoutes) destroyed anything left of human rights in Haiti but the Americans chose to turn a blind eye as they desperately needed a watchdog in the strategic Caribbean region against the influence of the Soviets in Cuba (barely 200 miles west of Haiti)
CHAPTER 3
(Pact with the devil)
It is difficult to explain how a country that was the emerging economy in the late 18th century and most of the 19th, fell into the morass which it is today. The natural resources i.e. its arable lands (besides instances of deforestation) and geographic/strategic location, etc. have not changed.
However, on closer inspection, it is not so difficult to explain. And no, it is not televangelist Pat Robertson's version which suggests that Dutty Boukman, a Vodou high priest and a slave insurrectionist leader in 1791, at the beginning
of the revolution, made a pact with satan to deliver the Negros from the yoke of the French colonists. If Pat Robertson would do a little bit of head work and free his lazy mind, he would learn that before Boukman were failed insurrectionists such as Francois Mackandal, a fierce leader of negro maroons and also Vodou priest, who was ultimately captured by the French and burned alive at the stake in 1758.
Let us return from urban myth to facts. In 1825, after the reunification of Haiti and more than 20 years after the declaration of independence, the French showed up yet again. France in 1825, issued a "Royal Ordinance" which called for massive indemnity payments to it. In addition to an indemnity of 150 million Franc, France demanded that all French ships and commercial goods entering and leaving Haiti would be discounted at 50 percent, thereby further crippling an economy, terribly wounded from many civil wars
and the revolution. To express their resoluteness, the ordinance was delivered by a flotilla of 12 warships armed with 500 cannons.
To put 150 million Franc in perspective, this was the total output recorded by Haiti in 1789, the zenith of its economic might. Following the years of civil wars and the revolution, total output as at 1823 was 30 million Franc (a fifth of its record, three decades earlier). France figured it was owed back-royalties in an amount equal to 50% of output (at the present 30 million franc rate), over a period of 10 years. Hence, 15 million Franc times 10, equals 150 million Franc.
150 million Franc was Frances annual budget in 1825 and as indicated above, 10 times Haiti's annual revenue. An estimate suggests that amount was 55 million more Franc than was needed to restore 793 sugar plantations, 3,117 coffee estates, and 3,906 indigo, cotton and other crop plantations destroyed during the war for independence. In
contrast to such display of Shylock like shrewdness, the French sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States for just 60 million Franc ($15 million) or less than 3 cents per acre, for an area 74 times the surface area of Haiti.
Needless saying this was an albatross a crippled economy could hardly bear. To compound matters, to meet its first installment, Haiti had to borrow 30 million Franc from a French bank. Like a every banker worth their pinstripes and suspenders, the French bankers deducted all sorts of fees and exacted usurious interest rates of the loan.
Right there and then, Haiti assured its "Pact with the devil of Debt". Do you hear me old Pat Robertson??
Though France ultimately reduced the principal on the indemnity to 90 million Franc, Haiti was chained to an endless cycle of borrowing (from French, British, German and American banks) over the next 122 years till it paid off the last installment in 1947.
This
bear-hug by France (and effectively its allies in the West, I might add) resulted in the first "structural adjustment program" of the modern era with France assuming the role of a present day IMF (International Monetary Fund). The only difference being, the former did not give a rats ass about the social or economic development of its debtor nation (better still, debtor victim)
The then President Boyer, increased tariffs on all other imports from 12% to 16% to offset the French 50% discount. Further, in addition to declaring the national debt a direct responsibility of the negro citizenry, Boyer implemented a "rural code" and we shall come to that in a little bit. So here's the bottom line, the negroes were foisted with an insurmountable debt burden in order to allow the bourgeois and elite resume trade with Europe and the rest of the world. In other words, the profits were privatized and the debt socialized.
The rural code dictated that
agricultural workers (code for Negros) were restricted to the land and could not move freely from place to place. The code also banned small scale commerce so that the peasant farmers (Negros) were obligated to enter into long term labor contracts with the propertied class (mulattoes), establishing fault lines in a social structure which endures till this day.
Taxes levied on production were applied to indemnity payments and very little (if any) went toward providing education, healthcare, or other social services, for the peasants on whose backs this wealth was still being created. For some perspective, it is on record that between 1804 and 1990 (when Aristide was first elected), a grand total of 32 high schools were built, all in the urban areas and little to none in the countryside.
In short, the rural code was structured to regulate rural life in order to "manage" the input elements of production (read: labor) to more efficiently
enhance yield on cash crops for export, on which Haiti depended to make its payments to France. As with many things, it had unintended consequences. Even today, the discrimination between rural and urban areas manifests itself in color discrimination between the mulattos (light skinned blacks) and the Negro (dark skinned blacks).
CHAPTER 4
(My own Thoughts)
Returning to my observations, it is very difficult not to sympathize with the negroes of Haiti. Here is the second (behind the US) independent state in the western hemisphere. Here are a people who 200 yrs ago, laid their lives down for representative leadership and it appears to me they still do not have it.
On Saturday December 26, 2009, my father in-law Georges took me along on an excursion to a recently discovered coffee plantation from the colonial era. We drove about 4,500 feet above sea level through freshly cut roads and the scenes were difficult to swallow. In
these mountains, barely 45 minutes outside Port au Prince, were Negros who up till last year, had never seen a motor car. They looked like something out of an Indiana Jones movie.
As we drove by, young damsels were washing themselves in a stream, entirely impervious to our presence. They were lugging around wood on donkeys and the look on their faces described a life condemned to hopelessness. How could this be happening in 2009 just at the door step of the capital, Port au Prince??
I also note observations from our trip to Il-la-Vache, an exclusive resort, off the port of Le Cayes at the southern tip of the island. I noted the terrible un-roadworthiness of the trucks that transported people like sheep to and from the outer-country. Almost exclusively, the contents of these vessels were negro. Through the fields and plains in the countryside, I did not observe a single instance of mulatto (much less white). But on arrival to the resort, as
I had come to expect, the guests were entirely mulatto and white with the negroes in their familiar role as servants and porters . In 2009!
My own sense is that since Bonaparte's deportation of Toussaint to France, no one has done anything for these people who fought bravely and gave their lives for liberty. Today, the bourgeoisie remain mostly the mulatto who are keen to maintain their status at any expense. It is documented that of 1.3 million families in the country, 9,000 control 40% of the wealth. I will hazard to guess they are almost entirely non-negro.
La Famiglia
In my own adopted Haitian family, it is often with bemusement that I watch this "not so subtle" manifestation of prejudice. In every instance I observed, it appears like a self-adjusting mechanism where soon as one gets a bit too dark, they marry a white person to neutralize any encroaching traces of melanin.
I often harassed my father in law Georges with this
observation and he assures me that times are changing and points out to me, the odd member of the family who has married a negro. Yet, the overwhelming evidence suggests nothing has changed. I should note, not at all lightly, that my discoveries and resulting soliloquies prescribe a new realm of respect for my wife Pascale who in deciding to marry a negro, ignores an "tacitly entrenched tradition" of marrying "your own kind". One who her grandmother Maman Marcelle, innocently without malice, yet assuredly, rejected as "being too dark".
As I look at my own boys Christian and Olivier, I wonder what they might conclude from watching this comical phenomenon. Will they come to associate (by association with their cousins) black with everything undesirable and white with its opposite? Sufficiently pigmented by my own African Negro blood, will my boys come to wish to "recalibrate" their own offspring by moving further
out toward the fairer spectrum?
J' ne sais pas!
Summary:
Returning to my "Pact with the Devil Theory", there's nothing quite like chaining a newly independent country to an albatross of debt, in order to assure a fighting chance at a flying start. Perhaps more importantly, Haiti is additionally burdened with twin undesirables of race and a severe form of classism.
Granted, the French might have done well to let them alone to reorganize socially and economically following decades of war and unrest. More insidious however, is the endemic and destructive culture of caste-based classism the French bequeathed Haiti. The mulattos today (in my opinion) see in themselves, natural heirs to the French colonists, having entrenched themselves in all corners of commerce and politics to make the point. They are still by far, a numerical minority but control the destiny of the country, often to an end at
odds with the well being of the broader (negro) populace.
On the future of Haiti, it is my distinct unequivocal opinion, that it must be "re-colonized" by a more "reasonable colonist" (an oxymoron, yes I know, I know!!) if it must have any, and I mean any, chance of ever becoming a normal society. That "reasonable colonist", let us say, The United States, must then spend a very long time in occupation. During this time, the entire political and economic framework has to be entirely uprooted and remodeled. Not a remnant of the "old host-body" (present day Haiti) should remain. I fear that the slightest trace of even a few parasites, should any part of the "old host-body" remain, would insure its permanent seat at the dystopian misery conference forever.
It is simply impossible to advance as a nation without carrying everyone along to some degree. Idealistic though I may be, I am not naive to imagine the
kumbaya themes of the utopian myth, a perfectly equitable society. I do however selfishly recognize, that I can only perpetuate my own existence through progeny, if my neighbor possesses at a minimum some very basic rights.
Properly done, Haiti might have a chance at self governance in 50 years perhaps. Anything short of such drastic measure will simply not do.
EPILOGUE
I wrote this paper on Sunday January 3, 2010. My original intention was to add to it gradually over time as I gained better understanding through self reflection. But recent events force me to publish it much sooner than I hoped.
About 6.30pm Tuesday January 12, 2010, my wife Pascale casually mentioned that while returning from work and listening to her usual NPR local transmission, there was an earthquake report in western Haiti - would I please check the internet to see what the commotion was all about?
I grabbed a glass of water and
reluctantly dragged my exhausted head to my computer terminal as many a compliant husband would. The following 24 hours would bring uncertainty, agony, anxiety, tears, cries, fear, anger, every emotion that can be conjured in a dictionary.
The uncertainty ended by 4pm Wednesday January 13th, 2010. It was certain, my parents-in-law Georges & Mireille Anglade were confirmed victims of the massive earthquake. They were sitting out on a bottom floor patio of the neighbors home. The neighbor was Mirelle's sister Marillise, and her husband Phillippe.
Marillisse momentarily excused herself from the group to fetch something from the car parked outside. Soon as she approached the car, she heard a loud sound and felt the ground below her quiver. She turned around and the house from which she just emerged disappeared under a giant mushroom of dust. Three stories worth of concrete were piled upon her loved ones.
They never stood a chance,
not against this determined fury of nature!
Bibliography:
(i) The Black Jacobins: CLR James
(ii) Haiti Restitution Commission Report: Dr. Francis St. Hubert
(iii) Wikipedia: Miscellaneous Research
Bibliography contains significantly, verbal transfers, stories, anecdotes and such, over Haitian Rum last Christmas by the following:
(i) Georges (Papi Geo) Anglade - R.I.P.,
(ii) Phillippe (Uncle Phil) Rouzier - R.I.P.,
(iii) Gaston (Mon-oncle Gaston) Baussan,
(iv) Frantz (Uncle Fan-Fan) Voltaire,
(v) Jeanne (Mama-Jeanne) Coicou.
---The greatest loss may not be death, but what dies inside us while we live |
