Haiti,
We're Sorry
By Deniece Alleyne
LL.B
05 June, 2007
The
Democrat
Not
that long ago I had the opportunity of speaking with some Haitian migrants
who had been dropped off at various points around the island. I am fairly
fluent in the French language and I wanted to interview them about their
experiences as migrants generally and about their treatment in St. Kitts
in particular.
Their story was painful in
its ordinariness. None had intended to come to St. Kitts but had been
deceived by unscrupulous human traffickers to whom they had paid substantial
sums. They were seeking relief; from hunger, homelessness and lack of
opportunity. They were seeking a better life. Theirs was a story common
to us here in St. Kitts and throughout the Caribbean. All of us either
know persons or are persons who have migrated to other Caribbean countries,
the USA, Canada or the UK to better ourselves and our children. In fact
it is ironic to me as a naturalized Kittitian born in Guyana that I
have so often been told "you na from yah" by people who go
to great lengths to have their children born in the US Virgin Islands
or Puerto Rico if they cant make it to the US mainland.
Despite our history as a
migrant people, from being kidnapped and enslaved and transported between
continents, to traveling for work whether in Trinidad, immediately after
emancipation in the 1840s to the Dominican Republic, Panama and Curacao
in the early twentieth century we have been inflicted with a strange
xenophobia. Strange because when taken to its natural conclusion it
means that we are biting the hand that has fed us, and strange because
this xenophobia is only directed towards black people like ourselves.
On several occasions I have been abused for being born in Guyana by
persons who practically worship what they call "coolie hair"
and have gone to great lengths to have children with men of Indian descent
from the same Guyana or Trinidad. I have always found it a tragic symptom
of an internalized inferiority complex and felt sorry for such persons.
This brings me back to the
story of the Haitians. I could not help wondering why they had to be
held in prison when I spoke with them. The men complained of the over
- crowding and the women, though relatively comfortable, did ask me;
"Why the prison?"
During my time in England
I was asked on several occasions by white students whether we live in
houses where I come from. I was constantly amazed rather than offended
by the question because the query came from abject ignorance. What has
been astounding is the fact that I have heard similar nonsense asked
about Haitians by persons here, whether about their religion or cultural
practices or rate of infection with AIDS. I was horrified recently when
I heard on the BBC Caribbean that coast guard officials in the Turks
and Caicos Islands had deliberately collided with a boat carrying Haitian
migrants causing it to capsize in shark infested waters. To add insult
to injury the survivors were locked in a detention center and prevented
from speaking to journalists in the immediate aftermath of this incident.
This shocking story immediately
brought to my mind the haunting lyrics of poet and composer David Rudder
from his melancholic requiem called ‘Haiti I'’m sorry.’
He asked ‘they say the middle passage is gone, so how come overcrowded
boats still haunt our lives?’ This brutally compelling question
brings in sharp relief the scandalous state of affairs that is CARICOM
policy with regard to the Haitian Republic.
Haiti is a special case in the Caribbean. It represents the prevailing
international opinion of independence, sovereignty and freedom for people
of African descent whether on the continent itself or anywhere in the
Diaspora. Haiti dared to violently throw off the yoke of bondage, colonialism,
imperialism and all notions of racial inferiority in a relentless 10
year war of attrition that in the words of Prof. George Lamming proved
that black men were men. For this daring audacity the Haitians have
been made to suffer. Their country has been turned into a terrible cautionary
tale to the rest of us that if we don''t drink the swill from the swine
trough of white supremacy we too will be imprisoned in a barren wasteland
desperately seeking the means of escape.
Haiti is the oldest Black
republic in the world and among the oldest republics in the world. Only
the American and French republics are older. How awe inspiring it is
to have as a fact of history that during that period in history known
as the enlightenment while white men were patting themselves on the
back for coming up with dissertations on the rights of man as proof
of their supposed superiority, black men were asserting that freedom
was inherent to humanity not an indulgence to be granted by a benevolent
master. In virtually every other colonial territory black, brown and
yellow men asked and pleaded and genuflected before the altars of the
mother country, imbibing her language, institutions, culture but most
importantly denying that we had any of those things to prove us worthy
of being granted independence. Only in Haiti did black men take their
freedom. Haiti disproved all the arguments and theories about the nature
of man in general and the black man in particular. Haiti disproved Darwin
and his theory that us Africans were savages requiring slavery for our
own well being. Haiti disproved Hegel that Africans had no voice in
history by indelibly infusing history with the most brutally eloquent
free man's creed. Haiti disproved Paine that Africans were simpletons
incapable of comprehending the nature and meaning of liberty expounding
its true meaning. Haiti defied the largest and most sophisticated armies
and navies of the time. On that glorious New Year''s Day in 1804 Haiti
declared for oppressed people everywhere that bondage was not the natural
state of any man. Haiti became the threat of a good example.
For this Haiti had to pay.
The retribution exacted from
the only successful rebellion of enslaved people has been catastrophic.
The US enforced a century long absolute embargo from 1806 and no other
country traded with Haiti effectively crippling the nascent nation.
American, Spanish and British naval vessels blockaded Haitian ports
for several years to ensure that no rogue trader could defy the siege.
Worst of all however was the unconscionable demand for reparations from
the French Republic for the loss of its colony! Imagine that! In 1825,
on behalf of former slaveholders the French government imposed an indemnity
on Haiti as payment for recognizing it as a free nation. It threatened
to wage war to re - colonize and re - enslave Haiti if the country did
not pay 90 million francs. In today’s dollars it amounts to more
than $21 billion. Think about it carefully. The country continually
derided as the a failed state, the poorest and most backward country
in this hemisphere and chief among this benighted group worldwide has
paid to France, one of the richest, more that $21 billion during the
165 years up to 1990. What would this money have done if spent to develop
Haiti?
The ignorant and self despising
among us like to ask the eminently silly question, how can we know that
slavery and colonialism caused any tangible benefit to accrue to the
imperialist nations? Haiti answers that question in dollars and cents.
The US did not recognize Haitian independence until 1863 in the midst
of its own civil war which was primarily about slavery. In addition
to this indignity, Haiti was constantly harassed and several times invaded
and occupied by the US as part of its Monroe Doctrine always under that
useful fiction that we black people cannot rule ourselves. The longest
occupation persisted for 19 years from 1915 to 1934. The US installed
and maintained the barbaric reign of terror of the Duvalier family and
its fearsome ton ton macoutes. It ensured that the only industries that
were allowed to flourish unhindered were prostitution and drug and gun
trafficking.
Perhaps however, the worst
retribution exacted from the Haitian people has been the hate of their
brothers. By this I mean that instead of honoring and venerating those
great men like L’OUVERTURE and DESSALINES as the heroes they are
and reciting their deeds to our children and naming our sons after them
like we would and have after great white men we have either despised
their sacrifice or worse ignored it completely. Most of us have been
so convinced that black skin is ugly and our natural hair is defective
that we support a multi - billion dollar industry in skin bleaches and
hair straighteners and weaves.
When we curse someone the
first thing we can think of saying is how black the person is even when
we are no different. It has been scientifically shown that we are far
more likely to consider a person beautiful if his/her skin is light
rather than dark and that we correlate dark skin with negative characteristics.
In other words most of us have chosen not to be heirs of the Haitian
revolution but rather to be what Walter Rodney called ''white men in
black skins''. This is perverse and tragic, even sacrilegious. It denies
the testimony that most of my readers claim to believe that we are made
in the image of God.
Haiti is poor today because
it was deliberately made so and kept so just like much of sub - Saharan
Africa by wars either military or economic and cultural. To acknowledge
this is not to have a slave mindset or to be stuck in the past or to
have a "hand - out" mentality nor any of the tired pejoratives
that are constantly bandied about. It is simply to state a fact that
is very important to note because so many people think that the reason
is that black people are somehow incapable of properly running a country.
When black people can throw other black people to sharks for simply
wanting a better life, when specifically Caribbean black people can
do this to Haitians it shows how desperately we still need the Haitian
Revolution. It shows how much we need to heed to the words of a son
of this revolution and emancipate ourselves from mental slavery?
There are now several investigations
underway in the Turks and Caicos Islands into this atrocity but whatever
they find it is important that such action is denounced in the strongest
terms. Migration defines Caribbean people and it simply beggars belief
that movement within this region should attract such hostility on the
part of the teapot tyrants that run these countries. With an almost
comical regularity Caribbean politicians pontificate on sovereignty
and protecting the jobs of locals from foreigners as an election gimmick
mainly when their administration is bad to generate hostility towards
Caribbean people. They certainly are not referring to the whites who
they bend over backwards and race to the bottom against each other to
see how low they can go to accommodate.
The competition between Antigua
and St. Kitts for the Caribbean Star HQ is a recent example; remember
the billionaire owner who bought prime airport real estate for 69c per
square foot. I can only imagine how Antigua sweetened that deal. You
see, teachers from other islands are not investing in our country. How
tragic - comic it is to see how precious we hold these various ports
on the routes of the slave ships when we are not desperately trying
to get away and sneak into the US or Canada that is.
This state of affairs is
not permanent, despite how bleak it seems. The modern age presents the
opportunity to forge for ourselves a new identity founded on the principle
defended with blood in the Haitian revolution. A first step would be
for CARICOM leaders to end discriminatory policies against Haiti and
instead concentrate on finding ways to be of assistance to our brothers
across this Caribbean Sea. They can start by vocally supporting the
Haitian demand for France to repay the unconscionable indemnity began
by former President Aristide. They can continue by enacting immigration
policies that recognize the contribution made by our own people migrating
among these islands. When Toussaint L’OUVERTURE was kidnapped
by the French, his last words to them were ‘in overthrowing me
you have cut down only the trunk of the tree of liberty, it will spring
up again from the roots for they are many and they are deep.’
We, as Caribbean people,
need to draw our strength from those roots.
© 2003 Pam Democrat
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