To be fed, clothed, and bandaged by the same hands that flog you to your soul-reaving labours: that's what it is to be a slave.
Haiti's new ghosts, wafting out of freshly-dug mass graves, are joining hands with the ghosts who have haunted that tragic nation since the fall of Louverture--the self-manumitted spirits of those who fell while fighting to be free. They were not slaves: their struggle unshackled their souls before their deaths unshackled their bonded bodies. By proudly refusing the lash, they forsook also their masters' meat.
I can see those lordly, magnificent old ghosts sadly drawing into their phantom fold the freshly perished thousands and weeping over the slave-like lot to which their blighted lives had been consigned, despite the brilliant triumph of Louverture's legions. For the newly dead were slaves.
They were slaves when they watched helplessly as American grandees deposed and cast into exile the prime minister they had so arrogantly presumed to choose; they were slaves when--shortly after setting forth upon their bright new Aristide-free dispensation--they were reduced to eating dirt under the watchful eyes of heroic Western "nation-builders". They've been slaves throughout the tear-drenched chronicle of catastrophically cynical American interventionism that the last ten decades have scrawled in blood upon Haiti's petrified soul. And it is as slaves that they now accept our "aid" whilst lying, starving and raving, amid reeking hills of rotting corpses. They are slaves, and they are expected to bow to their masters in gratitude for the gift of their cold porridge.
Much of Haiti's porridge is ours. Much of Haiti's flogging has been ours. To any man or woman who believes that the former fact extenuates the shame of the latter, I could not without deep anxiety entrust the care of a dog.
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16 comments:
A very sad trajectory for all of us.
I still don't understand how the Canadian media manages to ignore Canada's participation in Aristide's removal so thoroughly. Even if the facts are in dispute, the complete absence of discussion is hard to understand.
I still don't understand how the Canadian media manages to ignore Canada's participation in Aristide's removal so thoroughly.
Oh I think you do, Ti.
Meh. The real solution here is having them sign a free trade agreement with us. This earthquake is nothing a few sweatshops, trade liberalization and Canadian mining companies won't fix.
Ryan has probably got it right. I wouldn't bet against him at all.
The real solution here is having them sign a free trade agreement with us.
Indeed. Such a pact might even allow Haitians to step up from dirt pies to mud pies...
Oh I think you do, Ti.
Well, no, I don't. Not in the particulars, anyway.
I'll admit to a great deal of weariness when it comes to Haïti (and the Caribbean in general) though. And don't take that personally. I have a lot experience in the region.
Well, no, I don't. Not in the particulars, anyway.
Our role in Aristide's deposition was not and has not been "ignored". It was reported fairly widely as events unfolded, as I recall.
Canadians merely failed to care, and schooling the public in matters for which it evinces utter unconcern is something for which our media have no appetite. Canadian journalism is lazy enough in its coverage of matters we actually care about; the unceremonious dismissal of a tiny "Red" ex-priest whose tenure as presiding non-entity of the poorest American protectorate was concluded by the heroic protectors themselves is going to sustain the passion neither of the Canadian public nor the officers of its press.
Our role in Aristide's deposition was not and has not been "ignored". It was reported fairly widely as events unfolded, as I recall.
I'd like to see the evidence for that.
I came across the following items spanning (roughly) from 2004 to '08 during a quick Google session. I’m sure there’s much more out there:
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Forgive me, Sir Francis. I wasn't accusing you of ignorance nor was I admitting that myself. I should have specified mainstream media.
And although the World Wide Web now occupies a significant portion of media space in which we learn about the non-local World, it was actually strikingly different as little as six years ago.
A lot of those links are to reports dated years after the event occurred, by the way.
Ti:
A few of the items are from relatively marginal sources, yes. There are also items from the CBC, The Tyee and NOW magazine--hardly obscure outlets. Most of them are dated to within a few years of the event.
Like I said, our media have clearly not been curious about this issue, but, at around the time of the actual coup, our involvement was indeed reported by some “reputable” mainstream media. We just didn't care.
Which ones are from the CBC?
I've no doubt Canadians don't care, but I'm interested why they don't care.
On that note, I left a snarky comment over at MacLean's to a post from one of their young and obnoxious little careerists (Micheal Petrou).
This tragedy has been a godsend to them. Gawd, I hate journalists.
Which ones are from the CBC?
Just one of them--the penultimate. It's from 2004.
I caught that edition of The Currnent at the time. It was thoroughly unenlightening.
Not that it could have been any different. Even the contacts I had in PJ Patterson's government didn't really know what was going on.
It is almost as if though it is a self-replicating or self-reinforcing system. The Canadian government shamelessly conspires with the U.S. to meddle in Haiti in a very neo-Cold Waresque style in which the motivations for such a planned coup was framed using humanitarian appeals to "bringing democracy." Now, with Haiti to its knees, these themes are brought to the fore once again, as if the subtext is only the West can help solve the problems. The accompanying putrid cynicism about how the state of Haiti mired in corruption and the uselessness of aid help galvanize a false dichotomy in which the U.S. and Canadian government can appear even more saintly in their quest to help Haiti while surreptitiously laying the groundwork for another neo-imperial fiefdom. When the long, tortured reconstruction of Haiti is complete, Latortue's league will be enchanted with the benefits from the economic pacts made by both U.S. and Canada that will only marginalize and enrich the ruling class in Haiti.
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