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The
Revolutionary Potential of Haiti
Its Creeds, Values and Struggle
by Ezili Dantò
*
Not primarily a class struggle:
A Few Ezili Dantò Comments inspired by Gutiérrez' post
on Haiti
This commentary will examine the revolutionary potential of Haiti and
how Haiti addressed, at its inception, varying levels of oppression
and exploitation from a race, gender, nationality, religion, mythological/
cosmological/ psychological, and from the economic and cultural perspective.
Mr. José Antonio Gutiérrez wrote an excellent article
on the current situation in Haiti- (Ayiti:
Occupation or freedom?).
The points made in the following two paragraphs are worth reiterating
for suitably illustrating the crux of the matter:
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"....80%
of public services in Haiti are provided by international charity
and 65% of this year's budget came from international donors.
The State is nothing but a hollow shell to pay foreign debt and
get the politicians brand-new cars (not even can fulfil its repressive
role, having to rely on international occupation!) . It is as
hollow as Preval's promises of more schools... |
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Haiti
is a prime example of a country completely ruined by imperialist
interventions, by the rapacity of its dominant class and by fake
aid. We see no way out other than a radical break away from this
order. Difficult it might be, extremely difficult for sure, as
difficult as it was to abolish slavery in the late XVIII Century,
but to reform the present system is just impossible. Despite everything,
the Haitians will sooner than later master their own destiny..."
(Ayiti:
Occupation or Freedom by Jose Antonio Gutierrez).
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Also, certain points made in the commentaries
are quite revealing. Marie Nadine makes classic points and calls Jean
on his promotion of macoutes. (ie. "...we are not all oppressed
at the same level ....Similarly, in Haiti, there are layers of oppression
whereby females particularly the dark skin and poor are at the very
bottom..." and the contributions of the Haitian Maroon rebels and
female warriors of the Haitian Revolution, such Mari Jann, are "overlooked",
"constantly minimalized and underappreciated.")
But what interest further are the explorations,
in the commentaries, written by Gutiérrez
and reiterated by Wayne about the various levels of class, gender, race
and special oppressions and exploitation. To which, I'd like to herein
add these comments and HLLN links for further dialogue and consideration:
Indeed,
Haiti's struggles is not soley a "class struggle" as certain
neo Marxists, Marxist, or "Leftists" continue to insist. José
Antonio Gutiérrez
is correct - the end of capitalism will not mean the end of all oppression.
But
here, I hasten to add a caveat. Private means of ownership is not the
issue for Haitians. For most Haitians wish to own their own land, be
masters and lord of the land and its resources in Haiti (Dessaline’s
Law)
and have its value recognized as part of their net worth, not ignored.
Still, concepts such as "capitalism,"
"socialism," "communism" have fairly run their course
and contain too many abused analysis, notions and presumptions scarcely
based on our reality, but on abstract theories. The
problem is that, as practiced by the world oligarchs and their "artificial
legal entities" capitalism is nothing less than just plain rehashed
feudalism.
Haiti, shall find its own way based
on its own needs. Besides capitalism, in my view, is not inherently
evil, nor is socialism or communism. Each may be used to promote humane
but economic values that could take Haiti out of containment in poverty.
For instance, capitalism has assisted the heretofore poverty-ridden
Native Americans in Connecticut, USA to be economically self-sufficient
in a relatively short period of time without blithely destroying their
neighboring, more privilege communities. The Mashantucket Pequots now
own the world's largest casinos (Foxwoods), the profits of which are
used to make life easier - even possible - for people who weren't born
to privilege but to all sorts of deprivations. Private ownership (capitalism)
combined with the use of social subsidies (socialism) for a particular
group, in this case was a valuable means for elevating the Pequot masses,
and the tool that help attain long overdue catharsis, promoted cohesion,
connection and community.
(Of
course, Casinos, per se, may, by definition, prey on human vulnerabilities
and the poor. But that's another issue and one that's not too ominous
or relevant in a State that's considered one of the richest of the US).
But, to get back
to the point to be made here with reference to the commentaries: The
end of profit-over-people, feudalistic capitalism/financial colonialism
will not mean the end of all oppression based on race, gender, nationality,
religion and the cultural and social phenomenon that are part and parcel
of biological fatalism. No.
Indeed, it is not debatable that oppression based on "pigmentocracy,"
sex, religion and gender predate the capitalist system. These pre-capitalist
oppressions, especially patriarchy (a form for racism, sexism and original
sin-ism/religion-based-exclusions) were utilized by the old feudal oligarchs
to feed, nurture and help create and secure capitalism. Today its various
structures - colonialism, neocolonialism, neo liberalism, globalization,
still vie for the soul of Black and Brown folk, not because racism,
sexism, original sin-ism are inherent to capitalism but because they
are convenient tools to promote the feudalistic hegemony of a particular
male grouping historically endowed with what has been codified as "white
privilege" - economically, socially and culturally.
Moreover, so-called "race" oppression oftentimes trumps sexual
oppression. For, in many
ways, the greater majority of (socially-defined) Black
and brown women of this world, of any hue, are more likely to be socially
and economically oppressed than the greater majority of (socially-defined)
white women of any economic status. There is "race" oppression,
economic oppression, gender oppression, nationality oppression, oppression
based on religion, et al. All, are used to maintain Officialdom's current
balance of power, and profit-over-people values, at various levels.
A few points may be made in terms of the revolutionary potential of
Haiti and how Haiti addressed, at its inception, "varying levels
of oppression and exploitation" from a race, gender, nationality,
religion, mythological/ cosmological/ psychological, and from the economic
and cultural perspective.
1. Race
Haiti is the only nation created based on a revolutionary philosophy
that deracialized the term "Black" and exploded the capitalistic
use of the term to exploit and oppress.
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/dessalines.html#3
That is, in principle, Haiti is a nation of Blacks, meaning of "lovers-of-liberty"
no matter their pigmentation ("race").
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"This Dessalines philosophy directly and humanely defeats
the socially manufactured white/black “race” dialogue
of the US/Euro powers that Dessalines and his peoples in Haiti
confronted and is one of the primary reason why the spread of
Haiti's revolution, was, and still is, so feared by the US/Euro
slave owners, colonizers and their descendants who depend on "white"
as code to designate, in contrast to "Black," what's
"good," "civilized" or "superior"
in order to unify the European tribes and divide and conquer peoples
of color worldwide. Dessalines did not only defeat European slavery
and colonialism in one fell swoop in physical combat with the
greatest European armies of the time, but he also ideologically
decimated the basis for white privilege, by designating "Ayisyen"
as "Blacks" not based on skin color, but as all persons
who took arms or positive action against tyranny, oppression,
slavery." (Dessalines
Three ideals)
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2. Economic equity
Dessalines' dream of a "Black ruled independent Haiti" where
the assets
of the country are equitably divided amongst
all Haitians, is what Haitians have been struggling to achieve, within
a hostile American Mediterranean, for over 200 years. Dessalines is
so revered by Haitians, he is the ONLY one of the revolutionary heroes
of Haiti, to become a Lwa. He's Haiti's liberator, founding
father, first ruler, teacher, guide and spiritual father. (See, Felix
Morrisseau-Leroy poem, "Thank
you Father Dessalines"; see Haiti's National Anthem
called Dessaline's
Song or La Desalinyen. Listen to the
audio.)
"Haiti's
liberator and founding father, General Jean
Jacques Dessalines, said, "I Want the Assets
of the Country to be Equitably Divided" and for that he
was assassinated by
the mulatto
sons of France.
That was the first coup d'etat, the Haitian holocaust
- organized exclusion
of the masses, misery, poverty and the impunity of the economic elite
- continues (with
Feb. 29, 2004 marking the 33rd coup d'etat). Haiti's peoples continue
to
resist the return of despots,
tyrants and enslavers who wage war on the poor majority and
Black, contain-them-in poverty through neocolonialism' debts, "free
trade" and foreign "investments." These neocolonial tyrants
refuse to allow an equitable division of wealth, excluding the majority
in Haiti from sharing in the
country's wealth and assets."
(See also, Kanga
Mundele: Our mission to live free or die trying, Another Haitian Independence
Day under occupation; The
Legacy of Impunity of One Sector-Who killed Dessalines?;
The Legacy of Impunity:
The Neoconlonialist inciting political instability is the problem. Haiti
is underdeveloped in crime, corruption, violence, compared to other
nations; Dessalines had
zero tolerance for despots and famously stated "We will detonate
and burn Haiti down and all rather die before we are returned to slavery
and colonialism." Desalin di, "Depi teritwa nou an menase,
koupe tèt, boule kay paske Ayisyen pap retounen lan esklavaj."
)
3. The relentless ravages of
geopolitics
Both Dessalines and Toussaint were responsible, at various times and
to different degrees of culpability, for betraying the fight of the
Haitian masses and rebel maroon leaders to consolidate power and personal
influence either with the enslavers and their blan peyi overseers or,
as a gambit for longevity in the struggle to fight again on another
day. The same may be said, for Preval and Aristide, in varying degrees
of culpability.
For example, Toussaint had his own nephew, General Moïse, executed
for failing to protect a few white proprietors in a Maroon riot where
a few whites, pledged protection by Toussaint, were killed. Dessalines,
Christophe and Clerveaux, all, at a point, betrayed the Maroon rebels
to the French (Leclerc). Dessalines was responsible for shooting Charles
and Sanite Belair and other rebels on Leclerc's orders after Toussaint's
capture. But, let's hasten to add that contradictions and betrayals
of principles, and still being able to safeguard universal ideals (in
Constitutions) for posterity, are not unique to Haitian heroes and to
Haiti's founding fathers.
For, Thomas Jefferson, the U.S. founding father who penned the US Declaration
of Independence which professed loudly, to all and sundry, that "all
men are created equal," owned slaves, refused to recognized Haiti's
independence and all the while was nightly bedding,
at Monticello, a 14-year old black captive girl named, Sallie
Hemings. George Washington also owned slaves. Thomas Jefferson,
who meant by his declaration that "rich, white, propertied men
where "created equal," is reputed to have fathered six children
with Dusky Sally. John Locke and others of the European "enlightenment"
participated in the slave trade, owned slaves, oppressed the less privileged
and were reprehensible reprobates of different sorts...et al.
Why is it only their heroic qualities are constantly promoted to school
children, while all the frailties of the Haitian founding fathers are
constantly being laundered as indelible stains? Is it that foreign "scholars"
or the mentally colonized/Eurocenric black elites, are not, like in
Haiti, telling these Western "heroes," much nuanced, complex,
blemished and intricate stories to elementary school children in the
US and Europe? But they were/are socially and culturally, if not economically,
rewarded for promoting only the "so-blemished-by-racism-and-neocolonialism"
tale of Haitian heroes?
" In our opinion, as participants and witnesses in the Haitian
struggle, Aristide’s attempt at over-conciliation with the macoutes
and the imperialists cumulatively disempowered, took for granted and
placed his allies, both at home and in the Diaspora, in an untenable
position. We agree that the enemy is overwhelming, that Haitian resources
are limited. But still, Haiti indeed needed and still needs the strength
of a Dessalines and to clearly struggle against Neocolonialism and for
a Black-ruled-Independent-Nation. And if, for this need and Haitian
necessity, Haiti and Haitians are always going to face the guns, brutality,
propaganda and inevitability of coup d’etat from the economic
elites and imperialist powers, it’s far better, far more dignified
to empower our own directly, instead of the blan peyi and blan
kolon vagabon and struggle for Dessalines'
Law, as best we can, eye-to-eye, on our feet and without
always dissembling. " (http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/dupuy.html#tootolerant
)
"...Both Toussaint Louverture and Jean Jacques Dessalines took
up arms against the white enslavers and colonists.
But because Toussaint Louverture fought for neocolonialism, he's the
one revered by the whites.
The whites still fear and hate Dessalines because he beat them and declared
Haiti a Black independent nation.
"Down the annals of history, the
impression has been propagated, to the interests of the whites,
that Toussaint Louverture was sort of Ghandi-like and non-violent, which
is totally untrue. (See
also "Napoleon
was no Toussaint" by Jafrikayiti).
"Toussaint Louverture killed his share of white enslavers and colonists
as general of Haiti's indigenous army before Dessalines. And when Toussaint
Louverture was kidnapped because he was too trusting of the whites,
too compromising and too tolerant, it was time for Dessalines. Today,
Haiti awaits a Dessalines.
Ezili Dantò said this back on the day of Aristide's kidnapping.
Haiti awaits a Dessalines. Read
in particular "Moun
ki fe bagay sa, jodi a -yo swaf dlo lan zye!: Haitian fratricide
allowed for the Empire to eat up our divisions and make this February
29, 2004 Coup D'etat comeback" by Ezili Dantò
on Feb. 29, 2004.
Many so-called "learned" older Haitians from the French-based,
or Pepe/Neo-ecclessiatic and Eurocentric education eras in Haiti, will
tell you emphatically that there could not be a Dessalines without a
Toussaint. And that as a matter of fact Dessalines was Toussaint's lieutenant.
So what, he was a general under Toussaint's reign also. That doesn't
necessarily mean Dessalines wanted to be beholden to France, or did
not side with the Maroon's visions of an independently Black ruled nation
free from colonialism, neocolonialism and slavery. Besides, "Who
wrote the his-story these folks imbibe whole and unfettered, minimizing
Dessalines and refusing to make room for cohesion within contradictions
and contradictions within co-existence in a particular community of
peoples? That may be the problem right there.
For, Martin Luther King and Malcolm
X shared the same era and struggles, so did Booker T. Washington and
W E.B. Dubois. Neither "needed" the other's existence to espouse
their opposing visions for attaining freedom and equity for Black folks
in the U.S. They co-existed, even recognized there were greater evils
to face than one another. But yet were vehemently, mutually opposed
in strategic ways and visions. History shows that it is Dessalines and
the Haitian Maroon rebel's visions and indigenous triumphs in Haiti
that still inspires the masses to struggle on against neocolonialism.
(Mesi
Papa Desalin;
"I Want the Assets of the Country to be Equitably
Divided"
said
Haiti's
founding father, General Jean
Jacques Dessalines;
See Haiti's National Anthem called Dessaline's
Song or La Desalinyen).
The masses in Haiti aren’t fighting to be under neocolonial tutelage
with a Latortue, an Apaid, Boulos, Baker or even a Preval or some other
willing or unwilling Black overseer presiding over them as feudal landlord
for the Western or Post-World-War-II-Security-Council-powers-that-be.
Haitians are not looking to forever be producers, non-owners but never
the consumers of the fruits of their own labor, their own country's
assets; not looking to reverently bow down to a foreign President, Prime
Minister, Queen, King and be a principality/commonwealth or State of
a foreign power as the other countries in the Caribbean.
"From the beginning to now, the
Haitian way was other than that of the discoverers." (Does
the Western economic calculation of wealth fit Haiti -fit Dessalines'
idea of wealth distribution? NO!)
The point that cannot be over-emphasized is that it was Dessalines,
not Toussaint, who expressed the vision of the Haitian maroons and masses.
Also, though Aristide is no Dessalines, it is Aristide (as a symbol
of inclusion/better living conditions/anti-dictatorship and foreign
power dominance in Haiti) and the excluded masses, not Preval, not the
neo-Duvalierist macoutes now running Haiti, that the people of Haiti
were looking to empower with the Feb. 7, 2006 vote. Indeed, it was Dessalines,
not Toussaint, who expressed the vision of the Haitian maroons and masses:
Dessalines'
Zero
Tolerance for despots was expressed thus: "We will detonate and
burn Haiti down and all rather die before we are returned to slavery
and colonialism."
In Kreyol - Desalin di: "Depi teritwa nou an menase, koupe tèt,
boule kay" paske Ayisyen pap retounen lan esklavaj."
Neither Aristide, nor Preval come close
to Dessalines'
Law or revolutionary
ideas. (See, Looking
for Haiti's Freedom on May 18, 2007 ).
4. Religion,
mythology, cosmology, psychological, primordial archetypes and cultural
- The paramount importance of Culture, Gender, Vodun and the Arts
Ezili Dantò & Bwa Kayiman: It should never be ignored or
understated that the Haitian Revolution began in 1791 with the Maroon
rebels, Boukman and Cecile Fatiman at Bwa Kayiman.
"The Revolution which created the nation of Haiti was inspired
by the divine decree of the warrior love goddess known as Ezili Dantò
who danced in the head of the great Haitian priestess, Cecile Fatiman,
on that famous Haitian night in 1791, on a red hilltop, at a forest
thicket in Haiti called Bwa Kayiman. Led by the powerful warrior spirit
of Ezili
Dantò, Cecile Fatiman crowned the African warrior
Boukmann with her royal red Petwo scepter, ushering in the Haitian war
which forever slashed the chains of European slavery in Haiti to create
Africa's sacred trust, Manman Ayiti - the first Black nation in the
Western Hemisphere.
Ezili Dantò ( the Lwa) is the symbol of the irreducible essence
of that ancient Black mother, mother of all the races, who holds Haiti's
umbilical chord back to immemorial Africa, back to Anba
Dlo*. Calling on her essence, breath, vision and cosmic power
brought forth Haiti's release from 300-hundred years of brutal European
enslavement....in the Americas and over one thousand years of Islamic
conquest and enslavement incursions all over Africa."
Ezili Dantò is the spiritual mother of Haiti and the preeminent
cosmic symbol of Black independence, unity, self-determination, justice,
equality and freedom." (http://www.margueritelaurent.com/ezilidanto_bio.html.
Also, go to:
Haitians Have a Legacy to Reach ; A
Tribute to Haitian Women - 1804 to 2004 ; Black
Women: Mother of All the Races - HOW THAT BLACK WOMAN CAME TO BE?;
this last essay was also originally posted on a thread at windowsonhaiti.com
as "One
plus one equals three - Black Woman Mother of the Races").
At Bwa Kayiman, Africa’s children, for once, stopped identifying
with their captors and their captors creed(s) and called on what they
could remember of the original Black mother’s creed. Boukman and
the more than 200 delegates from plantations all over Northern Haiti,
reverently bowed to the Black goddess - even though some had converted
willingly or unwillingly to Christianity or Islam, the warriors at Bwa
Kayiman, male and female, the amalgamated African tribes, ditch the
conqueror's religion, (culture, cosmology, mythology, psychology) and
brought into existence the first Black nation founded on the Black mother’s
culture, Vodun. Not, the captors’ creeds. Nothing like this had
happened in world history, for by 1791 Africa had already been suffering
unmercifully, been brutalized, pillaged, enslaved for then over a thousand
years of Islamic conquest and more than 300 years of Christian conquest.
(Haitians
Have a Legacy to Reach, originally posted on a thread at
windowsonhaiti.com)
For being ahead of its time, Haiti has been ravaged by all the powers
wishing to lay claim to the cradle of civilization's riches, resources,
powers and even primordial DNA. There is a global racist hierarchy out
there with whites at the top, where white or lighter skin divides people.
This is the denigration of our common ancestry, common African motherland,
common Black mother. In lifting up and glorifying, at its birth, the
Black mother’s indigenous civilizations (as opposed to the derivative
European or Arab creeds), which civilizations, provided the initial
seed for all the world's cultures, Haiti is deemed "backwards"
and "doomed."
Have these descendants of old invaders whose ancestors, had, over the
centuries outside of Africa, lost their pigmentation and began to base
their cultures on the glorification of said lost of melanin truly lost
memory of their beginnings or, are they merely vociferously in denial
for very profound psychological, political and economic-divide-and-conquer
reasons? (Sept. 22, 2003, Windowsonhaiti.com - The
Black Mother - she's Moroccan too! It's true.)
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"Who will jete dlo in oblation,
erect alters in tribute to reclaim the Black mother? Besides Haiti,
what country, on this earth, do you know that came into existence
by reclaiming the traditional, African-derived culture of mother
Africa? (What country) spilled blood, labored, sacrificed and
defended themselves in order to keep that culture, (that language
and language of values) alive for over 200 years of Christian-sponsored
containment-in-poverty even after independence (from 1804 to the
present)?
Go all around the world, and the answer is: None but Haitians!
The most formidable protectors of Africa’s sacred trust...
Being so associated with the Black mother has given us-Haitians
a vilified image. For Vodun (rejects)...the Mother of the Races'
vilified image never lain to rest, attacked from all sides, so
pitiable and yet so unpitied. Vodun, is how She became folklored
and memorialized in song, dance, drumming and sacred arts. Vodun
is what we have left of Her in Haiti. And, Vodun is why Haiti
came to be.
Yet the task is huge –
a whole continent awaits our recognizing our purpose. A whole
world awaits. In India, the Black untouchables await the rise
of the Black Goddess. In Mauritania, the African traditionalist
who are being enslaved by the Arab Africans, await Her. They await
Her rise in the Sudan. In China with their Blacker caste segregated.
In America, we await in the ghettos, in prisons - both literal
and mental prisons. What a task, for a small piece broken away
from Africa, floating in the Caribbean Sea.
The Black mother's sons and daughters never earn any rest as we
are sure, at this very moment a child of the darkest part of Africa
is being beaten somewhere, killed somewhere, tortured somewhere,
on this planet, solely because their skin is darker in the societies
in which they live...
Boukmann knew the ancient ancestral names to call forth in times
of trials, for inspiration. Makandal knew. Mari Jann knew. Defile
knew. Toya knew. The Cacos knew .…The children of Mauritania,
parts of Nigeria, Benin, Sudan are waiting to be reintroduce to
these ancestors. Haiti must not drown in shame, paralysis, or
confusion. Ayiti was forged out of the crucible of neither greatness
of title nor high birth, but from killing the stranger within
("Kanga Mundele"), rejecting the captors' creeds to
reach back to what is source, plowing through the scarlet past
to touch what is wholeness and enlightenment - to touch the greatness
of exploring one's self and of bringing vision to others who had
lost pigmentation and/or had been unhinged from the Black womb.
It's a great legacy to rise and meet. "
(See, Haitians
Have a Legacy to Reach and One
plus one equals three - Black Woman Mother of the Races.)
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We are one planet, one race - the human race - with the sacred task
of bringing beauty forth, divinity into manifestation, to respect diversity
and promote peaceful and harmonious coexistence. Our natural destiny
is as one just as our evolutionary beginning.
Thus, neither the little Island called Ayiti nor even Africa is our
only place of abode. At its beginning Haiti was both Pan-Africanist
and Pan-Americanist (with Dessalines helping Miranda, Petion helping
Bolivar eventually to set free five Latin American countries.)
Dessalines' definition of "Black" as "lovers of liberty"
provides a psychological and political tool to counter the current "white"
global hierarchy that wishes to make Blacks "aliens" to the
Americas, strangers to building civilizations, to enjoying the world's
bounties, et al.
However, we simultaneously understand, in a myriad of ways, including
through evolutionary science and also because of Vodun that we all had
a common mother, common ancestor, are brothers and sisters, no matter
the pigmentation. This also assures us that there's no such thing as
"our place" on this earth as "Black" or brown peoples.
For, as human beings we are natural travelers, not to mention Blacks
were the original peoples on the planet, including the Americas.
The artificial Euro/US prototype Nation-States, with artificial borders
and Euro/US draconian exclusionary passports and exclusionary-mostly-to-dark-peoples-entrance-laws
is fairly new to human and world history. Civilization originated in
Africa and Blacks spread from Africa to people the earth and give rise
to the "races" and even these "nation-states" vying
for the resources and souls of "Black" folk.
Therefore, our work is people-to-people as we the downtrodden-by-imperialism,
white privilege and economic deprivation Black folk indeed naturally
claim the right to life, self-defense, health, wealth, perfect-self
expression and more than Africa or Ayiti on this planet as our "place."
For, neither artificial creeds, artificial nation-states built on the
sweat, blood and pillage of the colonized and enslaved Black and brown,
neither racist ideologies, capitalist oppressions, nor any such constructed
systems or borders will ultimately stop the human races' spirit and
thirst for truth, travel, expanse, learning, employment, health; for
upward mobility, for bringing forth beauty and humane co-existence with
all the other peoples of different ethnicities and cultures on earth.
Haiti's most valuable assets are its
people, land, history, Vodun language, culture and, Dessalines' legacy.
The Vodun gods and goddesses are the gods of immemorial Africa and cannot
be embodied without Haitian corporeal existence - depend on their human
devotees for their embodiment on earth. The Haitians gods cannot exist
without Haitians. Haitians, by definition, exist for their people, land,
Gods and Dessalines' legacy.
5. Go after the Respondeat Superior
Given the relentless ravages and implacable brutality of the world's
ruling oligarchs and economic elites, and of their geopolitics; given
that Haitian resources are limited, it's not clever to divide our attentions
and focus. For the freedom of the masses also sets free the gatekeepers
and prison guards - the middlemen and his bosses. We must prioritize
and focus, people-to-people in exploding the myths, terrors, lies, brutalities
and barbarity of the enslavers, a group I call Category One.
Category Zero - the Black overseer/opportunist/subcontracted Haitians
- be they willing or unwilling feudal lords or middlemen of varying
degrees and levels of culpability - would not be able to systematically
oppress or exploit Haiti’s or any other of the world's downtrodden
masses without the economic, military, diplomatic, political, psychological
et al., support of Category One - the racist imperial powers, their
privileges and self-serving, oppressive patriarchy. Here then, it is
crucial to recall that an employer is responsible for its employees
actions performed within the course of employment. Thus, strategically
it's far better for all Haitians, the classes and the masses, of all
hues and creeds, to look outwards together and prioritize neutralizing
Category One (the imperialist /colonizer/enslaver), not their black
middlemen or overseers.*
To that end, we recall again Haiti's revolutionary beginnings and how
Haiti won its freedom and independence when the masses and the classes
worked temporarily as one, finding catharsis, cohesion, connection and
community as they looked outwards together for their own interests and
humane values, while refusing to allow their differences and divisions
to help bolster the interests of the imperialist and the hierarchical
"white" tribes' bigotries.
Our task is to live with impossibilities and contradictions without
betraying the principles of humane co-existence, revolution and equity.
As one human race, we are inextricably connected one to another at both
the biological, energy and on the unseen (spirit) level. Our journey
on the planet gave rise to our differences, yet we remain undifferentiated
at the same time. How we behave affect the whole of humanity. Ayiti
has fused the dichotomy, the paradoxes in our holistic Vodun ways of
life where both nondualistic energy and the energy of the physical plane
is part of our being and at our disposal. Ours, is to make a way out
of no-way and find the unity in multiplicity. It was done in 1791 at
Bwa Kayiman and, again, in 1804 with the Declaration of Haiti's independence.
During theses points of time in eternity, it mattered not, Petion or
Dessalines' inherent differences, pigmentations, their statuses in society,
literacy, language proficiencies, self-definition in terms of nationality
or religion. At that time, it mattered not that Toya, Cecile
Fatiman, Mari Jann and Defile were women. They all took up
arms and courageously marched into the mouths of European cannons to
help eliminate European chattel slavery in the Western Hemisphere. We
are their living libraries, proof of this precedent, Dessalines' descendants,
the amalgamated tribes, the lovers of liberty - what's sometimes, in
the Americas, is called Kreyòl. We
have a legacy to reach.
Marguerite 'Ezili
Dantò' Laurent, Esq.
Founder and Chair,
Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
June 21, 2007
ezilidanto.com
(Go to: Ezili
Dantò live in Miami with Sanba Yatande, TiRouj & Manno)
*******
*Besides
Castrated Category
Zero (the black middlemen) would not be human if they didn't
resent their humiliating servility, dependency and castration; didn't
resent being the public face of all the repugnancy of their white imperialist
bosses but
never having these bosses touched or revealed for what they are
because racism, and its various levels of oppression and exploitation,
assures that it is only black folk and the economic black elites not
their white brethens who are "barbaric," "rapacious"
and "morally repugnant"; didn't resent the role of preserving
the economic power of the whites by trading their souls, identities,
their own country, heritage and peoples only for personal gain that,
in the larger picture, is mere menial world economic power and only
symbolic political power.
***********************
***********************
CATEGORY ZERO - THE SUBCONTRACTED HAITIANS
Who
are some of the subcontracted Haitians?: the wealthy families in Haiti,
most former asylum seekers from generations back, (Arab, Egyptian, Lebanese,
Syrian, Germans and Sephardic Jews running from religious persecutions,
economic deprivations or political oppression) who found SANCTUARY,
ASYLUM and a SAFE-HAVEN in Haiti, but who thank the Haitian nation and
peoples' hospitality with a bloody history of hiring paramilitaries,
private security/attaches and military to promote their own personal
wealth; morally repugnant economic opportunist who thank the Black Haitian
nation by using their skin privileges,
monies and international passports and connections to work with foreign
agents, imperialists and Neocons to bring coup d'etat and neoliberalism,
death projects that benefit their personal wealth and greed at the expense
of the exploitation and containment-in-poverty of the Haitian majority:
Acra, Merv, Brandt, Nadal, Coles, Baussan, Vital, Vorbes, Madsen, Boulos,
Bigio,
and others...pulling the instability strings in the shadows.
***********************
Bigio
- Haiti’s few Jews hold on to history
*******************
Haiti
- The Virtual Jewish History Tour
*******************
Bigio
- Haiti's wealthy prosper while the poor decline
|
Little
Girl 
