This morning, the NY Times published a well-researched piece titled "The Root of Haiti's Misery: Reparations to Enslavers." I have to say right from the start that this piece seems to be well-researched and presents a scathing analysis of the central role the consecutive debts, or more appropriately France's extortion played in making Haiti the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere.
The piece is thorough and beautifully weaves historical facts and analysis as storytelling seen through the eyes of a protagonist -- Ms. Present. It opens with the imagery of Ms. Present's morning routine.
DONDON, Haiti — Adrienne Present steps into the thin forest beside her house and plucks the season’s first coffee cherries, shining like red marbles in her hands.The harvest has begun.Each morning, she lights a coal fire on the floor of her home in the dark. Electricity has never come to her patch of northern Haiti.She sets out a pot of water, fetched from the nearest source — a mountain spring sputtering into a farmer’s field. Then she adds the coffee she has dried, winnowed, roasted and pounded into powder with a large mortar called a pilon, the way she was taught as a child.
This imagery is palpable and nostalgic of how most Haitians remember Haiti. As I read the first sentence, I was taken back to my time in Haiti's countryside and places like Dondon. I pictured the many beautiful Haitian women, like Ms. Present, who've prepared the amazing Haitian coffee that I still seek every morning when I wake up in New York. I admit that I was immediately flooded with memories and experienced sensory overload in reading the article. All this to say that the NY Times journalists: Catherine Porter, Constant Méheut, Matt Apuzzo and Selam Gebrekidan, had me at "hello."
It was barely 9 am and I had read the article twice and had three quick reflections. First, it saddens me that an American newspaper had to write this important piece of Haitian history. While the article is translated into French and Kreyòl (bravo to NY Times), these important historical events and analyses should be the work of Haitian historians and storytellers. Sadly, the great majority of Haitians -- in Haiti and the diaspora will never read it. The importance of this documented history is that it does away with the narrative of a Haiti that is somehow cursed or solely responsible for its current state. It is a well-documented and unequivocal fact that the country's current challenges are the results of forces (without and within) that conspired to maintain Haitians in misery (mizè). Conversely, I hope that when folks are tempted to start any description of Haiti as "the poorest country in the western hemisphere," they have the decency and intellectual honesty to append that it is because of the greed of the colonial powers.
It is often called the “independence debt.” But that is a misnomer. It was a ransom.
Haiti was known as the pearl of the Antilles and the jewel in France's crown. According to records published at the John Carter Brown Library, Haiti became the "world’s top producer of sugar and coffee and among the global leaders in indigo, cacao and cotton (which was rising rapidly in importance)." The documentation showed that "the reasons for this extraordinary performance can be explained from a number of factors – qualities of land and climate, government support, and more than anything, the presence of a huge number of enslaved Africans who propelled this extensive economic system with their labor." The price for liberty was paid with sweat of free labor and blood. It is therefore galling to think that despite being shunned by the world's major powers, one needs still to consider that the winner of the war had to pay restitutions to the loser.
The ransom and the loan to pay it — a stunning load that boosted the fledgling Parisian international banking system and helped cement Haiti’s path into poverty and underdevelopment.
Second, while I did not expect much from the French and Americans based on these countries' economic interests, it angers me to read of the role that so-called "Haitian elites and leaders" played in maintaining their people in mizè. Their nefarious role continues to this day and one would argue that it has worsened. The contemporary enemies of the people and the Haitian state are still within and without.
Generations after enslaved people rebelled and created the first free Black nation in the Americas, their children were forced to work, sometimes for little or even no pay, for the benefit of others — first the French, then the Americans, then their own dictators.
Thirdly, I am also concerned that this story might confirm our collective sense of grievance and blinds us to the work at hand. The lessons of the past are useful to the extent they help us understand why our people are in this situation and what the incentives that drive behaviors. More importantly, my hope is that the publication of this history will allow us to learn from our mistakes.
The fact is this article will be shared by thousands of people in the diaspora and confirm that France is at the roots of all of our ills -- and they are indeed responsible for a lot of it. It will also confirm the role the US played, first, overtly during the occupation and behind the scene to the present day. However, it is exactly because of those facts and the role the international actors play in our demise that we cannot allow ourselves to limit our reflections to the grievances of the past. To be clear, Haiti deserves reparations and that is a worthwhile fight. However, we need to tackle the current socio-political crises. In doing so, we need to set our own paths and find our own solutions. That means the US needs to stop tipping the scale on behalf of the current de facto Prime Minister Ariel and the shadow PHTK government.
In summary, this article laid bare the role of France and the US, and more recently the UN, have played in destabilizing Haiti. If we learn anything from this article and our history, it is that we need to drastically change our relationship with each other. At the center of a new vision for Haiti must be the elimination of exclusion. Our single purpose must be to ensure that everyone can achieve their inalienable and imprescriptible rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Indeed, we must commit ourselves to eliminate the gulf that exists between us and Ms. Present or the internal divisions will only grow wider and destroy us all. As we reflect on the price Haiti paid for freedom -- not just ours, Jesus' warning to the Pharisees should guide our response “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand."
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