Saturday, December 8, 2012

A scholar's take on Haiti's painful history

This review was first published in the March, 2012 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine.



Haiti The Aftershocks of History
By Laurent Dubois
Metropolitan Books Henry Holt and Company, 2012
Hardcover, 370 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-9335-3
List: $32.00 Amazon: $18.88

It would be one of the greatest acts of moral vandalism in history. A man who had defeated the Ancien Regime in the service of the French Republic and held a territory in its name would die of betrayal by the new regime in a mountain fortress.  In real terms he had betrayed the state, as he was governing in the interests of the people.  Rare as that is in a statesman.

              I saw the picture of that man in a resplendent uniform with coal black face on a library bookshelf as a boy.  It was the cover art that fascinated me and led me to the reading of Toussaint Louverture’s biography.  The book was part of a series meant for young students.  It was the compelling story of a slave who started a nation.  That nation’s history has always been as compelling.  Some would call it tragic or even comic, but there have been instances of triumph and glory.

              Laurent Dubois has retold the story in his book, Haiti The Aftershocks of History.  There are more romantic books on Haiti. The Serpent and the Rainbow comes to mind with its alternative pharmacology and rural societal persistence.  Kenneth Roberts’ novel, Lydia Bailey, has an account of the battle of Crête-à-Pierrot that is as inspiring as his description of General Dessalines is menacing.  Even Black Bagdad, by the occupying Marine officer, John H. Craige, is a romance of sorts.   Of course, a book with the title, Best Nightmare on Earth can only be about a place of chaos and fun.

             Yet such books are each only a small part of the story.  All too many of my fellow citizens only know of Haiti as the place where the earthquake took place.  One would suspect that fewer than one in a thousand realize that the country is our oldest sister republic in the new world.  The great value in Mr. Dubois’ book is that all the players and actions are there in one volume.  The book is not written in a sensationalist style.  In listening to his interviews on radio, I thought it would be.  Even so, it goes along smoothly, not that he does not show his sympathies.  Obviously, he feels Haiti has been done hard by.  Any observer would find it difficult to avoid that conclusion.

               Laurent Dubois is not new to the subject.  A previous book, Avengers of the New World is a history of the Haitian Revolution. He has written other books about the country.  His official positions include Marcelo Lotti Professor in Romance Studies and History and Director of the Center for French and Francophone Studies at Duke University.  He occasionally dabbles in other subjects.  Well, more than dabbles.

               Villains abound.  First up are the French.  On the island of Saint-Domingue, the Gauls set up the most profitable plantation system in the Western Hemisphere, if not the world.  They ran it on the backs of Africans, worked so that more had to be constantly imported.  Cost control was such that the slaves not only had to toil in the fields for the planter, they had to grow their own food as well.

               When the French Revolution broke out, the slaves took the opportunity to end their bondage in alliance with the Republicans.  When Napoleon took power he tried to reinstitute slavery.  After a valiant resistance, the Haitians merely waited until Nap’s army was debilitated and gave it a push and secured their nation.

               France was not done.  Having lost the war, they demanded an indemnity.  Talk about bad taste.  Whatever happened to vae victis?  Hungry for recognition, Haiti gave in.

               Other European powers leaned on Haiti.  Germany was stalwart in applying force to get her way.  It appears our sister republic could not count on appealing for enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine.

               Uncle Sam’s hands are not clean.  Recognition was refused until the Civil War.  We were slow to the game, but played hardball when we got up to bat.  In 1914, a warship sent a detachment ashore to seize gold from the Haitian National Bank.  American bankers who had made bad loans had the US Government enforce their contracts in the grand tradition of privatizing profits and socializing losses.  Then, Marines would occupy the country.  We left eventually, achieving little as we usually do in our occupations.

               After Duvalier fils’ exile and some sub par elections, we came back to make Haiti a better place in 1994, again.  We brought some other do gooder nations with us.  With all the help the US and the international community had provided, the last thing the country needed was an earthquake.

               Haitian governments could meet the definition of a failed state, what with almost a constitution du jour with each new chief executive.  That does not mean a failed nation.  The Haitian peasant held onto the land won from the French with tenacity unrivalled in history.  The country folks on their smallholdings fed themselves and exported coffee.  Even the vastly powerful United States left after the Haitians tired of us earlier in the 20th Century.

               Mr. Dubois is a fine writer.  Aftershocks was difficult to put down. His book is a history and not a polemic.  Still, it is hard for a reader to avoid a conclusion.  Intervention well meaning or exploitive is colonialism.  The world should leave Haiti to its own devices.

               They may not build a tourism industry, but why would they want to be our playground?  Les Haïtiens may not split the atom any time soon, but neither will the hotshots at the Kennedy School of Government.  The message to bankers should be, take your chances and don’t expect a bailout.  Maybe we should have said that to Morgan and Goldman in 2008.

               Let Haiti be Haiti.