Home »

[bana2166]

Comments of John Matshikiza: High noon in Haïti

29 January 2007 10:17

The race side of the equation refers to a small Caribbean country called Haïti, scene of some of the worst excesses of the European and American slave trade and its commercial off-shoots, the global and globalising trade in sugar, tobacco, spices and other things, and the marvellous site of the greatest sustained rebellion against imperialism, which resulted in the defeat of the French and British armies in 1804.

When size and race collide, a cataclysm happens that cannot be simply explained by either one of these issues. And this is what is happening now in what remains of what was once the rich, green, fertile island of Haïti -- now stripped almost bare of all its natural resources, and literally on its knees after years of internal and external war.

Haïti stands for something very special in human history: it is the first place where the subjugated black race was seen to stand up and defy the seeming inevitability of white, European power.

Its battle for liberation went even further than this. White power and its contradictory impulses had bred a new middle class, if you like, called mulattoism -- the uneasy but inevitable merger between black and white blood, the slave and the enslaver, generally denied by the ruling establishment, but vivid before the eyes of everyone who was prepared to see.

These became the new mid-aristocracy who Toussaint L?Ouverture, black leader of the slave rebellion, and his associates, had to deal with as they fought their way to freedom. In South African terminology: the blacks, the coloureds and the whites.

One hates to make too strong a comparison in all of this. But what is happening now in Haïti raises too many questions about how things stand in world affairs, and also the awkward question of where our South African government, led by a political party born out of revolutionary seeds, stands in relation to this, and to the pressing questions of size, power, influence and race.

Haïti is not an isolated example. The world is moving rapidly into other phases, and its alliances are becoming more fascinating (or challenging, or demanding, or confusing) by the day. Venezuela, for example, under President Hugo Chávez, is raising its head as a new example of what people?s power can be all about -- all the things the African National Congress prided itself on in the bitter struggle against white nationalism here on the southern tip of the African continent.

Other parts of the world, like Iraq, for one ringing example, are being torn apart at the seams by the re-emergence of the same kind of imperialism that Toussaint L?Ouverture and the enslaved, dislocated, disempowered ex-Africans of Haïti fought against. British, French and American neo-liberalism scarcely contains the aggression that speaks of the need for world domination, in the name of power, wealth and, in nowadays-speak, security.

But back to Haïti (for we must always go back to Haïti). Not many people are saying anything about the fact that beleaguered Haïti, unforgiven for its proud stand against imperialism, unashamed of its nakedness and its African past, unrepentant for its seemingly pagan Voodooism and its celebration of its own interpretation of African gods secretly brought across in the bitter holds of the slave ships; that Haïti is now suffering an unprecedented war against the remnants of its revolutionary dignity, its search for tranquillity, its justified quest for respite from the imported tribulations of the outer world.

The war is being conducted by the UN and its auxiliary armies. That is what I have been told, and that is the evidence I have seen.

The citizens of Cité Soleil (in South African speak, Sunnyside Park or Sun City, whatever you will), which is the darkest, poorest part of Haïti?s capital city, Port-au-Prince, densely populated and intensely political by default, have been subjected to a fierce assault by the UN forces who have been occupying the country now for a number of years.

As in Iraq, the purpose of this occupation is unclear. Civil strife some years ago led to a series of military coups, and to the intervention of foreign, notably US, forces over a period of time. The last of these led to the ouster of the popularly elected leader, a cleric called Aristide, and his replacement by a murky military junta.

Guess what. Aristide is now in somewhat luxurious exile in South Africa, hosted on an open-ended holiday visa by our government. Little is said about him, about what he is doing here, and about what his plans are for returning in triumph to his home country. And all this while the fires that burn in the streets of Cité Soleil light up the faces of those demanding his return to lead them as they face the extraordinary guns of the forces of the UN, supposedly there to protect them, but manipulated, somehow, to bring death and destruction to their already perilous environment.

People are being killed by UN gunships in Cité Soleil, make no mistake. The world is preoccupied elsewhere -- wherever the US tells them to be preoccupied.

The Haïtian revolution, as planned, has become a sideshow to the main events of unfolding world history.

The question is: where do we stand on this?