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Haiti: Dangerous Crossroads
This book-the first to analyze Haiti after the U.S. Occupation--gathers together the most reliable informaion and most comprehensive analysis of Haiti that the U.S. Left has to offer. The Haitian crisis has its roots in colonial times, came of age in the era of gun-boat diplomacy, and exemplified Cold War policy. Its denouement today is paradigmatic of the "new world order." It is therefore essential reading not only for those wanting to gain a deeper understanding of Haiti, but also for anyone trying to grasp the complexities of post-Cold War geopolitics.
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First published May 1, 1995
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November 17, 2019
Although quite dated now, this is a series of essays about how the situation in Haiti was going down the tubes in the 90s. I was in Haiti when I was in high school in the 80s and saw the horrors first hand so I found this external view quite interesting and pertinent.
I spent two week touring Haiti with other pasty white Miamians in 1986, my memories having been socked away in my head when the tangible proof of the voyage was stolen from my luggage (this was before iPhones and I stupidly left my crappy camera in my suitcase rather than in my backpack). We started in Port au Prince, cautioned about only drinking bottled water. It was that remark that made me instantaneously notice Cooligan delivery trucks parked everywhere and hear the expression “the Colligan man” ubiquitously. From what I recall, we moved north to Cap Haitienne to see Laferriere of Henri-Christophe, the would-be revolutionary Napoleon of the black slavery remnants of the Caribbean isles but just turning into a sad, violent self-caricature and sad precursor to 100s of post-colonial grifters and dictators. Despite the absolutely abject poverty, the people we met in villages and along the winding roads were always welcoming (but more so when we offered coin or t-shirts to their outstretched hands) and smiling. This, despite a recent pig fever than had killed off 50% of the suine population which was an economic tsunami for the Haitian back-country economy because most families’ life savings were precisely invested in the now-rotting corpse of the family sow. I think this journey permanently tattooed my political spirit with a deep appreciation and repulsion for the ravages of colonialism and its tendency to maintain subject populations is a state of disempowering squalor so as to facilitate the transfer of resources towards the metropolitan center. This massive theft, if we call it what it really was, of rubber primarily, was enforced by the Duvallier family’s personal secret police and hit squad, the terrifying Tonton Macoute whom we would never see except in the paranoid stares and broken bodies we encountered while moving around.
I just realized incidentally that Tonton Macoute literally means “uncle is listening” so it was a sinister caribbean mutation of Orwell’s Big Brother. The lesson was certainly not lost upon Trujillo about whom you can read (as well as about the empoisonned relationship between Haiti and its equally devastated neighbor the Dominican Republic) in MVL’s magnificent The Feast of the Goat or in neighboring Jamaica in A Tale of Seven Killings by Marlon James.
I spent two week touring Haiti with other pasty white Miamians in 1986, my memories having been socked away in my head when the tangible proof of the voyage was stolen from my luggage (this was before iPhones and I stupidly left my crappy camera in my suitcase rather than in my backpack). We started in Port au Prince, cautioned about only drinking bottled water. It was that remark that made me instantaneously notice Cooligan delivery trucks parked everywhere and hear the expression “the Colligan man” ubiquitously. From what I recall, we moved north to Cap Haitienne to see Laferriere of Henri-Christophe, the would-be revolutionary Napoleon of the black slavery remnants of the Caribbean isles but just turning into a sad, violent self-caricature and sad precursor to 100s of post-colonial grifters and dictators. Despite the absolutely abject poverty, the people we met in villages and along the winding roads were always welcoming (but more so when we offered coin or t-shirts to their outstretched hands) and smiling. This, despite a recent pig fever than had killed off 50% of the suine population which was an economic tsunami for the Haitian back-country economy because most families’ life savings were precisely invested in the now-rotting corpse of the family sow. I think this journey permanently tattooed my political spirit with a deep appreciation and repulsion for the ravages of colonialism and its tendency to maintain subject populations is a state of disempowering squalor so as to facilitate the transfer of resources towards the metropolitan center. This massive theft, if we call it what it really was, of rubber primarily, was enforced by the Duvallier family’s personal secret police and hit squad, the terrifying Tonton Macoute whom we would never see except in the paranoid stares and broken bodies we encountered while moving around.
I just realized incidentally that Tonton Macoute literally means “uncle is listening” so it was a sinister caribbean mutation of Orwell’s Big Brother. The lesson was certainly not lost upon Trujillo about whom you can read (as well as about the empoisonned relationship between Haiti and its equally devastated neighbor the Dominican Republic) in MVL’s magnificent The Feast of the Goat or in neighboring Jamaica in A Tale of Seven Killings by Marlon James.
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