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Fulfilling Leclerc imperative:debt, free trade, wage slavery
by Ezili Danto
A genocide is going on in Haiti right now. When only a handful of Haitians are working, when theres 70% unemployment and those actually formally working are only making .22 cents (70 gourdes) an hour and forced to pay the Haitian Oligarchs for food to eat at high U.S. import prices, starvation is a given. It's economic slavery. The slavery in Haiti the media won't expose.
This conversation for dual citizenship won't change the miserable status quo for Haiti's majority, only allow for the white colonial blueprint to continue. Haiti's Parliament is already too non-Haitian as it is. These folks are not only paid by foreigners, they've adapted wholesale foreign methods, modes and values that make no practical sense to Haitian existence.
by Ezili Danto
A genocide is going on in Haiti right now. When only a handful of Haitians are working, when theres 70% unemployment and those actually formally working are only making .22 cents (70 gourdes) an hour and forced to pay the Haitian Oligarchs for food to eat at high U.S. import prices, starvation is a given. It's economic slavery. The slavery in Haiti the media won't expose.This conversation for dual citizenship won't change the miserable status quo for Haiti's majority, only allow for the white colonial blueprint to continue. Haiti's Parliament is already too non-Haitian as it is. These folks are not only paid by foreigners, they've adapted wholesale foreign methods, modes and values that make no practical sense to Haitian existence.
There could be a 110-degree heat wave outside and these folks are wearing dark, three piece suits, speaking in ecclesiastic French most don't even understand and mimicking English debating rules that have no root in Haitian traditional conflict resolution!
Genocide in Haiti: Fulfilling Lecler's imperative through debt, free trade, privatization and wage slavery
They're using Roberts' Rules as their Parliamentary procedure when African mediation have little to do with Western notions of Bourgeois democracy or other such values, Euro-cultural profit-over-people imperatives and so-called cost-effectiveness rules. They've been pacified into fighting using Queensbury rules when the Haitian people's enemies use no rules, only overwhelming power and shock and awe to paralyze and destroy the poor's will to fight. Tout se makak madigra. Kiyes politisyen sa yo ap sevi si se pa blan kolon? Jounen jodi a, se yo ki zouti kap tranche nashon an. Afè Lakou a, konbit la, travay tè, pataj, Kreyòl, Vodun, Sevi lasosyete, kòmand Desalin, paròl Grandèt yo, ah! Sa pa gade yo. Yo vle fè sa blan ap fè. Anbasadè Meriken e Bill "Sonthonax" Clinton se Dye pa yo.
Moreover, it not hard to imagine the mentally colonized, visa-carrying privilege Diaspora, exerting their power over the Haitian, without dollars, jobs and visa power, living inside Haiti. Thus increasing our fear of each other. Said fear, divides and thereby assist our traditional enemies and keep Haiti from moving forward. Let's recall Sonthonax came to uphold the rights of the Mulatto to vote and to maintain slavery of the Africans in Haiti. The Haitian revolution got rid of physical enslavement. Today, economic enslavement reigns unfettered.
Fifty years from now, if the paradigm doesn't change, what the Spanish did, within 30 years of setting foot in Haiti, - that is, cause the death of all the inhabitants, one million Taino-Haitians, will be matched by today's "International Community" with the genocide of perhaps 9-million Afro-Haitians living in Haiti. That's when Haiti shall be developed, no longer stigmatized and at peace. For, Lecler's imperative shall have been fulfilled, albeit over two centuries later with the Blan's bicentennial return conquest of Africa's negroes in Haiti that started in 2004. (See, The Kidnapping Coup).
"It is not everything to have removed Toussaint, there are two thousand other chiefs here to have taken away...Here is my opinion of this country. It is necessary to destroy all the negroes of the mountains, men and women, sparing only children under the age of twelve, and destroy half of those of the plain, without leaving a single colored man in the colony who ever wore an epaulette. Without that, the colony will never be at peace." ---French General Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc
Part of the reason Leclerc's peace and security has not been accomplished sooner is because, for close to two centuries, the Haitian majority did not depend on the Euro/US dollar to eat. They grew their own food, had the Lakou and Konbit (cooperatives) and went to market to barter for what they did not grow. That system has been destroyed by free trade in the last 30 or so years. Dependency on the Mulatto/Freedmen/Affranchi or "Black" bourgeoisie as metastasized today in the new face of the deracinated Haitian Oligarchy, who get their liberty by being more into the US/Euro monetary system/capitalism and white profit-over-people culture than the whitest of white man, to bring Africa's children food is death. Who doesn't understand that? (To understand further the US/Euro monetary system, go to: Zeitgeist Addendum; for this entire article, go to: Ezili's HLLN on Dual Citizenship, No, Not a Priority.)
Moreover, it not hard to imagine the mentally colonized, visa-carrying privilege Diaspora, exerting their power over the Haitian, without dollars, jobs and visa power, living inside Haiti. Thus increasing our fear of each other. Said fear, divides and thereby assist our traditional enemies and keep Haiti from moving forward. Let's recall Sonthonax came to uphold the rights of the Mulatto to vote and to maintain slavery of the Africans in Haiti. The Haitian revolution got rid of physical enslavement. Today, economic enslavement reigns unfettered.
Fifty years from now, if the paradigm doesn't change, what the Spanish did, within 30 years of setting foot in Haiti, - that is, cause the death of all the inhabitants, one million Taino-Haitians, will be matched by today's "International Community" with the genocide of perhaps 9-million Afro-Haitians living in Haiti. That's when Haiti shall be developed, no longer stigmatized and at peace. For, Lecler's imperative shall have been fulfilled, albeit over two centuries later with the Blan's bicentennial return conquest of Africa's negroes in Haiti that started in 2004. (See, The Kidnapping Coup).
"It is not everything to have removed Toussaint, there are two thousand other chiefs here to have taken away...Here is my opinion of this country. It is necessary to destroy all the negroes of the mountains, men and women, sparing only children under the age of twelve, and destroy half of those of the plain, without leaving a single colored man in the colony who ever wore an epaulette. Without that, the colony will never be at peace." ---French General Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc
Part of the reason Leclerc's peace and security has not been accomplished sooner is because, for close to two centuries, the Haitian majority did not depend on the Euro/US dollar to eat. They grew their own food, had the Lakou and Konbit (cooperatives) and went to market to barter for what they did not grow. That system has been destroyed by free trade in the last 30 or so years. Dependency on the Mulatto/Freedmen/Affranchi or "Black" bourgeoisie as metastasized today in the new face of the deracinated Haitian Oligarchy, who get their liberty by being more into the US/Euro monetary system/capitalism and white profit-over-people culture than the whitest of white man, to bring Africa's children food is death. Who doesn't understand that? (To understand further the US/Euro monetary system, go to: Zeitgeist Addendum; for this entire article, go to: Ezili's HLLN on Dual Citizenship, No, Not a Priority.)
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written by Clay Kilgore, August 30, 2009
written by Clay Kilgore, August 30, 2009
Now this comment is for "ed" who added to my comment! I can get how my not agreeing might bring up your perspective, and I've been protective of people before, too, so I really do get where you come from! But in THIS conversation, no, what I’m saying does not mean blaming the victim.
What you didn't get in what I wrote is that the author of the above op ed is creating a world of victim for Haitians from within that point of view in which Haitians have no power. A lot of the struggle comes from how people are making each other out to be victims and aggressors, using blame and conjecture vs. dealing what's really going on. These stories are great for making sensational media, but don't really contribute to empowering the very people the authors care about and are attempting to contribute to, because the outraged, protective point of view doesn’t give people in Haiti the opportunity to be responsible for their own lives or, like you said leave them as only "miserable examples of market servitude."
Again, in the face of all the current circumstances, what I’d like to make real is people being empowered to transform their circumstances. Blame and conjecture probably aren’t useful on the path to achieving that!
I am happy to be in this discussion, and understand that my contributions are radical in contrast to what is originally being suggested! I request you please comment in a separate comment field rather that adding to my comments… do accept my request?
[You must remember too that every issue is contained within a context. The Haitian people did empower themselves in electing Aristide and moving forward with reforms. That was violently quashed. Violence continues to hold the people down, their voices eliminated from the political discourse. Pointing out the repression does not preclude the self-empowerment of Haitians. No, I do not agree with your diktat against my posting in this field. "Ed." means editor. As the managing editor of this site I reserve that privilege. - ed.]
What you didn't get in what I wrote is that the author of the above op ed is creating a world of victim for Haitians from within that point of view in which Haitians have no power. A lot of the struggle comes from how people are making each other out to be victims and aggressors, using blame and conjecture vs. dealing what's really going on. These stories are great for making sensational media, but don't really contribute to empowering the very people the authors care about and are attempting to contribute to, because the outraged, protective point of view doesn’t give people in Haiti the opportunity to be responsible for their own lives or, like you said leave them as only "miserable examples of market servitude."
Again, in the face of all the current circumstances, what I’d like to make real is people being empowered to transform their circumstances. Blame and conjecture probably aren’t useful on the path to achieving that!
I am happy to be in this discussion, and understand that my contributions are radical in contrast to what is originally being suggested! I request you please comment in a separate comment field rather that adding to my comments… do accept my request?
[You must remember too that every issue is contained within a context. The Haitian people did empower themselves in electing Aristide and moving forward with reforms. That was violently quashed. Violence continues to hold the people down, their voices eliminated from the political discourse. Pointing out the repression does not preclude the self-empowerment of Haitians. No, I do not agree with your diktat against my posting in this field. "Ed." means editor. As the managing editor of this site I reserve that privilege. - ed.]
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written by Chantal, August 30, 2009
It's true, to bring Africa's children food is death. So-called under-developed countries like Haiti need to get together and exercise their collective power in cooperation with each other. Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Africa...etc. should not buy into this neo-colonial system of debt and dependency. They need to promote their own economies, not the international community's economies. The Bank of the South is a good start. But much more cooperation is necessary.
Haiti needs to raise its own crops -- enough to feed their people. Haiti should stop importing subsidized goods that kill productivity and the local industries.
The globalization, privatization spree that the "international community" is engaged in is killing poor people in under-developed countries. The rich northern vampires who live off the raw material and natural resources of the south are about making possible their standard of living -- they don't care that women, children, families are starving and cannot sustain their gluttonous, avaricious societies. .22 cents a day cannot feed a family. 22 cents a day cannot build a community. 22 cents a day cannot get a nation out of poverty, despair, starvation. It cannot secure the future of families in Haiti or anywhere else. Anyone who promotes it is part of the imperialist, neo-colonial, immoral hegemony that is promoting death, debt and dependency.
Haiti needs to raise its own crops -- enough to feed their people. Haiti should stop importing subsidized goods that kill productivity and the local industries.
The globalization, privatization spree that the "international community" is engaged in is killing poor people in under-developed countries. The rich northern vampires who live off the raw material and natural resources of the south are about making possible their standard of living -- they don't care that women, children, families are starving and cannot sustain their gluttonous, avaricious societies. .22 cents a day cannot feed a family. 22 cents a day cannot build a community. 22 cents a day cannot get a nation out of poverty, despair, starvation. It cannot secure the future of families in Haiti or anywhere else. Anyone who promotes it is part of the imperialist, neo-colonial, immoral hegemony that is promoting death, debt and dependency.
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written by Chantal, August 30, 2009
I mean .22 cents an hour, not a day.
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written by Clay Kilgore, August 30, 2009
That’s okay, ed, we can be friends in this discussion, as I believe we are on the same side of the issue - I just come at it from a different angle! Cool if you want to reserve the right to be the managing editor in my comments - it was a request, not a diktat (a harsh, punitive settlement or decree imposed unilaterally on a defeated nation, political party, etc. - I looked it up!) Thank you for allowing my comments.
I agree that pointing out the repression does not preclude the self-empowerment of Haitians, but I assert that dwelling on the repression – creating the context that repression is a condition where people must be victims – and saying it’s an ongoing genocide that is happening does not create anything of real use, but instead makes people out to be pitiful and powerless and completely puts them at risk of being extinct. The above op ed says, “if the paradigm doesn’t change” is the only part that opens up the future to an alternative, but the message is largely that “this is what the world wants.” I am countering that with an alternative, since there was an opening for that!
Since you would rather discuss Aristide, and I need to gain credibility with you, I also totally agree that the Haitian people were empowered in amazing numbers to vote back in the fall of 2000. They pretty much shut the country down and had the election be the only thing that was happening that day! As a member of the International Coalition of Independent Election Observers, the only international entity in the country observing the election that day, I can say as a matter of historical record that from what we observed, the election was largely without irregularity, and that the people showed their collective political will and did elect Jean-Bertrand Aristide as their president. The whole thing was completely inspiring, especially coming from the US where, at the time, voting wasn’t everyone’s “thing” yet. Hopefully that gains me some credibility!
What happened after… the 2004 coup, the hurricanes, the lack of response from who ever should be responding, the lack of actions and missing resolve of the current democratically elected political players, the UN occupation, the subsidized, imported food situation… in all those situations, we could say it’s someone’s fault. Regardless of who did or didn’t do what, the impact has been profound. We could continue to say, “it is because of X that Y happened, and so-and-so is to blame.“
People love to do all that, but here’s what I want to get across: Right now, in the present, it doesn’t matter what happened because it already happened and there is nothing we can do about it but work on how we FEEL about it, and that doesn’t make any difference unless we end up empowered to the point that we can put how we feel about what happened aside and deal with what’s happening NOW.
The ones I have my eyes on and am pulling for is the Haitian People. They are the ones that will make Haiti great in a way that no one else can, because they are the ones who are there. Over the past few years, I’ve been making it my business (honest, it is!) to point out alternatives when I notice someone who’s trying to do good, but is irresponsibly letting their words create a world were the people living in Haiti right now don’t have what it takes to make something great happen for themselves. This is why I spend my Sunday writing in a comment field of a small but dooming opinion. It is in that opinion that A WORLD GOT CREATED that I am not willing to consider as a possibility. Civilization in Haiti will be AMAZING in 50 years, and it will be from people who live there being empowered and included in and embraced by the global community.
I agree that pointing out the repression does not preclude the self-empowerment of Haitians, but I assert that dwelling on the repression – creating the context that repression is a condition where people must be victims – and saying it’s an ongoing genocide that is happening does not create anything of real use, but instead makes people out to be pitiful and powerless and completely puts them at risk of being extinct. The above op ed says, “if the paradigm doesn’t change” is the only part that opens up the future to an alternative, but the message is largely that “this is what the world wants.” I am countering that with an alternative, since there was an opening for that!
Since you would rather discuss Aristide, and I need to gain credibility with you, I also totally agree that the Haitian people were empowered in amazing numbers to vote back in the fall of 2000. They pretty much shut the country down and had the election be the only thing that was happening that day! As a member of the International Coalition of Independent Election Observers, the only international entity in the country observing the election that day, I can say as a matter of historical record that from what we observed, the election was largely without irregularity, and that the people showed their collective political will and did elect Jean-Bertrand Aristide as their president. The whole thing was completely inspiring, especially coming from the US where, at the time, voting wasn’t everyone’s “thing” yet. Hopefully that gains me some credibility!
What happened after… the 2004 coup, the hurricanes, the lack of response from who ever should be responding, the lack of actions and missing resolve of the current democratically elected political players, the UN occupation, the subsidized, imported food situation… in all those situations, we could say it’s someone’s fault. Regardless of who did or didn’t do what, the impact has been profound. We could continue to say, “it is because of X that Y happened, and so-and-so is to blame.“
People love to do all that, but here’s what I want to get across: Right now, in the present, it doesn’t matter what happened because it already happened and there is nothing we can do about it but work on how we FEEL about it, and that doesn’t make any difference unless we end up empowered to the point that we can put how we feel about what happened aside and deal with what’s happening NOW.
The ones I have my eyes on and am pulling for is the Haitian People. They are the ones that will make Haiti great in a way that no one else can, because they are the ones who are there. Over the past few years, I’ve been making it my business (honest, it is!) to point out alternatives when I notice someone who’s trying to do good, but is irresponsibly letting their words create a world were the people living in Haiti right now don’t have what it takes to make something great happen for themselves. This is why I spend my Sunday writing in a comment field of a small but dooming opinion. It is in that opinion that A WORLD GOT CREATED that I am not willing to consider as a possibility. Civilization in Haiti will be AMAZING in 50 years, and it will be from people who live there being empowered and included in and embraced by the global community.
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written by polanve, August 30, 2009
What Ezili says in uncomfortable, even painful.
Haiti is tied up in the basement of a sadist. We are also captive, watching and unable to rescue her. Do we have a case of "Stockholm Syndrome"? How can we bear to be aware and remain sane? Black America was like this before Malcolm. What he said was so ugly, so shocking, so true. What shall we do? What shall we do? We are not strong like Cuba or Venezuela. Our mind travels to faraway places to escape the pain, and we worship our captor when he brings a sip of water.
What solution does Ezili offer? I only see a description of a reality too hard for most to admit is real. We must thank her for awareness even more refreshing than cool water.
Haiti is tied up in the basement of a sadist. We are also captive, watching and unable to rescue her. Do we have a case of "Stockholm Syndrome"? How can we bear to be aware and remain sane? Black America was like this before Malcolm. What he said was so ugly, so shocking, so true. What shall we do? What shall we do? We are not strong like Cuba or Venezuela. Our mind travels to faraway places to escape the pain, and we worship our captor when he brings a sip of water.
What solution does Ezili offer? I only see a description of a reality too hard for most to admit is real. We must thank her for awareness even more refreshing than cool water.
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written by EziliDantò, August 30, 2009
Honor and respect Clay,
Thank you for making comments on my article above.
Clay, you wrote and I'll call this Quote #1: "Civilization in Haiti will be AMAZING in 50 years, and it will be from people who live there being empowered and included in and embraced by the global community."
A bit before that, you wrote "A lot of the struggle comes from how people are making each other out to be victims and aggressors, using blame and conjecture vs. dealing what's really going on."
It seems in the second quote you are saying, Clay, that the writer of the article is nily wily, without a factual basis, making people into victims and aggressors, using blame and conjecture vs. dealing with what's really going on. Well, I congratulate you Clay on knowing what's going on better than this writer. I'd love to hear more about it. I'd like to know if Haiti's food sovereignty was destroyed by US free trade and dumping food into Haiti and pursuing sweatshop jobs in the 80s or not? You seem to be saying I am giving the US a role of aggressor in this that is not substantiated and that it is conjecture to opine that if the Haitian people are waiting to buy US imported-food from the Haitian Oligarchs out of free trade wages of 22 cents an hour, they will starve and if this paradigm doesn't change, Lerclec's imperative would have been fulfilled in 50 years. Somehow that's farfetched to you, Clay. I'd like to know why? And, why my documented and referenced statements are “conjecture.” but your quote #1 is not conjecture but “dealing with what's really going on.” Please explain giving the equivalent hard historical, economic and socio-political as the article outlines in stating that if the current paradigm doesn't change, 50 years from now, Leclerc's imperative will be fulfilled through debt, privatization, free trade and wage slavery. Do tell, what is the basis for your pretty thoughts at quote #1.
Thank you for making comments on my article above.
Clay, you wrote and I'll call this Quote #1: "Civilization in Haiti will be AMAZING in 50 years, and it will be from people who live there being empowered and included in and embraced by the global community."
A bit before that, you wrote "A lot of the struggle comes from how people are making each other out to be victims and aggressors, using blame and conjecture vs. dealing what's really going on."
It seems in the second quote you are saying, Clay, that the writer of the article is nily wily, without a factual basis, making people into victims and aggressors, using blame and conjecture vs. dealing with what's really going on. Well, I congratulate you Clay on knowing what's going on better than this writer. I'd love to hear more about it. I'd like to know if Haiti's food sovereignty was destroyed by US free trade and dumping food into Haiti and pursuing sweatshop jobs in the 80s or not? You seem to be saying I am giving the US a role of aggressor in this that is not substantiated and that it is conjecture to opine that if the Haitian people are waiting to buy US imported-food from the Haitian Oligarchs out of free trade wages of 22 cents an hour, they will starve and if this paradigm doesn't change, Lerclec's imperative would have been fulfilled in 50 years. Somehow that's farfetched to you, Clay. I'd like to know why? And, why my documented and referenced statements are “conjecture.” but your quote #1 is not conjecture but “dealing with what's really going on.” Please explain giving the equivalent hard historical, economic and socio-political as the article outlines in stating that if the current paradigm doesn't change, 50 years from now, Leclerc's imperative will be fulfilled through debt, privatization, free trade and wage slavery. Do tell, what is the basis for your pretty thoughts at quote #1.
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written by EziliDanto, August 30, 2009
Clay,
As far as I can tell, Clay, you’re not the only one who seems to reject what I’ve written here. I see a few facile dismissals of the piece as “nonsense.’ So, I am not just addressing you here Clay but all the others. You just make it easier to respond because you’ve articulated your objections in a manner that allows for dialogue. So I thank you for this Clay, I do. I write here not just to you, but to the other detractors.
We-Haitians, Clay, cannot wring our hands and sing kumbaya when the animal is viciously eating us alive. But, I suppose it’s human nature to play ostrich and turn your face from such ugliness as the greatest superpower on earth pummeling to death the most militarily powerless nation and people on earth. I suppose it’s easier to take the path of least resistance and give lip service to pretty thoughts about empowering the Haitian people. What makes you project unto the people of Haiti this sense of disempowerment from what I’ve written here, Clay? Are you sure it’s Haitians who are disempowered here, or that mythical self-described “benevolent” International community – who are exposed to the light?
Haitians are a courageous people who are fighting the greatest David vs. Goliath battle on planet earth right now. It seems from your post, Clay, that you’d like to turn your face from the oppression. You’d like to “move on” from the Bush-Cheney war against the poor in Haiti that brought down Haiti’s constitutional government in 2004, ushered in the disenfranchisement of over 9 million Blacks, UN occupation, slaughter and indefinite detentions. What? Are to shrug our shoulders and reconcile with injustice? Just, never mind the overwhelming force used on Haiti by the most powerful militaries on earth. Never mind the economic slavery the media won’t expose. Never mind the kidnapping of Haiti’s duly elected president, UN slaughters since then, the thousands of political prisoners and the raping of Haiti’s children and women since 2004, never mind the starvation, food riot, storm ravages and US corporate welfare through free trade and dumping subsidized US food that destroyed Haiti’s food sovereignty. Forget the war against Haiti’s poor. For, Clay, if I understand you correctly, you’ve decided, Haitians have a cultural predilection towards victimization, and we should cater to your inability to imagine the evil residing next door to us and imposing debt, dependency, economic slavery and coup d’etat. Haitians like me, should just ignore the Western terror because it’s too hard for YOU, Clay, to hear about it – a fact, I might add, that is exploited by the corporatocracy or International community to the hilt - and just empower ourselves, is that it?
I’m not sure where you got the idea Haitians disempowered themselves when they point out the oppression they are facing. I wonder if you would say the same about Americans when they point out the systems’ preference towards Wall Street and not Main Street. Or, if you actually noticed the monetary system that’s vying for all our souls the article highlights? As the Editor of this forum pointed out, the people of Haiti struggled to get a voice by electing Aristide. Both times, their efforts at empowerment were eviscerated by the might of the US. I might add, as one of his lawyer, I suffered personally, barely survived with my own life to be here to even be writing this and had a front row seat to our efforts as Haitians at self-help. And, Clay, our continued efforts as evidenced by the article above. Moreover, I could also point you to the self-help that put thousands of Haitians on overloaded ships on the open seas every year, looking for better circumstance. Many lose that bid at self-help, Clay, drown, get eaten by sharks, or their boats rammed to ground. The lucky ones avoid indefinite detention in US or Caribbean immigration centers and are returned to the inferno they were fleeing from in the first place. Asylum, amnesty, justice denied our kind, for centuries. Oh, yes, I forgot, this is all too hard for you to hear, Clay, Just too HARD. But, Clay, while you’re averting your eyes, understand it’s Haitians who are saving Haitians. That’s why we still exist. For, it’s not foreign aid or fraudulent benevolence that keeps Haitians from dying more; it’s the $2 billion in direct aid from the Haitian Diaspora. Further, if you’d like to see some alternatives, some of the suggestions for less draconian US-Haiti policy, you should goggle and read our pieces on What US Envoy Bill Clinton May Do to Help Haiti. Or, HLLN’s Haiti Policy Statement for the Obama Team.
What’s to be done to change the current paradigm:
Alter US draconian foreign policy in Haiti, that is, by helping grant TPS and equal treatment to Haitians; end UN military occupation; establish fair trade wages and nixing fraudulent free trade wages and failed USAID subjugating “reform” policies; free the thousand upon thousand of political prisoners brought on by the 2004 Bush regime change in Haiti; give direct aid to the Haitian government not aid through USAID and predatory NGOs; Haiti has been over-exploited and terrorized by the Western nations beginning with the Independence debt through to the free trade, neoliberal death policies of today and it’s peoples require Justice not Charity; cancel, without onerous privatization or neoliberal conditions, Haiti’s debt to the International Financial Institutions; protecting, not diluting the $2 billion in annual remittances Haitians from the Diaspora send to Haiti; support Haitian sovereignty and institutionalization of the rule of law, not the impunity of the mercenary families/mulatto oligarchs; Respect Haiti's Indigenous culture, language, schooling, and right to self-determination; Stop the medial lies and stereotypes demonizing Haiti and promoting that Haiti has no riches and natural resources that could be used to benefit its poor ; respect the Haitian vote and stop interfering in Haitian governance.
That's part of what is to be found in our effort to empower ourselves and extend alternatives. Go to Ezili's HLLN FreeHaitiMovement Demands - http://www.margueritelaurent.c...FHMdemands ;
For more general information, go to our website at http://www.margueritelaurent.com/law/lawpress.html if more is required.
As far as I can tell, Clay, you’re not the only one who seems to reject what I’ve written here. I see a few facile dismissals of the piece as “nonsense.’ So, I am not just addressing you here Clay but all the others. You just make it easier to respond because you’ve articulated your objections in a manner that allows for dialogue. So I thank you for this Clay, I do. I write here not just to you, but to the other detractors.
We-Haitians, Clay, cannot wring our hands and sing kumbaya when the animal is viciously eating us alive. But, I suppose it’s human nature to play ostrich and turn your face from such ugliness as the greatest superpower on earth pummeling to death the most militarily powerless nation and people on earth. I suppose it’s easier to take the path of least resistance and give lip service to pretty thoughts about empowering the Haitian people. What makes you project unto the people of Haiti this sense of disempowerment from what I’ve written here, Clay? Are you sure it’s Haitians who are disempowered here, or that mythical self-described “benevolent” International community – who are exposed to the light?
Haitians are a courageous people who are fighting the greatest David vs. Goliath battle on planet earth right now. It seems from your post, Clay, that you’d like to turn your face from the oppression. You’d like to “move on” from the Bush-Cheney war against the poor in Haiti that brought down Haiti’s constitutional government in 2004, ushered in the disenfranchisement of over 9 million Blacks, UN occupation, slaughter and indefinite detentions. What? Are to shrug our shoulders and reconcile with injustice? Just, never mind the overwhelming force used on Haiti by the most powerful militaries on earth. Never mind the economic slavery the media won’t expose. Never mind the kidnapping of Haiti’s duly elected president, UN slaughters since then, the thousands of political prisoners and the raping of Haiti’s children and women since 2004, never mind the starvation, food riot, storm ravages and US corporate welfare through free trade and dumping subsidized US food that destroyed Haiti’s food sovereignty. Forget the war against Haiti’s poor. For, Clay, if I understand you correctly, you’ve decided, Haitians have a cultural predilection towards victimization, and we should cater to your inability to imagine the evil residing next door to us and imposing debt, dependency, economic slavery and coup d’etat. Haitians like me, should just ignore the Western terror because it’s too hard for YOU, Clay, to hear about it – a fact, I might add, that is exploited by the corporatocracy or International community to the hilt - and just empower ourselves, is that it?
I’m not sure where you got the idea Haitians disempowered themselves when they point out the oppression they are facing. I wonder if you would say the same about Americans when they point out the systems’ preference towards Wall Street and not Main Street. Or, if you actually noticed the monetary system that’s vying for all our souls the article highlights? As the Editor of this forum pointed out, the people of Haiti struggled to get a voice by electing Aristide. Both times, their efforts at empowerment were eviscerated by the might of the US. I might add, as one of his lawyer, I suffered personally, barely survived with my own life to be here to even be writing this and had a front row seat to our efforts as Haitians at self-help. And, Clay, our continued efforts as evidenced by the article above. Moreover, I could also point you to the self-help that put thousands of Haitians on overloaded ships on the open seas every year, looking for better circumstance. Many lose that bid at self-help, Clay, drown, get eaten by sharks, or their boats rammed to ground. The lucky ones avoid indefinite detention in US or Caribbean immigration centers and are returned to the inferno they were fleeing from in the first place. Asylum, amnesty, justice denied our kind, for centuries. Oh, yes, I forgot, this is all too hard for you to hear, Clay, Just too HARD. But, Clay, while you’re averting your eyes, understand it’s Haitians who are saving Haitians. That’s why we still exist. For, it’s not foreign aid or fraudulent benevolence that keeps Haitians from dying more; it’s the $2 billion in direct aid from the Haitian Diaspora. Further, if you’d like to see some alternatives, some of the suggestions for less draconian US-Haiti policy, you should goggle and read our pieces on What US Envoy Bill Clinton May Do to Help Haiti. Or, HLLN’s Haiti Policy Statement for the Obama Team.
What’s to be done to change the current paradigm:
Alter US draconian foreign policy in Haiti, that is, by helping grant TPS and equal treatment to Haitians; end UN military occupation; establish fair trade wages and nixing fraudulent free trade wages and failed USAID subjugating “reform” policies; free the thousand upon thousand of political prisoners brought on by the 2004 Bush regime change in Haiti; give direct aid to the Haitian government not aid through USAID and predatory NGOs; Haiti has been over-exploited and terrorized by the Western nations beginning with the Independence debt through to the free trade, neoliberal death policies of today and it’s peoples require Justice not Charity; cancel, without onerous privatization or neoliberal conditions, Haiti’s debt to the International Financial Institutions; protecting, not diluting the $2 billion in annual remittances Haitians from the Diaspora send to Haiti; support Haitian sovereignty and institutionalization of the rule of law, not the impunity of the mercenary families/mulatto oligarchs; Respect Haiti's Indigenous culture, language, schooling, and right to self-determination; Stop the medial lies and stereotypes demonizing Haiti and promoting that Haiti has no riches and natural resources that could be used to benefit its poor ; respect the Haitian vote and stop interfering in Haitian governance.
That's part of what is to be found in our effort to empower ourselves and extend alternatives. Go to Ezili's HLLN FreeHaitiMovement Demands - http://www.margueritelaurent.c...FHMdemands ;
For more general information, go to our website at http://www.margueritelaurent.com/law/lawpress.html if more is required.
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written by EziliDanto, August 31, 2009
UNTIL SHE SPOKE
Excerpt From 'Lecture on Haiti' by Frederick Douglass
http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/history/1844-1915/douglass.htm
[Also, listen to Mumia Abu Jamal on Black August, 2004:
http://www.prisonradio.org/audio/mumia/7_18_04august.mp3
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/black-august-1791-bwa-kayiman/]
Until she spoke, no Christian nation had abolished Negro slavery.
Until she spoke, no Christian nation had given to the world an organized effort to abolish slavery.
Until she spoke, the slave ship, followed by hungry sharks, greedy to devour the dead and dying slaves flung overboard to feed them, ploughed in peace the South Atlantic, painting the sea with the Negro’s blood.
Until she spoke, the slave trade was sanctioned by all the Christian nations of the world, and our land of liberty and light included.
Men made fortunes by this infernal traffic, and were esteemed as good Christians, and the standing types and representations of the Savior of the World.
Until Haiti spoke, the church was silent, and the pulpit was dumb.
Slave-traders lived and slave-traders died.
Funeral sermons were preached over them, and of them it was said that they died in the triumphs of the Christian faith and went to heaven among the just.
*
Ezili Dantò/HLLN
Pitit Ginen, ki kanpe ap moun kap fè bwi deyo a
Excerpt From 'Lecture on Haiti' by Frederick Douglass
http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/history/1844-1915/douglass.htm
[Also, listen to Mumia Abu Jamal on Black August, 2004:
http://www.prisonradio.org/audio/mumia/7_18_04august.mp3
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/black-august-1791-bwa-kayiman/]
Until she spoke, no Christian nation had abolished Negro slavery.
Until she spoke, no Christian nation had given to the world an organized effort to abolish slavery.
Until she spoke, the slave ship, followed by hungry sharks, greedy to devour the dead and dying slaves flung overboard to feed them, ploughed in peace the South Atlantic, painting the sea with the Negro’s blood.
Until she spoke, the slave trade was sanctioned by all the Christian nations of the world, and our land of liberty and light included.
Men made fortunes by this infernal traffic, and were esteemed as good Christians, and the standing types and representations of the Savior of the World.
Until Haiti spoke, the church was silent, and the pulpit was dumb.
Slave-traders lived and slave-traders died.
Funeral sermons were preached over them, and of them it was said that they died in the triumphs of the Christian faith and went to heaven among the just.
*
Ezili Dantò/HLLN
Pitit Ginen, ki kanpe ap moun kap fè bwi deyo a
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written by Margaret Mitchell Armand, August 31, 2009
For those of us Haitians Descents and Haitians that are sending educated comments
and using their heart, their conscience and taking positive action instead of irrational reaction AYIBOBO.
For those that I have not found their way yet in the story of their homeland and do not know where to start and just repeat the illogicity of inhumane behavior. Go back again and take the time to read "Ak tèt an plas" the article of Marguerite Laurent.
and using their heart, their conscience and taking positive action instead of irrational reaction AYIBOBO.
For those that I have not found their way yet in the story of their homeland and do not know where to start and just repeat the illogicity of inhumane behavior. Go back again and take the time to read "Ak tèt an plas" the article of Marguerite Laurent.
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written by Claudine, September 05, 2009
Slave practices by Haitians are every where and the codes are well encrypted among the social groups that practice them. Sadly, people talk about it, but when a former slave asks for help, they are treated as a slave and nothing more. Nobody is doing anything to help free the Haitian slaves. For further information, visit: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1462481 or http://www.claudineetienne.com.
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written by EziliDantò, September 05, 2009
“The Maafa, also known as the African Holocaust or Holocaust of Enslavement is the 500 years of suffering of Africans and the African Diaspora, through slavery, imperialism, colonialism, invasion, oppression, dehumanization and exploitation.”
The African holocaust’s residual effects are illustrated, in part, by the favoring of the light skin black woman over the darker skin black woman and this still goes on, everywhere in the world including in the United States. Claudine's post, based on what I can gather by quick reading at this site - http://www.claudineetienne.com/CallForFreedom.html - appears to be about the discrimination of a dark skin black woman by dark skin black men. If this is the situation Claudine’s comment refers to, comparing the financial colonialism paradigm I've identified in the article entitled “Haiti, Genocide and the New Slavery Model” then I wish to respond in this manner.
First, I wish to tell Claudine that this answer is not meant to minimize the pain a dark skin black woman suffers from being rejected or thought of as lesser than lighter and more Eurocentric-featured Black women on this planet. This favoritism for lighter skin Black women with Eurocentric features continues to manifest in contemporary society and causes untold suffering and persecution for African women and their children. But it is not SLAVERY.
Still, the pain is there, and I herein acknowledge Claudine Etienne’s sufferings has a socio-political origin exacerbated or, in Haiti, even created by the African Holocaust. The Haitian experience with the mulatto oligarchs in Haiti reveal that the Mulatto's definition of liberty and freedom differs from that of the African-Haitian masses because of how they initially won their freedom ( http://www.margueritelaurent.c...oncession.) This is clearly illustrated when we examine how the Mulatto freedmen in Haiti where freed by the Black Code – these light skin Haitians where the children of rape or relationships-of-power between white masters and the enslaved African women. The resulting issue, the Mulatto, gained her/his freedom by being the issue of a white person and therefore seen as naturally superior to the full caste Black. This phenomenon is more particularly described in how Ezili’s HLLN defines Bourgeois Democracy at - http://www.margueritelaurent.c...oisFreedom and, its effects continues to be the ban of Haiti’s existence as the mulatto oligarchs or the “white Haitian” families today in Haiti are still prized as superior, used as the subcontractors for neocolonialism and own most of Haiti’s wealth. (See - THE SLAVERY IN HAITI THE MEDIA WON'T EXPOSE - Ezili Dantò's counter-narrative to the media spins and self-serving colonial negatives promoted about Haiti http://www.margueritelaurent.c...lieslinks.) Some of the pathology is manifested in how not just Haitians, but most previous subjects of colonialism including, African Americans, Asian, Latino, et al, still see freedom as being a Euro and work very hard to garner white DNA to expunge their groupings cultural/racial features. So, in essence, the destruction of the black and brown traveled abroad long before the dark skinned Haitian left Haiti to extend his oppression to the Black women he would find in Miami.
Secondly, since the assassination of Haiti’s founding father, Jean Jacques Dessalines, the white nations, initially France to be sure, used the half-breeds or mixed-race, the Mulatto sons of France to destroy Haitian sovereignty and independence, exclude the African masses and exploit their labor and the nation’s resources through debt, trade and dependency. Now the original mulatto are not as strong as the Haitian oligarchs, since the 19year US occupation have metastasized into plain white families in Haiti, many with no African blood.
Who are some of today’s subcontracted Haitians/Haitian Oligarchs?: the wealthy families in Haiti are mostly 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, Mevs, Brandt, Nadal, Coles, Baussan, Vital, Vorbes, Madsen, Kouri, Sada, Loukas, Boulos, Bigio, and others...pulling the instability strings in the shadows.
These “Haitian” families are the current overseers in the colonial paradigm in Haiti and they are used to help enchain 9 million African-Haitians by the white nations through is economic slavery - debt, free trade, wage slavery. That is the point of my article and it contends that Leclerc’s genocidal imperative shall be fulfilled in 50 years if Africa’s children in Haiti are solely dependent on the mercenary families and white nations – uhmm “International Community” – for food, fuel and survival.
Claudine titled her comment “Genocide of dark skinned Haitians has traveled abroad” and wrote – “Slave practices by Haitians are everywhere and the codes are well encrypted among the social groups that practice them. Sadly, people talk about it, but when a former slave asks for help, they are treated as a slave and nothing more. Nobody is doing anything to help free the Haitian slaves.”
Here’s my final point for Claudine:
What is genocide?
For our purposes here, it suffices to say that according to article 2 of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), genocide is defined as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
Claudine’s comparison of discrimination where Black men favor lighter skin women is inappropriate and cannot equate to the enslavement of Africans for a total of 500 years where it is estimated that over 100 million Blacks died suffering unspeakably during the Middle Passage alone. In Haiti the enslavement lasted 300 years. To compare the intra-group repercussion to slavery as SLAVERY grossly minimizes the 500 years when all blacks were PROPERTY, and sold as property, Black women bred like animals, not considered fully human and brutally and totally dehumanized, without any legal or human rights. In describing the African Holocaust on the eve of the Haitian revolution, I wrote in Ezili's Bwa Kayiman play that marks the Vodun ceremony that began the Haitian revolution that abolished chattel slavery, direct colonialism and the Triangular Trade in Haiti:
“It's night. August 14, 1791. Slavery is everywhere. Whites are killing Africans. Whites are killing Africans. Whites are killing Africans.
This is how they entertain themselves: they bury us alive in the hot sun, so the ants will slowly devour our heads. Either they beat us until we're red in blood or until we faint. They have the habit of driving the knife of their bayonet into the belly of a pregnant Haitian woman disemboweling her - killing both mother and child. These, are their pleasures, ordained by their God, they say."
So, while the continued persecution of Africans, the nation of Haiti and Black women are directly related to the Maafa and its legacy, it is not the Maafa. I’ve noted the same with reference to child domestic (restavek) in Haiti, which the media insist on referring to by the “slave” appellation. This too, is not an appropriate comparison. And it minimizes the great Haitian triumph that brought about the abolishment of racial slavery, direct colonialism and the wretched Triangular TRADE now replaced by economic slavery, free trade and free trade wages. (See the above article and THE SLAVERY IN HAITI THE MEDIA WON'T EXPOSE http://www.margueritelaurent.c...lieslinks.)
As a quick aside, I notice a sentence in Claudine essay ( http://www.claudineetienne.com/CallForFreedom.html) where she indicates a young Black man called her a “black monkey.” This brought to my mind the commotion happening right now because COSTCO is selling a "Cuddle Baby" product #404860 which is a black doll baby. They’ve named the Black baby doll a Lil’ MONKEY. (See it at -http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/08/costco-pulls-racist-doll-from-stores/).
Be well, Claudine.
Ezili Dantò/HLLN
Pitit Ginen depi lan Ginen
The African holocaust’s residual effects are illustrated, in part, by the favoring of the light skin black woman over the darker skin black woman and this still goes on, everywhere in the world including in the United States. Claudine's post, based on what I can gather by quick reading at this site - http://www.claudineetienne.com/CallForFreedom.html - appears to be about the discrimination of a dark skin black woman by dark skin black men. If this is the situation Claudine’s comment refers to, comparing the financial colonialism paradigm I've identified in the article entitled “Haiti, Genocide and the New Slavery Model” then I wish to respond in this manner.
First, I wish to tell Claudine that this answer is not meant to minimize the pain a dark skin black woman suffers from being rejected or thought of as lesser than lighter and more Eurocentric-featured Black women on this planet. This favoritism for lighter skin Black women with Eurocentric features continues to manifest in contemporary society and causes untold suffering and persecution for African women and their children. But it is not SLAVERY.
Still, the pain is there, and I herein acknowledge Claudine Etienne’s sufferings has a socio-political origin exacerbated or, in Haiti, even created by the African Holocaust. The Haitian experience with the mulatto oligarchs in Haiti reveal that the Mulatto's definition of liberty and freedom differs from that of the African-Haitian masses because of how they initially won their freedom ( http://www.margueritelaurent.c...oncession.) This is clearly illustrated when we examine how the Mulatto freedmen in Haiti where freed by the Black Code – these light skin Haitians where the children of rape or relationships-of-power between white masters and the enslaved African women. The resulting issue, the Mulatto, gained her/his freedom by being the issue of a white person and therefore seen as naturally superior to the full caste Black. This phenomenon is more particularly described in how Ezili’s HLLN defines Bourgeois Democracy at - http://www.margueritelaurent.c...oisFreedom and, its effects continues to be the ban of Haiti’s existence as the mulatto oligarchs or the “white Haitian” families today in Haiti are still prized as superior, used as the subcontractors for neocolonialism and own most of Haiti’s wealth. (See - THE SLAVERY IN HAITI THE MEDIA WON'T EXPOSE - Ezili Dantò's counter-narrative to the media spins and self-serving colonial negatives promoted about Haiti http://www.margueritelaurent.c...lieslinks.) Some of the pathology is manifested in how not just Haitians, but most previous subjects of colonialism including, African Americans, Asian, Latino, et al, still see freedom as being a Euro and work very hard to garner white DNA to expunge their groupings cultural/racial features. So, in essence, the destruction of the black and brown traveled abroad long before the dark skinned Haitian left Haiti to extend his oppression to the Black women he would find in Miami.
Secondly, since the assassination of Haiti’s founding father, Jean Jacques Dessalines, the white nations, initially France to be sure, used the half-breeds or mixed-race, the Mulatto sons of France to destroy Haitian sovereignty and independence, exclude the African masses and exploit their labor and the nation’s resources through debt, trade and dependency. Now the original mulatto are not as strong as the Haitian oligarchs, since the 19year US occupation have metastasized into plain white families in Haiti, many with no African blood.
Who are some of today’s subcontracted Haitians/Haitian Oligarchs?: the wealthy families in Haiti are mostly 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, Mevs, Brandt, Nadal, Coles, Baussan, Vital, Vorbes, Madsen, Kouri, Sada, Loukas, Boulos, Bigio, and others...pulling the instability strings in the shadows.
These “Haitian” families are the current overseers in the colonial paradigm in Haiti and they are used to help enchain 9 million African-Haitians by the white nations through is economic slavery - debt, free trade, wage slavery. That is the point of my article and it contends that Leclerc’s genocidal imperative shall be fulfilled in 50 years if Africa’s children in Haiti are solely dependent on the mercenary families and white nations – uhmm “International Community” – for food, fuel and survival.
Claudine titled her comment “Genocide of dark skinned Haitians has traveled abroad” and wrote – “Slave practices by Haitians are everywhere and the codes are well encrypted among the social groups that practice them. Sadly, people talk about it, but when a former slave asks for help, they are treated as a slave and nothing more. Nobody is doing anything to help free the Haitian slaves.”
Here’s my final point for Claudine:
What is genocide?
For our purposes here, it suffices to say that according to article 2 of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), genocide is defined as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
Claudine’s comparison of discrimination where Black men favor lighter skin women is inappropriate and cannot equate to the enslavement of Africans for a total of 500 years where it is estimated that over 100 million Blacks died suffering unspeakably during the Middle Passage alone. In Haiti the enslavement lasted 300 years. To compare the intra-group repercussion to slavery as SLAVERY grossly minimizes the 500 years when all blacks were PROPERTY, and sold as property, Black women bred like animals, not considered fully human and brutally and totally dehumanized, without any legal or human rights. In describing the African Holocaust on the eve of the Haitian revolution, I wrote in Ezili's Bwa Kayiman play that marks the Vodun ceremony that began the Haitian revolution that abolished chattel slavery, direct colonialism and the Triangular Trade in Haiti:
“It's night. August 14, 1791. Slavery is everywhere. Whites are killing Africans. Whites are killing Africans. Whites are killing Africans.
This is how they entertain themselves: they bury us alive in the hot sun, so the ants will slowly devour our heads. Either they beat us until we're red in blood or until we faint. They have the habit of driving the knife of their bayonet into the belly of a pregnant Haitian woman disemboweling her - killing both mother and child. These, are their pleasures, ordained by their God, they say."
So, while the continued persecution of Africans, the nation of Haiti and Black women are directly related to the Maafa and its legacy, it is not the Maafa. I’ve noted the same with reference to child domestic (restavek) in Haiti, which the media insist on referring to by the “slave” appellation. This too, is not an appropriate comparison. And it minimizes the great Haitian triumph that brought about the abolishment of racial slavery, direct colonialism and the wretched Triangular TRADE now replaced by economic slavery, free trade and free trade wages. (See the above article and THE SLAVERY IN HAITI THE MEDIA WON'T EXPOSE http://www.margueritelaurent.c...lieslinks.)
As a quick aside, I notice a sentence in Claudine essay ( http://www.claudineetienne.com/CallForFreedom.html) where she indicates a young Black man called her a “black monkey.” This brought to my mind the commotion happening right now because COSTCO is selling a "Cuddle Baby" product #404860 which is a black doll baby. They’ve named the Black baby doll a Lil’ MONKEY. (See it at -http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/08/costco-pulls-racist-doll-from-stores/).
Be well, Claudine.
Ezili Dantò/HLLN
Pitit Ginen depi lan Ginen
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written by stanley Laham, September 07, 2009
There is absolutely no nonsense in what Ezili has written. If you are ignorant of the reality she is exposing, she is not responsible. Blame your history teacher or yourself.
It is an undeniable fact that debt has been an instrument of bondage. When loans from Citi-Corp or Chase-Manhattan were declined by Haiti and other Central American nations, the marines were sent in to make their government officials more "reasonable" or simply eliminate them. Start by reading the classic book by Juan Arevalo, president of Guatemala from 1945 to 1951, entitled: "The Shark and the Sardines". Then listen on youtube to the famous retirement speech by General Smedley Darlington Butler, twice recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and commander of US troops in Haiti during the American Occupation, in which he describe his Marine Corps as mafia hit men operating on three continents for American banking interests. Then maybe you will begin to understand what sort of "nonsense" Ms Ezili Danto has been steadfastly exposing.
And how else would you describe $1.70/ 12-hour day besides slave wages??
It is an undeniable fact that debt has been an instrument of bondage. When loans from Citi-Corp or Chase-Manhattan were declined by Haiti and other Central American nations, the marines were sent in to make their government officials more "reasonable" or simply eliminate them. Start by reading the classic book by Juan Arevalo, president of Guatemala from 1945 to 1951, entitled: "The Shark and the Sardines". Then listen on youtube to the famous retirement speech by General Smedley Darlington Butler, twice recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and commander of US troops in Haiti during the American Occupation, in which he describe his Marine Corps as mafia hit men operating on three continents for American banking interests. Then maybe you will begin to understand what sort of "nonsense" Ms Ezili Danto has been steadfastly exposing.
And how else would you describe $1.70/ 12-hour day besides slave wages??
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While it may be far-fetched that there is an actual, orchestrated "genocide" happening in Haiti, what I wonder is, after your complaint is totally gotten, does it still not leave both Haitians with visas and non-visa holding Haitian's in the role of powerless victim?
Just a thought, but one of the root causes of what's happening in Haiti might be what Haitians themselves believe is possible for their future and what their role is in creating that future.
Not like it's their fault, but it's like people in Haiti have been conditioned to accept that the world outside is against them, that life is hard and bad in Haiti, and that it’s somebody else’s fault. That cultural conversation goes completely unaddressed, but it has everything to do with what’s happening. In the face of all the current circumstances, what I’d like to make real is people being empowered to transform their circumstances. Blame and conjecture probably aren’t useful on the path to achieving that!
[Doesn't that mean blaming the victim, Clay? Does that not ignore the role of foreigners in the misery of Haitians? Aristide was not overthrown this last time around by the populace of Haiti, but spirited away by foreign soldiers working for the furtherance of corporate designs on the Haitian economy. Those designs demand that the people of that benighted nation remain the most miserable examples of market servitude in the hemisphere. Nevermind too the role of the United Nations, who maintain the entirely unacceptable impoverishment of the people at the point of bayonets. - ed.]