1915-34 Revisited

1915-34 Revisited

Few Haitians have heard of Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler (1881-1940), who served as a major in Haiti during the first U.S occupation of that country (1915-34) and personified its motive. A man of his time, General Butler claimed to have hunted the Cacos, the Haitian rebels who opposed the occupation, like pigs, and did not hide his hatred for the “uncivilized niggers in need to be civilized” who inhabited the island, as his 1922 testimony before a U.S senate inquiry into the occupation indicated. Had generations of Haitians be made aware of his exploits in Haiti, they would not have facilitated or tolerated the current U.N occupation (2004-?) which incidentally bears eerie similarities to that of the U.S which lasted 19 years. The brutality of the U.S occupation was such that thousands of Haitians sought refuge in Cuba where today their descendants numbered more than half-million in that island nation.
According to the transcript of the hearings, in 1914, the U.S notifies the Haitian government that it is disposed to recognize the newly elected Haitian president, Davilmar Theodore, as soon as Haiti signs a “satisfactory protocol” on the model of the U.S-Dominican Convention of 1907. To which the Haitian government replied: “The government of the Republic of Haiti would consider itself lacking in its duty to the U.S and to itself, if it allowed the least doubt to exist of its irrevocable intention not to accept any control of the administration of Haitian affairs by a foreign power.” Nevertheless on July 29, 1915 U.S troops invaded Haiti and curiously the American people were told that the Haitian people invited the United Sates to straighten out its affairs.
On February 39, 2004, 70 years after the U.S occupation ended, Haiti was once more invaded and occupied by U.S and French forces acting under the cover of a U.N. Security Council resolution. Despite this interlude, the rationale remained the same: forestalling political violence and stabilizing the country’s institutions, with an addendum this time that Jean Bertrand Aristide himself, the Haitian president, had asked to be taken out of Haiti. This reasoning is rooted in a paternalism which exposes Haitians as inherently irresponsive to foreign directives and inclined to self-destruct, hence the perpetual disdain for the country, its people, culture and institutions. To make matters worse the strategy is aided and abetted by the country’s intelligentsia, its economic elite and the political class, which explains their unconditional support for the U.N occupation.
Gérard Latortue, Haiti’s prime minister (2004-06) and René Préval, the country’s current president are poster boys of that anti-national movement. Assailed by critics over his signing over jurisdictional control of the Haitian National Police to the MINUSTAH, which nullified Haiti’s sovereignty as a nation in the waning weeks of his premiership, Latortue responded that he did not have his spectacles on. This is a stunning admission by the man that he did not even read the agreement, prior to signing it. Following the January 12 earthquake, René Préval, understandably overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster, could have formed a national unity government tasked with rebuilding the country but instead chose to play old-style politics.
Sensing a golden opportunity arising from the absolute incompetence of Préval and his minions, the international community swiftly moves in to fill the void and takes charge of the rebuilding. The end result is the takeover of the government’s constitutional prerogatives by Haiti Interim Reconstruction Commission, a foreign-dominated body whose purpose is to implement the objectives of the occupiers. This incomprehensible act by Préval, a man elected to protect the interests of Haiti and its people, is downright malicious rather than a simple case of dereliction of duty or incompetence.
Based on the aforementioned actions of Latortue and Préval, were they duped by hardened imperialists or willingly collaborated in the subjugation of the Haitian people? I sincerely doubt the former could be the case since the two exhibited classic symptoms of exaggerated self-worth, thus were in full control of their faculties. As for Préval, the man is so proud of his performance that he is protecting his legacy through the machinations of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP). His masters agree with him.
José Miguel Insulza, the Organization of the American States (OEA) General Secretary and Lionel Jospin, former French prime minister and presidential candidate, consider the electoral process credible despite the fact that many candidates and political parties were arbitrarily disqualified. Undoubtedly these statements are indicative of the international community’s support for the politic of exclusion and unaccountability that guarantees its interference in the internal affairs of Haiti. This imposed paternalism, masqueraded as a genuine concern for the welfare of the Haitian people, makes a mockery of the United Nations Charter; negates the principles of auto-determination and fosters a culture of dependency in Haiti.
A cursory analysis of the current occupation of Haiti (the marginalization of the local authorities and imposition of foreign ideals inimical to the country’s traditions) validates the perspectives of General Butler who classified Haitians in two categories: “Those with shoes and those without shoes.” Appropriately, General Butler’s contempt for the former whom he called uppity niggers merits to be put in perspective. Indeed this group (the political class, the intelligentsia and the arrogant economic elite) represents an existential threat to Haiti and its people and needs to be reeducated not civilized, otherwise “the Haitian question” and all the negativity that comes with it will endure.

The Saga of the Romani People

In France, they are called Gitans and to the outside world: Gypsies, Gitanos, Romani or simply Roma, a nomadic ethnic minority dispersed principally in Europe whose true origins baffled historians for centuries. Originally thought to have come from Egypt, the Romani were once called Gyptians, hence the word Gypsies, until linguistic and genetic evidence established they originated from the Indian subcontinent. Widely misunderstood and reviled because of their peculiar way of life, which many Europeans consider anti-social, another preconceived notion of cultural superiority, the Romani are probably the only ethnic minority whose persecution is state-sanctioned in today’s Europe which prides itself as a beacon for human rights and dignity.
What differentiates the Romani people from Europe’s other ethnic groups is understandably their attachment to their ancient way of life that remains at odds with modern European culture. Though a small minority manages to assimilate within larger European societies, the vast majority subsists as itinerant beggars and fortune tellers and, some maintain, petty criminals. In the U.S where they are mostly assimilated, it is not unusual to see Romani women with children in tow begging on street corners. What makes such sights memorable is that they occur in African-American neighborhoods. Not surprisingly, the Romani experienced forced assimilation, sterilization, and extermination attempt during the Nazi’s occupation of much of the European landmass (1939-45), but strangely enough their persecution never elicited sympathies from the outside world.
For the past month, they are the subject of a controversy pitting France, a nation which sees itself as a gift to humanity because of a twisted belief in the superiority of its culture, and the civilized world. The controversy is about France’s ongoing deportation of Romani to Bulgaria and Romania, which paradoxically are members of the European Union. Surprisingly, the French seem outraged over the condemnations emanating from all corners of the globe, including its European partners. The EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding equated France's actions to persecutions in Nazi-occupied France. "This is a situation I had thought Europe would not have to witness again after the Second World War", she was quoted as having said. Nonetheless the French would not budge on the issue, preferring instead to play the quintessential victim of smear, misunderstanding and political malevolence on the part of others. Has Nicolas Sarkozy warped himself around the Jeffersonian mantra “National interests transcend any philosophical consistency” or is France simply morally bankrupt?
Whichever way one sees the policy, France is establishing a dangerous precedent that may reawaken Europe’s deep-rooted fascination with ethnic cleansing which remains dangerously close to the surface despite its attempt at political integration. Based on their experience during their struggle for self-determination (1991-97), the Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians can attest to that. Next it could be the turn of Germans of Turkish descent, North African Muslims and Sub-Saharan Africans whom many on the Continent consider a serious threat to the preservation or survival of Europe’s cultural heritage. The French government’s view that the shantytowns inhabited by the Roma will not be tolerated in France could also apply to African immigrants who have yet to find their footing in that country.
On November 9-10 of 1938, the nights of Kristallnacht, when the Jews of Germany were systematically persecuted by order of the Nazi regime (1933-45), no one then anticipated that it would lead to something more sinister: a comprehensive attempt at exterminating the entire Jewish population of the Old Continent. This episode shows that whenever a powerful nation, answerable to no one, engages in this unorthodox type of behavior, it can set off a chain of events with dire consequences for humanity as a whole. As a permanent member of the U.N Security Council, the body entrusted with peace and security in the world, France’s behavior is unacceptable and constitutes a danger to peace and security in our world.
Returning from an E.U Summit in Brussels last week, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, through her spokesman, had to deny Nicolas Sarkozy’s allegation he had discussed the issue with her and that she assured him that Germany intends to follow France’s policy in dismantling Roma camps in her country. The proverbial he said, she said. In times of economic uncertainties, pandering to fear has always been the preferred method of crafty politicians, therefore what transpired between the two leading European leaders remains a mystery for now. This misunderstanding or calculated attempt at manipulating public opinion, depending on one’s perspective, came on the heels of the Thilo Sarrazin’s scandal, the board member of Germany’s Central Bank (Bundersbank) who was forced to resign his post after making disparaging comments about Muslims and Jews. Despite the fact that Germany’s political establishment reacted disapprovingly to Thilo Sarrazin’s unwarranted comments, it would be wrong for the outside world to think that they do not represent the views of the larger German population.
Again, as history never failed to repeat itself, will those in charge learn the lessons of the past and make an honest effort at embracing a higher moral standing rooted in the religious principles they claim to cherish? Or rather will they continue down the path of systematic elimination of those deemed “others’, i.e. Amerindians, Africans, Armenians, Gypsies, Jews, Muslim Bosnians and Kosovo Albanians? Unfortunately, those precedents and France’s ongoing deportation of Romani are indicative that the powers that be remain predisposed to persecute, marginalize, humiliate or eliminate those they perceive as” the others.”

Africa's Travails

This year 16 African countries, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Mali, Madagascar, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia and Togo, celebrate the 50th anniversary of their nominal political freedom; many of them mired in poverty, ethnic and religious strife and political instability. What went wrong usually involves twisted facts and hypotheticals. From a western perspective, the poverty and instability that remain the hallmark of the Continent are the result of bad governance, endemic corruption, systemic repression and personality cult among African leaders. The obvious implication being that Africans would be better off today, had they remained under European rule, even though the main purpose of colonization was to pillage and subjugate the Continent and its people rather than building economically viable states.
It was almost 125 years ago at the Berlin Conference (Nov 1884- Feb 1885) presided by Germany’s Iron Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck (1815-98) that the Continent of Africa, huge and unexplored, was divided up by the European powers, namely Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Consequently, neighboring ethnic groups with nothing in common but the color of their skin were banded together into administrative entities that ultimately became nations-states. In the wake of the geopolitical realignment that followed WWII (1939-45), the keepers of the New World Order, the United States and the Soviet Union, despite their unbridgeable ideological differences had agreed on one issue: the era of European colonialism was over. Thus, grudgingly, the colonial powers complied and granted African countries limited political autonomy, which many of the newly minted African leaders mistakenly equated with outright independence.
Nationalists like Ahmed Sékou Touré (1922-84) of Guinée, Kwame Nkrumah (1909-72) of Ghana and Patrice Lumumba (1925-61) of Congo, presently the Democratic Republic of Congo, took the notion of independence literally and got a rude awakening. Having rejected Charles De Gaulle’s bizarre scheme of a confederation between France and its African colonies, Sékou Touré, was ostracized and vilified by the western media. Guinée, blacklisted by the western powers, sunk into extreme poverty despite its abundant mineral riches. In an extreme act of vindictiveness, the French dismantled the country’s telephone system before granting it its independence on October 2, 1958.
In 1966, Nkrumah was overthrown in a western-backed military coup while visiting China and North Vietnam. He never returned to his native Ghana and died a broken man in 1972. His Pan-African dream, lost in the unforgiving reality of the Cold War, no doubt died with him. In 1961, Lumumba, Congo’s first prime minister, was arrested, tortured and assassinated on direct orders, some say, of Belgium and the U.S for having embarrassed King Baudouin of Belgium during his country’s Independence Day celebrations on June 30th 1960. Lumumba’s crime: He dared denounce the atrocities perpetuated against the Congolese by the Belgians during their colonial rule (1885-1960) during which roughly 20% of Congo’s population perished. The then-United Nations forces in Congo could have saved Lumumba’s life but were specifically told by the New York headquarters not to intervene.
Conversely other African leaders, particularly Jomo Kenyatta (1894-1978) of Kenya, Leopold Sedar Senghor (1906-2001) of Senegal, Félix Houphouet-Boigny (1905-93) of Côte d’Ivoire, Omar Bongo (1935-2009) of Gabon and Mobutu Sese Seko (1930-97) of Zaire, blindly implemented the neo-colonialist designs of their former tormentors by towing the line. Not surprisingly, Gabon, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Zaire were for the most part “oasis of stability” in a Continent marred by military coups, ethnic strife, Apartheid and civil wars. In Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Moroccan and western troops periodically intervened to quell many rebellions against Mobutu’s tyrannical rule until one led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila (1939-2001) finally overthrew the regime of the long time dictator in 1997.
The attitude of Europeans toward Africans is that of an impenitent bank robber reprimanding his victims for their indolence and deciding his own punishment rather than pleading for mercy or forgiveness. It is all the more disingenuous that Old Europe is casting itself as a paragon of virtues and defender of human rights by castigating Chinese investments in Africa on the premise they help keep corrupt tyrants in power, therefore detrimental to social, political and economic progress on the Continent. Strange logic, isn’t it, considering the systematic pillage of the Continent and enslavement and its people by the Europeans.
It took the Europeans centuries to overcome ethnic hatred and political divisions that turned Old Europe into raging battlefields for most of its existence, yet, they are castigating Africans for not having done so in a generation. May be, it is a tacit admission by the Europeans that Africans are better human beings. It is in that context that Nelson Mandela of South Africa is venerated for his conciliatory approach to past atrocities against Africans by Europeans while Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) is ostracized for his retributive stance toward his people’s former tormentors.
As Karl Marx correctly wrote in 1852 “Men make their own history, but they don't make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted from the past.” Fittingly, Mandela and Mugabe are modern versions of earlier generations of African leaders (Bongo, Senghor, Houphouet-Boigny, Nkrumah, Lumumba, and Touré), all products of historical events that shaped their divergent political philosophies, which ironically facilitate European paternalism and hegemony in Africa.

Another opportunity that should not be lost

What was to be a milestone for Haitians in this country was lost when 4 Haitian-Americans, vying for the vacant 17th Congressional District seat in southern Florida, were defeated in the August 24th Democratic primary. The victory was seized by 68 year-old state senator Frederica S. Wilson who is now virtually assured of a victory next November in the predominantly Democratic district. Some 1400 miles up North, in Brooklyn’s 42nd Assembly District, Michèle Adolphe, is also trying to make history by becoming the first Haitian-American elected to the New York State legislature. Unlike her fellow Haitian-Americans in South Florida, she is facing an uphill battle as her opponent, Rodha Jacobs, a master tactician in the art of using legal challenges against potential opponents also benefits from the power of thirty two years of incumbency and a huge war chest. With this year’s redistricting and the prospect of gerrymandering (deliberate modification of the boundaries of a district for electoral purposes) the opportunity to elect one of its own, if lost, could set back the Haitian community’s prospective representation in the corridors of power in Albany for a decade or more.
With a large percentage of Haitian-Americans, the 42nd A.D, which is 85% non-white and predominantly Caribbean, is an anachronism of the power of incumbency in which the incumbent keeps getting reelected while losing touch with the communities she represents. First elected in 1978, Rhoda Jacobs has no doubt worked hard on behalf of her constituents during her long tenure as assemblywoman, nonetheless she failed to understand the ever changing needs of these communities made up generally of first generation and naturalized Americans whose path to achieving the “American dream” has become narrower in the last decade.
Undoubtedly the 42nd A.D has been adversely, if not disproportionally, affected by the recent economic crisis (2008-?) during which many homeowners have lost or facing the prospect of losing their homes while tuition for their college-bound children continue to rise. These facts notwithstanding, the ever lower quality of education of the District-area’s public High Schools is placing an additional burden on these hardworking folks who are compelled to sending their sons and daughters to private schools and forgo/sacrifice other needs. The division of the venerated Erasmus Hall High School in 1994 into 4 separate schools due to poor academic scores underscores that reality. Indeed these issues need to be addressed expeditiously and complacency is simply not an option for the constituents of the 42nd Assembly District.
Judging the bustling activities along Flatbush, Church and Nostrand Avenues and other commercial arteries within its confines, it is obvious that Brooklyn’s 42nd Assembly District could be to the Caribbean community what Harlem is to African-Americans. What’s needed is a leader that speaks on its behalf in Albany and harnesses its constituencies’ greatest strengths: strong family values and structure, innate sense of entrepreneurship and an infallible belief in the power of education.
Needless to say the 42nd Assembly District needs an infusion of new blood and vision, as its social problems have multiplied since Rhoda Jacobs first got elected in 1978 and her long term incumbency may actually be a handicap to taking a crack at them. On September 14, the Haitian community, one of the District’s largest constituencies, has a unique opportunity to end its unenviable status of a politically impotent ethnic group in New York State by massively supporting Michèle Adolphe, one of its own, in the state Democratic primary.
Numerous Haitian-Americans, namely Jean Vernet, Rubain Durancy and Samuel Nicolas have tried to unseat Rhoda Jacobs and failed. The reasons are too numerous to enumerate in this article. Four years ago, with Michele Adolphe and Zacary LaReche, two Haitian-Americans, running against her, Rhoda Jacobs garnered 60% of the votes. Nonetheless Adolphe’s grassroots campaign, which has gained momentum, could produce an upset this year as Jacobs’ highhanded tactics of using electoral challenges to disqualify potential opponents have alienated many of her own supporters.
Who is Michèle Adolphe? She is a former community organizer and NYC High School schoolteacher, a mother of two daughters and founder and president of Brooklyn Institute for Children (BIC), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of the area’s children. Her academic credentials (she holds a degree in management from the State University of New York (SUNY) and a master in Social Sciences from Long Island University (LIU) do not come close to matching her dedication to the 42nd District where she has resided most of her life ever since she emigrated to the U.S with her parents as a young child from Haiti. Most importantly, Michèle Adolphe’s candidacy is not a purported ethnic-based insurgency, as her detractors are inclined to believe, but a genuine attempt on her part at alleviating or solving the myriad of problems facing the constituents of the 42nd Assembly District.
In helping Michèle Adolphe become an assemblywoman for the 42nd Assembly district, Haitian-Americans will finally emulate the feat of this country’s founding fathers by saying no to “taxation without representation” as a clear choice to end their indolence and impotence in U.S politics is essentially in their hands. Indeed, this election matters to Haitian-Americans as it is vital to their assimilation into mainstream U.S politics. For that reason, the community should come out in droves and seize the opportunity to help elect Michèle Adolphe in her noble quest to becoming the first Haitian-American assemblywoman in New York State.