Azor: The Passing of a Legend

It must have been 4 or 5 years ago at a concert that I met for the first and last time Lénord Fortuné (Azor), the internationally-renowned Haitian drummer and vocalist, who died of renal failure on July 16th. A true son of Haiti in many aspects (grew up poor, uneducated and yet possessed unsurpassed talents), Azor will be remembered by his countrymen for his immeasurable contribution to Haitian culture and also legions of innumerable fans throughout the world that enjoyed his unique brand of music (Rasin Mapou). Last Saturday, July 23rd, he was accorded a Vodou-style State Funeral at the Champs-de-Mars, Port-au-Prince’s largest square, presided by Max G. Beauvoir, the first crowned Supreme Master of Haitian Vodou. Michel Martelly, the Haitian president and fellow musician himself, sent his condolences and remembered Azor as “a tireless Ambassador of Haitian culture.”
Azor’s short but bountiful life accomplishment is an inspirational story to the millions of his fellow countrymen who seem condemned to a life of servitude and misery. His passing however ignited a debate among Haitians that underscores the extent of our self-hatred and proves beyond the shadow of a doubt the irreversible effects of colonialism on many of its victims. At issue was the state funeral given the deceased, which many “educated Haitians” considered improper because of his earthly association with Vodou, notwithstanding his immense contribution to the advancement of Haitian culture. Once again, the 500 years of ostracism, white-conceived propagandas and self-hatred among Haitians have come to the surface.
I have grown accustomed to unorthodox comments from my fellow compatriots, which can be attributed to willful ignorance, but this one defies any rationale. Although Vodou has, since April 4th 2003, been elevated to the status of religion in accordance with Haiti’s Constitution by then-president Jean Bertrand Aristide, a former Catholic priest, the old misconceptions, narcissistic Christian values, and manifest ignorance endure. In Brooklyn, New York, a well-known Catholic priest, whose list of infidels also includes Freemasons, unsympathetically said that God took Azor’s life in his prime because of his association with Vodou, whose practitioners are condemned sons and daughters of Satan. What was God’s verdict in regard to my late little brothers Ricardo and Caroll who passed on at three and a-half years of age and thirty-five, respectively?
It is disconcerting to learn that God would take a person’s life for being a drummer and Vodou practitioner while letting pedophile Catholic priests live long lives that enable them to wreak havoc on society. Unless the priest in question, who never toiled a day in his life to earn a living like the late Azor did, was expressing his personal, one-dimensional views and not actually speaking on His behalf, God definitely got it wrong.
It was Voltaire who said “Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.” The priest and others like him should not be dismissed as simple rabble-rousers, because their small-minded views have caused harm to innocent Haitian citizens in the past. Centuries of indoctrination by these peddlers of the “Gospel of resignation” (Catholic priests and more recently evangelical Christians) have had the desired effects on their intended victims (unsuspecting and uneducated Haitians trying to find a rationale for their earthly sufferings).
In 1940, it was the Haitian state under then-president Elie Lescot that organized the persecution of Vodou practitioners, but recently this sinister endeavor has become the handiwork of unrepentant vigilantes. Thousands of Vodou practitioners were killed following the fall of “Baby Doc” Duvalier in 1986; the perpetrators were never brought to justice. In the aftermath of the January 12th, 2010 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, 50 Vodou practitioners were also killed by defenders of the Christian faith and, as expected, no one was ever prosecuted for these horrific crimes.
Voltaire was also right when he wrote: As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.” In this case, the absurdities being a narcissistic view of Christianity by simple-minded adherents and their inherent belief of Vodou as demonic, which naturally lead to atrocities against innocent citizens. It is also a paradox to see Christians (the alleged children of God, the Merciful) committing violence against peaceful alleged sons and daughters of Satan. Could the failure by Vodou practitioners (the alleged sons and daughters of Satan) to retaliate against their tormentors be a sinister plot to win converts among peace-loving Christians? These are questions that need to be answered by those hiding behind their hatred of evilness in order to foment intolerance and violence against peaceful citizens that are trying to find a purpose for their wretched earthly existence.
The truth is: the hatred of Vodou by a raucous segment of Haiti’s population has anything to do with that group’s love for God. It is actually consequential to colonialism, which associates anything from Mother Africa with primitiveness and devil worshiping, but also idiosyncratic to Haitian society, which considers anything that is embraced by the poor as an existential threat to the status quo.
The late Azor, the product of the “Haitian Renaissance” that began in the mid-1980, would understand the misplaced nihilism of his fellow compatriots, since he lived it and died in it. His spirit lives on; others will no doubt follow in his footsteps and keep alive the flambeau of liberty and resistance that has experienced a reincarnation through his uplifting songs.

The World on the Brink

The news that China’s high performing economy, the engine that has prevented an expansive global economic recession in the last 3 years, is slowing down may be the surest sign of more troubles ahead. Despite its huge market, China is unwilling or not yet ready to assume the role played by the US (being the repository of most of the world’s goods) unless Beijing is given a role proportionate to that status in managing the global financial system. It also implies that reforming the global economic system, which has generated an abundance of wealth and propelled hundreds of millions of workers to middle-class status, needs to be tackled in earnest. However, convincing the affluent inhabitants of the first world that the system of entitlements, which has become standard in the developed world, is having a negative impact on global prosperity may be the greatest challenge facing world leaders. As the riots in Greece over that country’s government’s austerity plan and the stand-off in Washington over raising the U.S debt ceiling to avert a possible default demonstrate, it may be next to impossible for affluent countries to enact the reforms necessary to save the global economic system.
The U.S, the chief beneficiary of the 1944 Bretton Woods Accords from which derives the present economic order, must take the lead to starve off a precipitous crash of the system. That, however, requires painful political decisions which neither the Obama White House nor the Republican-controlled House of Representatives seems willing to undertake. Naturally, all Americans (the poor, the rich and the middle-class) must tighten their belt and bid good-bye to the entitlement programs, because the day when they will start paying for imported goods in currencies other than the dollar may not be too far off. More to the point, the prospect of the US defaulting on its debts, though highly unlikely, will nonetheless influence the drive to replace the dollar as the leading global currency. Since August 5th 1971 when then-US president Richard Nixon (1969-74) terminated the convertibility of the Dollar into gold, the foundation of the Bretton Woods Accords, the stability of the global financial system rested upon the credibility and creditworthiness of the US government. This arrangement however could change in the event of a US default on its debts, which may send the system crashing down like a house of cards.
In a worse case scenario, the US may end up being a passive participant in the decisions that affect its own future, because China, the EU and others will be in the driver seat (Caucasian solidarity oblige, the EU might be a reluctant reformer). Hence, the question facing US policy makers is not what programs to eliminate or which tax cuts should remain on the book, but how much should be slashed from every item in the federal budget. These cuts must certainly include Medicaid, Medicare, capital gains, mortgage interest deductions and tax exemptions for churches (many crooked pastors have provided a solid argument against that one, and the Lord would agree) to name a few. Social Security however must be exempted, because it is not an entitlement program but a retirement fund paid for by the retirees. The gravity of the situation is such that without a thorough restructuring of the US federal budget, the next generation of Americans may end up having to pay to get a High School education. Most importantly, the US and the rest of world may revert to the destructive old habit of protectionism which would naturally bring about global economic disturbances and possibly military conflicts among the major players. As the 19th century French political economist Claude Frédéric Bastiat (1801-50) expressively and correctly puts it: “When goods cannot cross borders, armies will.”
To enact the needed reforms and save the system, US leaders need to remember that it was the Great Depression of the late 1920’s which provided the impetus for WWII (1939-45), the most murderous human conflict to date. Incidentally, WWII could have been averted, if only the then-shapers of the world had listened to John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) who, as an economic adviser to the British government at the Versailles Conference (1919), warned that the level of reparations payments imposed on Germany would eventually ruin Europe. As predicted by Keynes, the victorious allies’ misguided policy led to a global economic downturn and set the stage for the political ascension of Adolf Hitler in Germany in 1933. The analogy being that, unlike the present-day economists advising US policy makers, Keynes was not a partisan ideologue, but a visionary who could see the larger social and political ramifications.
Indeed, economic disturbances invariably created social upheavals that spilled over national borders and provoked regional conflicts. In today’s environment, however, a Great Depression-type economic disturbance will inevitably bring worldwide disorder, because of the interdependency of the global economic system. Hence, what is happening in Washington should not be of concerns to Americans only but also the entire world. To make matters worse, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the overseer of the system, cannot force Washington to accept the necessary austerity measures, although the Fund is suggesting a package of tax increases and programs cuts.
Unless corrective actions are undertaken in Washington, the US, the country that has accumulated the greatest concentration of power and influence in the history of the world, may end up having the shortest span of dominance. That will be history’s greatest irony.

Say What: Bernard Gousse as Prime Minister

Any doubt about Michel Martelly’s pseudo-populism, which propelled the singer-turned-politician to the status of first citizen of Haiti on March 20th, has been dissipated by his nomination of Bernard Gousse as his prime minister-designate. Gousse, a former minister of justice in the Boniface-Latortue regime (2004-06), is the poster child for the reactionaries (Groupe 184) which facilitated the invasion and occupation of Haiti on February 29th, 2004. Like his fellow putschists, Gousse really believed he was doing the Lord’s work and predictably carried out his assignment with religious fervor. As has always been the case with Haitian politicians, the then-minister of justice and now prime minister-designate never knew the limits of the authority invested in him. This set the stage for his demise. His take-no-prisoners approach to solving “the Lavalas problem” became a public-relations nightmare for his handlers and he was eventually sacked.
If confirmed by the opposition-controlled parliament, Bernard Gousse, who ought to be nicknamed “former minister of injustice” for his unlawful persecutions of officials of the deposed Lavalas government in 2004-05, will be presiding over a government of inclusion (Michel Martelly’s bogus campaign promise). A strange logic that highlights the president’s duplicitous approach to tackling Haiti’s perennial politic of exclusion which, for two centuries, has prevented the country from moving forward. To avoid a protracted battle that would harm Haiti and its people, the prime minister-designate should thank the president for putting his trust in him and then withdraw his nomination.
Ironically Bernard Gousse is a man who should be prosecuted for the extrajudicial killings and illegal imprisonments of Haitian citizens that took place during his tenure as minister of justice (2004-05). I wonder what Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who seems obsessed with prosecuting Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier for alleged crimes over a quarter of century old she claims have no statute of limitations, thinks of Bernard Gousse. UN Watch, an organization that monitors the United Nations and promotes Human Rights, was right when it accused Ms. Pillay of turning a blind eye to most of the world’s worst abusers. It is expected that if Ms. Pillay gets her way with prosecuting Duvalier, she would skip the crimes of Henry Namphy, Prosper Avril, Raoul Cédras and Gérard Latortue and move on to Jean Bertrand Aristide, the bogeyman for everything that is wrong with Haiti today.
This is political cynicism at its worst. Gousse, a legal scholar who could not possibly give a lecture in jurisprudence to 12th graders because of his narrow-mindedness, clearly does not have the administrative competency for the challenging post of prime minister of the country. The Haitian legislators ought to remind the president that he is not negotiating with concert promoters or nightclub owners but with duly elected representatives of the people and that the very future of a dying country is at stake. Considering the extent of the social, political and economic divide in Haiti, a person of integrity that can assuage the fears of the competing constituencies is needed for the post. At this juncture, Bernard Gousse is the wrong person for the prime ministership, because the man only knows what he is against but clueless as to what he wants. If Gousse were to become prime minister, his first order of business will be the compilation of a dossier on Aristide, who escaped his dragnet in 2004 (courtesy of the invaders), for an eventual prosecution on bogus charges like those he leveled at the former president’s top lieutenants during his stint as minister of justice.
Taking into account the Daniel-Gérard Rouzier’s fiasco, one had expected Michel Martelly to become politically savvy and avoid unnecessary blunders. Apparently that assessment was premature because a seasoned politician would not have nominated such a notorious and blood-soaked individual for the post of prime minister while claiming to be working toward ending the “politic of exclusion.” Politic is like quantum physics: the better you know the position of a politican, the less you know the momentum behind it, and vice versa. While Martelly’s right-wing philosophy is well known to the public (he was an active supporter of the 1991 military coup against the first democratically elected president of Haiti and had once lambasted the poor as ugly and dirty), the reason behind his nomination of the unsuitable Gousse is perplexing. He may be counting on a public backlash against the opposition-controlled parliament, which would in the end allow him to get his way, given the urgency for the country to have a functioning government.
The late British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill once said: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.” That may be true as Democracy remains the only political system with universal appeal. Its price, however, is too high for any society that neither desires it nor is ready for it, which happens to be the case with Haiti. Since the day when Democracy’s fruitful principles benefit all Haitians remains well beyond the horizon, the country must now live with the unintended and unpleasant consequences. Commenting on the defeat of his nomination in a letter to the Haitian people, Daniel Gérard Rouzier magnanimously said: “Our Lower House Representatives were duly elected to the Parliament by the people and, by voting against my ratification as Prime Minister, they fulfilled the role that their conscience imposed on them.” Obviously, the man says it all.

Sorry Mr. Rouzier: It Comes with the Territory

Without a doubt, the Haitian Parliament rejection of Daniel-Gérard Rouzier as the country’s prime minister on June 21st dealt an additional blow to the Haiti Reconstruction Project which seems to have stalled since it began to function on June 17, 2010. For the millions of Haitians who have been waiting impatiently to see the Reconstruction moving forward, the vote was anticlimactic. Though many Haitians were understandably angry and frustrated, the legislators’ action was justified and in conformity with Parliament’s constitutional prerogatives. History might record this vote as a milestone in the principle of separation of powers in Haiti, as Michel Martelly, fresh from his electoral victory, adopted a cavalier attitude toward the opposition-controlled parliament. In essence, it was a necessary step toward breaking the executive branch’s arrogance that has turned the country into a playground for strongmen. The next step would be for the legislators to insist on a supervisory role over the supranational Haiti Reconstruction Fund (HRF) that doubles as a conduit for the sinister objectives of the elite and international finance.
As expected the Web was abuzz with vitriolic remarks toward the legislators who stood accused of insensitivity to the plight of their countrymen or worse. But isn’t the legislators’ rejection of Rouzier’s nomination in line with the implementation of the “rule of law” which the president, Michel Martelly, has vowed to institute in the notoriously lawless country? With the stickling points being tax evasion and misgivings about the nominee’s nationality, the legislators’ action should not be the end of the matter. Besides the unwarranted foreign interferences in the internal affairs of the country, the Rouzier episode is at the core of what is wrong with Haiti: endemic corruption, arrogance, and impunity. How can Daniel-Gérard Rouzier explain not paying taxes for the last three years? What about his flagrant disregard for the country’s Constitution which explicitly forbids any Haitian who has acquired another nationality from becoming prime minister? Though his accountant could be made to take the fall for the tax evasion, Rouzier’s unsuccessful bid to becoming prime minister, while holding a foreign nationality, epitomizes the arrogance which the Haitian elite is famous for. Like many children of well-to-do Haitians, it is quite possible that he was actually born overseas rather than Haiti.
Building the administrative, political, and legal foundation of a modern state is an infinite process. It involves a firm commitment by the state to protecting the rights of its constituent groups and erecting barriers to deter repeated malevolent actions by groups or individuals. The Rouzier fiasco should not have happened, as the Rudolph Henry Boulos affair should have served as a catalyst for the adoption of a legislation that criminalizes “willful intent to violate the Constitution”, the supreme law of the land. In 2008, Rudolph Boulos, a scion of one of Haiti’s most powerful families, was forced to resign his senate seat due to the fact that he was a US citizen, therefore ineligible to seek and hold elective offices in Haiti. Strangely enough, the judicial system did not follow through with his prosecution which would have served as a deterrent to other would be impostors. Either the legal mechanism did not exist or most importantly the Boulos family influence was too much for the state to bear.
As a result of this go along get along attitude of the political class, nothing was done to prevent such embarrassing incident from recurring, and Daniel-Gérard Rouzier, the man, who would have become the second most important personality in the country, never felt the need to abide by the Constitution. Contextually many individuals, who sit on the Haiti Reconstruction Fund (HRF) governing board (the supranational entity in charge of the reconstruction) as legitimate representatives of the Haitian people and their interests, are in fact foreign citizens owing allegiance to other countries. This is an anomaly that must be corrected as it contradicts the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enumerated in the United Nations Charter and makes a mockery of that organization.” Not tacking this important issue amounts to accepting international supervision by proxy which forms the essence of the UN policy in Haiti.
A thorough investigation of the matter is a necessary step toward establishing the “rule of law” in Haiti. If, Daniel-Gérard Rouzier is found to have willfully concealed his foreign nationality, which makes him ineligible for the post of prime minister under the Constitution, he should be prosecuted for the offense. Likewise, Michel Martelly should be made to answer for showing disrespect to the Constitution (intended or not) which, as president, he has sworn to protect because he failed to apply due diligence in vetting his nominee. The fact that neither the president nor Daniel-Gérard Rouzier, who advocated “Establishing a free trade/free port regime with zero import tariffs”, has apologized to the nation for the awkward affair is proof that the system of impunity that characterizes Haitian history will endure.
Indeed there are a million of other pressing issues that should be of concerns to the president and the legislators; no full-blooded Haitian can dispute that fact. However, stability and prosperity can never be achieved under the current framework which binds Haiti to an uncertain future. As Daniel-Gérard Rouzier said in his testimony before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on March 18th 2004 “Stability can only come through institution building.” For once, he, Daniel-Gérard Rouzier, was right.

The Mischaracterization of Haiti’s Situation

If one refers to the UN Human Development Index (a complex measurement of levels of income, education, health, sustainable development, security, gender and social inequalities in the countries of the world) Haiti ranks 145th out of 195. For a nation which, from 1804 to 1957 (the year Ghana became independent), assumed the destiny of the Negroid race in the white-dominated world, its ranking on the human development index could have been worse for reasons that were and remains external. Throughout that period, the country was the subject of concerted political isolation, unrelenting economic embargoes and unprovoked military invasions. In assessing Haiti’s situation, anyone who fails to factor these unfortunate events is doing a disservice to history. As Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier accurately told a French journalist “It was hard for people (the western world) to accept a Negro civilization in the middle of the Americas.” Unfortunately, this unwritten policy, born out of the then colonial powers’ vindictiveness toward the little nation, still endures 207 years after Haiti’s epic victory against slavery and the forces of oppression.
Based on the UN Security Council resolutions mandating the occupation of Haiti on the ground of it being “a failed state”, therefore a threat to international peace and security, the responsibility of the self-appointed nation-builders is challenging because theoretically the countries that rank lower on the HDI are also “failed states.” But do not expect the international community to embark on a worldwide nation-building program, because the occupation of Haiti on February 29th, 2004 never had anything to do with UN benevolence toward the least developed of its members. The Wikileaks cables highlight the insidious nature of the international community’s policy toward Haiti which centers on nullifying that country’s historic achievement and establishing a protectorate by proxy, using unsavory politicians and the repugnant elite.
Coincidentally, the notion of Haiti being “a failed state”, which served as basis for the occupation (2004-?), has vanished from official UN communiqués and foreign media. It has been replaced with the more benign term “politically unstable” which is, as one would expect, “bonnet blanc et blanc bonnet” seeing that the premise of the occupation remains unchanged: nullifying Haiti’s historic feat and obstructing the changes in the socio-economic structure of the country that appeared inevitable following the departure of Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier on February 7th 1986. Through a long term military occupation, the architects of the policy insist on “managing the occupation and these changes” with the same structure and same individuals or groups that made the “yearning for change” possible while ignoring the consequences. Must this irresponsible policy be seen as the apex of arrogance or a mischaracterization of the situation that led the international community to a faulty conclusion?
Arrogance, the most conspicuous aspect of the absolute power of the UN Security Council, undoubtedly plays a role in the occupation of Haiti which enters its 8th year on March 1st 2011. However, the mischaracterization of the situation is likely the culprit since the international community remains oblivious to what is really at stake in Haiti. Its emphasis on protecting the interests of a select group of reactionaries at the expense of the larger population and, concurrently, sabotaging reforms will have dire consequences for the entire region. Only a fool would choose to disregard the lop-sided socio-economic conditions in place in Haiti which, in turn, create an explosive situation that could erupt at any given moment. Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Lavalas were a means to an end rather than the indispensable tools needed to bring the people’s aspirations to fruition, because the causes of the situation are deep-seated as is the resentment of the masses toward their oppressors (foreign and domestic). The international community needs only to remember that social and economic justice is not a peculiar Haitian characteristic but a fundamental right of every human being. Sooner rather than later, its imperial policy, the gluttony of the elite, and the masses’ legitimate aspirations will collide.
“The proletariat goes through various stages of development” (read political and social awareness) correctly wrote Karl-Marx and Friedrich Engels who elaborated as well on the various stages that led to the destruction of corrupt and oppressive systems. A quarter of century into what should plainly be called “Le réveil” of the masses in Haiti, no one can ascertain for sure the extent of their political awareness, a fact which, in itself, is indicative of the fluidity of the situation. Nothing is more suicidal for a political system than the indiscriminate use of violence to stifle legitimate demands, as it radicalizes the oppressed and closes the doors to compromises. England would be a republic today, had King John not given up his absolute power to rule in 1215. Conversely Louis XVI of France and Nicholas II of Russia thought otherwise and both were executed. Yet, despite numerous historical precedents, this discredited method for shoring up failing political systems remains the preferred course of action of the international community and the Haitian elite.
The imposition of Michel Martelly on the unsuspecting masses, albeit a fraction of the population, and marginalization of the movement born out of a popular aspiration for “comprehensive structural changes” are indicative of the international community’s misunderstanding of the situation. “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come” said 19th century French literary great Victor Hugo. Apparently, the international community’s self-awareness of the infallibility of its power precludes it from agreeing with Victor Hugo.