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January
1, 2004
Honor Haiti, Honor
Ourselves
Forget
Haiti, Forget Ourselves
By RANDALL ROBINSON
Part I
January 1, 1804--January 1, 2004:
This day is sacred.
It is the 200th anniversary of the Haitian
Revolution.
Fought by Haitians.
Won for us all.
Between 1791 and 1804, hundreds of thousands
of Africans enslaved in Haiti ignored the rivers, forests, precipices,
swamps, mountains, gorges, bloodhounds, rifles, cannon, and whips
that separated them and united to launch a massive, brilliantly
executed, spectacular war of liberation that the armies of Spain,
England, and France (with the help of the United States) all
fought desperately--and failed absolutely--to crush.
The Haitian Revolution was no "lucky
break" involving "a few unruly slaves."
This was no "plantation uprising."
St. Domingue (as Haiti was then called
by the French) was at that time the most prosperous colonial
possession of any European power. It created far greater wealth
for France than the thirteen American colonies combined. Its
massive wealth-generating capacity caused it to be known far
and wide as "The Pearl of the Antilles" and its French
owners had a clear and proven management strategy for profit
maximization: push the slaves to their absolute physical limit,
work them literally to death, and then quickly import replacement
slaves from Africa who would, in turn, be worked to death. This,
St. Domingue's plantocracy had discovered, controlled operating
costs, kept the pace of economic activity at a highly efficient
and productive pace, minimized slack and wastage, and produced
massive, stupendous profits.
Two hundred years ago today, however,
after a 13-year war of liberation, the slaves of St. Domingue
celebrated their victory over France and other European powers
by establishing the Republic of Haiti. They had wrested from
Napoleon the engine of France's economic expansion, banished
slavery from the land, and ended European domination of 10,000
square miles of fertile land and hundreds of thousands of slaves
to work it.
They had shattered the myth of European
invincibility.
"Most have assumed that (Haiti's)
slaves had no military experience prior to the revolution,"
John K. Thornton explains in African Soldiers in the Haitian
Revolution. "Many assume that they rose from agricultural
labour to military prowess in an amazingly short time.... However,
it is probably a mistake to see the slaves of St. Domingue as
simply agricultural workers, like the peasants of Europe... ...A
majority of St. Domingue's slaves, especially those who fought
steadily in the revolution, were born in Africa... ...In fact,
a great many... ...had served in African armies prior to their
enslavement and arrival in Haiti... ...Sixty to seventy per cent
of the adult slaves listed on (St. Domingue's) inventories in
the late 1780's and 1790's were African born... ... ...(coming)
overwhelmingly from just two areas of Africa: the Lower Guinea
coast region of modern Benin, Togo and Nigeria (also known as
the "Slave Coast"), and the Angola coast area....
"Where the African military background
of the slaves counted most was in those areas, especially in
the north (of St. Domingue), where slaves themselves led the
revolution, both politically and militarily... ... ...These areas...threw
up the powerful armies of Toussaint Louverture and Dessalines
and eventually carried the revolution."
A successful revolution in Haiti, Thornton
explains, "required the kind of skill and discipline that
could be found in veteran soldiers, and it was these veterans,
from wars in Africa, who made up the general will of the St.
Domingue revolt... ...Kongolese armies contributed the most to
St. Domingue rebel bands... ...(Their) tactical organization
was very different from that of Europe... ...(and they) had learned
to deal successfully with Portuguese armies and tactics in the
years of struggle (in Africa), driving out invaders... ...No
doubt these tactics could help those who found themselves in
St. Domingue on the eve of the revolution.
"Kongolese armies seem to have been
organized in...platoons...that struck at enemy advancing columns
and sustained an engagement for a time before breaking off and
retreating... ...They made use of cover, both from terrain and
from woods and tall grass, in hiding their movements and directing
their fire. When they fled it was not possible to follow them."
Portuguese troops who had fought the Kongolese in Africa also
reported that the Kongolese used "shocks--larger engagements
involving massed Kongolese units. According to the Portuguese
accounts, large bodies were assembled for shocks supported by
artillery, sometimes they formed in extensive half moon formations
which apparently sought partial envelopment of opposing forces,
in other cases in columns of great depth along fronts of 15-20
soldiers....
"Their tactics showed a penchant
for skirmishing attacks rather than the heavy assaults favoured
by Europeans in the same era... ...Kongolese armies had a higher
command structure that could mass troops quickly, and soldiers
were also accustomed to forming effectively into larger units
for major battles when the situation warranted.... ...Dahomey's
armies included a fairly large professional force... ...Oyo relied
heavily on cavalry forces, had relatively few foot soldiers and
throughout the 1700's was the pre-eminent...military power in
(west Africa)... ...Dahomey's troops... ...fought in close order
using fire discipline quite similar to that of Europe... ...
"It was from these disparate 'arts
of war' that the revolutionary African soldier of St. Domingue
was trained... ...
"One can easily see, in the formation
of the bands mentioned in the early descriptions of the (Haitian
Revolution), the small platoons of the Kongolese armies, each
under an independent commander and accustomed to considerable
tactical decision making; or perhaps those small units characteristic
of locally organized Dahomean units; the state armies of the
Mahi country; or the coastal forces of the Slave Coast... ...
"In addition the pattern of attacks
with small scale harassing maneuvers, short, sustained battles
and then rapid withdrawals are also reminiscent of the campaign
diaries of the Portuguese field commanders in Angola. Felix Carteau,
an early observer of the war in the north of St. Domingue noted
that the (slave revolutionaries) harassed French forces day and
night. Usually, he commented, they were repelled, but each time,
they dispersed so quickly, so completely in ditches, hedges and
other areas of natural cover that real pursuit was impossible.
However, rebel casualties were light in these attacks, so that
the next day they reappeared with great numbers of people. They
never mass in the open, wrote another witness, or wait in line
to charge, but advance dispersed, so that they appear to be six
times as numerous as they really are. Yet they were disciplined,
since they might advance with great clamor and then suddenly
and simultaneously fall silent....
"It was not long before observers
noted that the rebels (in St. Domingue) had developed the sort
of higher order tactics that was also characteristic of Kongolese
forces, or those of the Slave Coast....
"In addition to these tactical similarities
to African wars, especially in Kongo, there were other indications
of the African ethos of the fighters... ...they marched, formed
and attacked accompanied by the 'music peculiar to Negroes....'
Their religious preparation, likewise, hearkened back to Africa....
"It is unlikely that many slaves
would have learned equestrian skills as a part of their plantation
labor... ...Since there was virtually no cavalry in Angola, one
can speculate that rebels originating from Oyo might have provided
at least some of the trained horsemen. Also, the Senegalese,
though a minority, also came from an equestrian culture... ...
"African soldiers may well have
provided the key element of the early success of the revolution.
They might have enabled its survival when it was threatened by
reinforced armies from Europe. Looking at the rebel slaves of
Haiti as African veterans rather than as Haitian plantation workers
may well prove to be the key that unlocks the mystery of the
success of the largest slave revolt in history."
St. Domingue's policy of working its
slaves to death and then quickly importing replacements from
Africa proved to be the ultimate karmic boomerang. St. Domingue's
African-born slaves not only were not yet broken psychologically,
but they were also in possession of significant military training
and experience gained on the other side of the Atlantic. And
they combined with brilliant, indefatigable, St. Domingue-born
blacks like Toussaint L'Ouverture and Dessalines to create a
black revolutionary juggernaut the likes of which Europe and
the United States had not seen before--or since.
The blacks of St. Domingue forced the
world to see both them and the millions of other Africans enslaved
throughout the Americas with new eyes. No longer could it be
assumed that they could forever be brutalized into creating massive
fortunes and building sprawling empires for the glory of Europe
and America.
On January 1, 1804, hundreds of thousands
of slave revolutionaries established an independent republic
and named it Haiti in honor of the Amerindian people, long since
killed off by European brutality and diseases, who had called
the land Ayiti--Land of Many Mountains. They had banished slavery
from their land and proclaimed it an official refuge for escaped
slaves from anywhere in the world. They had defeated the mightiest
of the mighty. They had shattered the myth of European invincibility.
Europe was livid. America, apoplectic.
The blacks in St. Domingue had forgotten their place and would
be made to pay. Dearly. For the next two hundred years.
Toussaint L'Ouverture, Dessalines, and
their slave revolutionaries must forever live in our hearts as
inspiring, authentic counterweights to the "yassuh-nosuh-scratch-where-ah-don'-itch-and-dance-tho-there
-ain'-no-music" image of our forebears that Europe and the
United States have drilled into our psyches.
And we must remember that history forgets,
first, those who forget themselves. Via means direct and indirect,
crass and subtle, there have been whispers and street corner
shouts that "current conditions in Haiti" make our
celebration of the Haitian Revolution "inappropriate"
at this time.
We, whose souls and psyches have been
bleached of everything prior to the Middle Passage are now being
told that we must tear from our consciousness and rip from our
hearts the most dramatic and triumphal assertion of forebears'
dignity, worth, and perspicacity since the Middle Passage.
How diabolically contemptuous.
Not only must we not forget the Haitian
Revolution, we must celebrate it. Today, through all of this
its bicentennial year, and beyond.
And we must research, understand, and
expose what happened to Haiti and in Haiti since the revolution.
We must become fully conversant with the role of "the world's
leading democracies" in Haiti between 1804 and today. We
must develop a keen understanding of the repercussions of the
61-year economic embargo that the United States imposed on Haiti
in response to its declaration of independence, and we must recognize
the current-day consequences of France forcing Haiti to pay 90
million in gold francs (equivalent today to some $20 billion)
in 1825 as "compensation" for Haiti declaring its independence--or
be crushed militarily by France.
Today, "the world's leading democracies"
cluck and gloat at their ongoing stranglehold--in the form of
a crushing financial embargo--on today's descendants of Toussaint,
Dessalines, and their freedom fighters. Throughout the Americas,
we who benefited from the daring war waged by the slaves of St.
Domingue, must reject the maneuverings of the world's most powerful
nations in Haiti and find ways to build bridges to the Haitian
people and the officials they choose--through the ballot--to
lead them.
Just over two hundred years ago, after
there had been a "cessation of hostilities" and the
brilliant military strategist Toussaint L'Ouverture had already
retired to a quiet life in the St. Domingue country-side, France
decided, nonetheless, to arrest and ship him to a prison cell
3,000 feet up the Jura Mountains of France where he would freeze
to death. As he stepped on board the boat that would forever
take him away from St. Domingue, Toussaint issued a promise to
his captors and a call to us all.
"In overthrowing me, you have cut
down in St. Domingue only the trunk of the tree of liberty. It
will spring up again by the roots for they are numerous and deep."
We are those roots.
The revolution was fought by Haitians,
but won for us all.
Through our work and with our resources,
in a spirit of self-respect and self-awareness, we must serve
as counterweights to the powerful nations who deem the ballot
box sacrosanct in their countries, but surreptitiously encourage
and manipulate its rejection by "the opposition" in
Haiti. We must serve as proponents of political civility and
social justice in Haiti while "the world's leading democracies"
slyly encourage recalcitrance, tumult, and division. We must
reject being manipulated by the corporate media into embracing
the notion that in France, Germany, the United States and other
"civilized nations" elections are the only legitimate
determinant of the will of the people, but in Haiti those street
demonstrations specially selected by the corporate media for
coverage tell us all we need to know about anybody's will. We
must impress upon all Haitians the fact that the outside world
does not distinguish between--and cares nothing about--Lavalas,
Convergence, or any other political grouping. The world sees
only "Haiti," "Haitians," and all the connotations
that western media have attached thereto. Those nations that
two hundred years ago failed desperately in their attempts to
crush the Haitian Revolution today have a deep psychic need to
"prove" Toussaint's progeny capable of nothing but
disaster. We must reach out to and work with our Haitian brothers
and sisters to prove these nations wrong.
Throughout the Diaspora, we must stand
with and defend Haiti--on this the anniversary of the Haitian
Revolution, throughout this bicentennial year, and for all time.
For in so doing, we stand for and defend ourselves.
Part II
Haiti, Jessica, and WMD
America's foreign policy officials have
perpetrated horrific untruths recently. Iraq's "weapons
of mass destruction," Jessica Lynch's "battlefield
heroism" and "abuse," and Aristide's "failure
to deliver" in Haiti are cases in point.
Iraq's oil, the fear of war-triggered
terrorism, and Iraq's antiquity have made us more aware, and
less susceptible--though not immune--to media manipulation regarding
Iraq. Similarly, American soldiers who have served in Iraq have
American defenders who will not allow these soldiers' contributions
to be overlooked while, for example, Jessica Lynch's truth is
trampled and twisted to whip up "patriotism" and animus
for "the bad guys."
Who, however, knows or cares anything
about Haiti? How many Americans know that--in our names--American
policy-makers have used our country's enormous power to block
8 million Haitians' access to approved loans for safe drinking
water, literacy programs, and health services? How many know,
when we read about "Haiti's steady slide," that powerful
American policy-makers are massively responsible? These officials
are holding the Haitian people, who desperately want to own their
democracy, in a brutal economic death-grip. Is this the face
that America intends to continue showing to the black and brown
peoples of the world? Ordinary Americans can no longer afford
indifference.
Our president says that we are terrorism
targets because "they are jealous of us"; because "we
love liberty and they do not"; because we represent "truth
and justice."
Is it really our compassion and magnanimity
that cause the rage in distant hearts to reduce Bali tourist
spots to embers, Manhattan towers to dust, and our Nairobi embassy
to rubble? If so, the Dali Lama is in great danger.
In these times, Americans must assess
what our policies are doing to human beings beyond our shores.
And we must realize that the same "information" machine
that lied about WMD and Jessica Lynch lies about much more--including
Aristide and Haiti.
The United States has had Haitian blood
on its hands for a long time. Today, they are dripping.
In 2000, the year of our electoral meltdown,
election observers in Haiti recommended that seven senate seats
(out of a total of 7,500 positions filled nation-wide) go to
a run-off. Haiti's electoral commission disagreed, creating the
only international concern about the election. To avoid "the
wrath of the mighty," these senators resigned. However,
American officials who had vehemently opposed the restoration
of Haiti's elected government in 1994, now seized on the run-off
controversy to further demonize Aristide, break the Haitian people's
spirit, and "prove" the Haitian Revolution a failure
Powerful Americans are crushing the Haitian
people's dream of building their own democracy in their own image,
and these officials blocking Haitians' access to safe drinking
water tells us all we need to know. They loathe Aristide because
he represents the poorer, blacker masses of Haitian society,
whereas America's traditional allies have always been Haiti's
moneyed, white or mulatto "elite." The parallels between
America's policies toward Haiti and our policies towards apartheid
South Africa have never been lost on me.
During my colleagues' and my battle to
end America's long-standing collusion with South Africa's white
supremacist government, highly respected U.S. government officials
publicly asserted that Mandela and the African National Congress
were terrorist and that the anti-apartheid movement was antithetical
to U.S. interests. Aristide's government was restored in 1994
following a coup in which Haiti's US-allied army killed 5,000
civilians. And those American officials who had defended apartheid
South Africa lost no time in turning their policy venom full
bore on today's descendents of the most spectacular slave revolt
in the history of all the Americas--and the man Haitians chose
to lead them.
Aristide has not "failed to deliver."
Powerful individuals from the most powerful nation on earth have
placed a financial embargo on his country and made the strangulation
of his government--and therefore his people--a priority. They
are determined to render him incapable of delivering so that
his people will, in time, tire of the excruciating hardships
and tire of him.
At the dawn of this New Year, perhaps
we should reflect on what we have done to Aristide, what we have
done to the Haitian people, and on Thomas Jefferson's lament:
"When I consider that God is just, I shudder for my country."
The way we continue to treat weaker peoples and nations around
the world will determine, for years to come, whether justice
is something Americans have reason to welcome or something we
have reason to dread.
Randall Robinson
is founder and former president of TransAfrica. He is an author
and lives in the Caribbean.
Weekend
Edition Features for Dec. 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
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