29 January, 2010

Haiti


Haiti.  On 13 January 2010, Rev Pat Robertson famously explained that the previous day’s earthquake that had devastated the capital city of Haiti, and caused some 200,000 deaths, had been the result of a 1791 ‘pact with the devil’.  You can hear it here for yourself:
According to US fundamentalist Christian history, this satanic pact allegedly took place at Bois Caiman near Cap Haitien on 14 August 1791 during a meeting organised by several slave leaders, under the leadership of Dutty Boukman, before launching what would become Haiti’s Independence War.
On 17 January 2010, Sir Hilary Beckles, Pro-vice-chancellor and Principal of the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies, reminded us of what really happened.  This is what he wrote:
THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES is in the process of conceiving how best to deliver a major conference on the theme Rethinking and Rebuilding Haiti.
I am very keen to provide an input into this exercise because for too long there has been a popular perception that somehow the Haitian nation-building project, launched on January 1, 1804, has failed on account of mismanagement, ineptitude, corruption.
Buried beneath the rubble of imperial propaganda, out of both Western Europe and the United States, is the evidence which shows that Haiti's independence was defeated by an aggressive North-Atlantic alliance that could not imagine their world inhabited by a free regime of Africans as representatives of the newly emerging democracy.
The evidence is striking, especially in the context of France.
The Haitians fought for their freedom and won, as did the Americans fifty years earlier. The Americans declared their independence and crafted an extraordinary constitution that set out a clear message about the value of humanity and the right to freedom, justice, and liberty.
In the midst of this brilliant discourse, they chose to retain slavery as the basis of the new nation state. The founding fathers therefore could not see beyond race, as the free state was built on a slavery foundation.
The water was poisoned in the well; the Americans went back to the battlefield a century later to resolve the fact that slavery and freedom could not comfortably co-exist in the same place.
The French, also, declared freedom, fraternity and equality as the new philosophies of their national transformation and gave the modern world a tremendous progressive boost by so doing.
They abolished slavery, but Napoleon Bonaparte could not imagine the republic without slavery and targeted the Haitians for a new, more intense regime of slavery. The British agreed, as did the Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese.
All were linked in communion over the 500 000 Blacks in Haiti, the most populous and prosperous Caribbean colony.
As the jewel of the Caribbean, they all wanted to get their hands on it. With a massive slave base, the English, French and Dutch salivated over owning it - and the people.
The people won a ten-year war, the bloodiest in modern history, and declared their independence. Every other country in the Americas was based on slavery.
Haiti was freedom, and proceeded to place in its 1805 Independence Constitution that any person of African descent who arrived on its shores would be declared free, and a citizen of the republic.
For the first time since slavery had commenced, Blacks were the subjects of mass freedom and citizenship in a nation.
The French refused to recognise Haiti's independence and declared it an illegal pariah state. The Americans, whom the Haitians looked to in solidarity as their mentor in independence, refused to recognise them, and offered solidarity instead to the French. The British, who were negotiating with the French to obtain the ownership title to Haiti, also moved in solidarity, as did every other nation-state the Western world.
Haiti was isolated at birth - ostracised and denied access to world trade, finance, and institutional development. It was the most vicious example of national strangulation recorded in modern history.
The Cubans, at least, have had Russia, China, and Vietnam. The Haitians were alone from inception. The crumbling began.
Then came 1825; the moment of full truth. The republic is celebrating its 21st anniversary. There is national euphoria in the streets of Port-au-Prince.
The economy is bankrupt; the political leadership isolated. The cabinet took the decision that the state of affairs could not continue.
The country had to find a way to be inserted back into the world economy. The French government was invited to a summit.
Officials arrived and told the Haitian government that they were willing to recognise the country as a sovereign nation but it would have to pay compensation and reparation in exchange. The Haitians, with backs to the wall, agreed to pay the French.
The French government sent a team of accountants and actuaries into Haiti in order to place a value on all lands, all physical assets, the 500 000 citizens were who formerly enslaved, animals, and all other commercial properties and services.
The sums amounted to 150 million gold francs. Haiti was told to pay this reparation to France in return for national recognition.
The Haitian government agreed; payments began immediately. Members of the Cabinet were also valued because they had been enslaved people before independence.
Thus began the systematic destruction of the Republic of Haiti. The French government bled the nation and rendered it a failed state. It was a merciless exploitation that was designed and guaranteed to collapse the Haitian economy and society.
Haiti was forced to pay this sum until 1922 when the last instalment was made. During the long 19th century, the payment to France amounted to up to 70 per cent of the country's foreign exchange earnings.
Jamaica today pays up to 70 per cent in order to service its international and domestic debt. Haiti was crushed by this debt payment. It descended into financial and social chaos.
The republic did not stand a chance. France was enriched and it took pleasure from the fact that having been defeated by Haitians on the battlefield, it had won on the field of finance. In the years when the coffee crops failed, or the sugar yield was down, the Haitian government borrowed on the French money market at double the going interest rate in order to repay the French government.
When the Americans invaded the country in the early 20th century, one of the reasons offered was to assist the French in collecting its reparations.
The collapse of the Haitian nation resides at the feet of France and America, especially. These two nations betrayed, failed, and destroyed the dream that was Haiti; crushed to dust in an effort to destroy the flower of freedom and the seed of justice.
Haiti did not fail. It was destroyed by two of the most powerful nations on earth, both of which continue to have a primary interest in its current condition.
The sudden quake has come in the aftermath of summers of hate. In many ways the quake has been less destructive than the hate.
Human life was snuffed out by the quake, while the hate has been a long and inhumane suffocation - a crime against humanity.
During the 2001 UN Conference on Race in Durban, South Africa, strong representation was made to the French government to repay the 150 million francs.
The value of this amount was estimated by financial actuaries as US$21 billion. This sum of capital could rebuild Haiti and place it in a position to re-engage the modern world. It was illegally extracted from the Haitian people and should be repaid.
It is stolen wealth. In so doing, France could discharge its moral obligation to the Haitian people.
For a nation that prides itself in the celebration of modern diplomacy, France, in order to exist with the moral authority of this diplomacy in this post-modern world, should do the just and legal thing.
Such an act at the outset of this century would open the door for a sophisticated interface of past and present, and set the Haitian nation free at last.  
I would like to think that Pat Robertson’s homicidal god is not one that many Christians would recognise.  I would that these murderous TV extortionists would leave West Indian history severely alone.

8 comments:

  1. Don! Thank you for saying what needed to be said.

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  2. Pat Robertson, and people like him, are everything that is wrong with America, and the world in general. - Scotty

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  3. Don, how do you know that Robertson is wrong or that Beckles is right?Also, as an evolutionist,you are very illogigal:if there is no god,then there are no absolutes,so how can you condemn anyone for doing or saying anything?

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  4. 5:40 Anon, I think you answered your own statement with your perfect correlation that I modified slightly to fit my logic: There are no absolutes, therefore there is no god. A stunning, yet logical revelation upon which I strongly believe. If we are to buy stock in every fairy tale concocted since the beginning of time, then our legal system and civilization in general would be more of a mess than it already is. I have to wonder; if every time something unpleasant happens to your family, friends or pets, you blame it on your neighbor who practices voodoo or santeria. - Scotty

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  5. Haiti is not one of the poorest countries today because of something that happened more than 100 years ago (either a deal with Devil or France). They are so poor because they have not had a good government. Dictators, coups, heavy corruption, and bloated governments in general are bad for economic development. The more the government messes with the economy the worse off people will be. Haiti's government is one of the worst at messing with the economy.

    There are many countries that went from really poor to very well off in less than 50 years. In all cases they had high economic freedom and at least a kind of reasonable government. If Haiti had good governance over the last 50 years they would be well off too.

    Some stats from a World Bank report in 2006 about Haiti's government services (note this is not 200 years ago).
    204 days to get a business license (one of the highest in world)
    683 days to register a property (one of the slowest in the world)
    5 years and 65 procedures to buy land from the state

    Slow complicated service lets government officials ask for lots of bribes to "speed things along". At some point economies just can't function.

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  6. The key feature of good governance is "rule of law". The government needs to be designed so that there are checks and balances in the system that keep all the parts of government following the laws. If government does not follow laws things turn bad very quick. The US seems to be moving away from rule of law.

    http://www.vdare.com/roberts/100120_rule_of_law.htm

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  7. I am really amazed by the support Pat Robinson receiveds with his absolute religious rubbish. What kind of god would do such a thing to his own creatiion. He sounds like a bitter neo-jonah who was angry mad vex with God when He did not destroy Nenivah. God is a God of life, he send his wisdom, blessings on the wicked and good alike.

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  8. Pat Robertson is a clown engaging in Religious mind control, and Beckles is no better. Suggesting that American and France are/have plotted to ruin Haiti is ignorant and Mr. Beckels should be equally ashamed of his fear and hate mongering as Roberts.

    Haiti has received Billions of the past decades from the world, including America and France and what has that done….nothing. If they receive Billions more what will that accomplish…..nothing. Haitians will not be free from poverty until they are free from ignorance; it is not the average persons fault they receive a poor education, it is their governments. Governments intentionally don’t educate the citizenry, this is the purest form of control. Keep your population ignorant and they cannot see your corrupt and inept, pacify them with food, medical care and shelter and they will love you, much like a drug addict loves his pusher. But they will never be free until they are educated, they will never control their destiny until they are educated, they will never be prosperous until they are educated.

    Every government has the responsibility to provide the best education they can to their people. If they are not providing this basic service then vote them out, but never give up in the quest for education. Just think, what if Anguilla became the new Ireland with high-tech cutting edge business software designers, mathematical engineers, solar power efficiency engineers, pretty nice jobs. But NEVER to happen w/o an education. Tom D

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