The forgotten story of Haiti

Christophe declared himself king in 1811 and had a massive Citadelle built, perched on top of the highest hill above the Cap. Some 20,000 newly-subjugated slaves died in its construction. Haiti did not become reunited until 1820, after a mutiny by Christophe’s army and the suicide of Christophe himself.

So started the postcolonial history of Haiti, in which an alarming number of regimes have been overthrown by coup d’état, assassination, or both, as the country has continued to battle political instability, debt and poverty.

The civil war of Haiti’s early years left an indelible mark. Aimé Césaire even wrote a play about it, The Tragedy of King Christophe, in which the full complexity of post-coloniality is displayed in all its glory and all its horror. Césaire’s play may have been historical, but his message was contemporary. See, he was telling us, see what colonialism does to people.

As for the US occupation of Haiti, it began not in January 2010 but a roughly century earlier. The US colonial project there began circa 1890, as the US started taking an interest in the Caribbean in the lead up to what would become the Spanish-American war of 1898, but formal occupation did not start until 1915. This occupation was enabled by a treaty signed between the Haitian and US governments. US marines took over the country at that time for pretty much exactly the same professed reason as now: humanitarian intervention. The US also engineered the re-establishment of the unpopular mulâtre elite.

But then, practically every Haitian leader is unpopular. Aristide was very far from the popularly elected president. He may have been better than some, but very few, if any, Haitian presidents have ever been truly the people’s choice, and most have been extremely corrupt. I was in Haiti in 2000, between the two rounds of the presidential election of that time; it was a period characterised by riots. This is not a “media exaggeration”. I was there, I waited hours in a blocked airport in Cap Haitien, having driven round overturned burning cars to get there. Haitians were angry - but few of them ended up actually voting. This is not unusual. Participation in some elections has reportedly been as low as 10 per cent.

I also spent a great deal of time with feminist NGOs in 2000 (and have been distressed to learn of the death in the earthquake of some well-known feminists with whom I spoke at that time) and every single one of them, including an NGO to support women’s political participation, spoke scathingly of Fanmi Lavalas, the party founded by Aristide. Haiti’s elite is not of the people. Haiti’s elite is of the elite. That is, even more so than elsewhere.

The ongoing structural and systemic problems of Haiti are not because Haitians are intrinsically violent or stupid or incapable of self-rule. When one has been infantilised for so long, maintained for so long in a relationship of dependency, growing up is a colossal challenge. Haiti learned its colonial lessons far, far too well. Those lessons have been carried forward through the last century and into this one, in a sort of neo-colonial institutionalisation of Haitian lives and Haitian minds. Nothing that has happened since the earthquake is really that new.

The only thing that gives me hope for Haiti is the same thing that gave the world’s colonised hope two centuries ago: the Haitian people, and in particular, Haitian women (although they usually only rate a mention when it is a question of children’s welfare: women rarely matter very much in and for themselves). Before the earthquake, the country was held together by Haitian NGOs and other more informal networks, mostly of women. The informal, small-business, subsistence economy is held together largely by women. Its social fabric, the care of its children, its ill, is held together largely by women. This is not, however, unusual anywhere in the world, even in the west.

It troubles me that even critical analysis of the post-earthquake situation in Haiti and of the troubling yet familiar kowtowing of the international community to US muscle, continues to infantilise Haitian people as somehow passive. It is not because they need help that they are helpless. It is not because they need independence from the US idea of rescue that they need rescuing by someone else. Haitians are strong, they are resilient. They have had to be, for many centuries. In the great sadness that I feel for Haiti now, that I feel for the deaths of so many, including those wonderful feminists I met, I am reassured by the knowledge that others will take their place.

And will continue to resist.