Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 23, 2016 Countryman, Features / Columnists
By Dennis Nichols
Before 2004 I didn’t know anyone of Haitian origin. By mid-2005 I was visiting the family of a Haitian child I taught at E.P. Roberts Primary School in Nassau, Bahamas, and learning something of the people’s culture beyond poverty and voodoo. The girl was one of several children from the school’s catchment area where hundreds of Haitians lived. They were invariably among the smartest and most courteous at the institution.
When I saw the picture of some Haitian men being deported from Guyana recently, I thought of the ones I’d known there. We have our laws, but I was cautiously sympathetic to what I assume might have been their refugee plight. I’d seen enough discrimination and deportation of Haitians in The Bahamas.
To some people, the Haitian nation appears to be cursed. Poverty, illiteracy, political restlessness, and disasters (natural and man-made) have consistently plagued the country once regarded with pride as the only nation born out of a slave revolt and the first to gain independence in the Caribbean/Latin American region. Prior to those achievements it was the region’s largest sugar and coffee producer along with cotton and indigo, fueled by Europe’s demand and the exploited labour of hundreds of thousands of African slaves. (About the size of Guyana’s population)
It was France’s ‘Pearl of the Antilles’ in the 18th century, but that oyster was already being bloodied and bruised through the slaves’ savage repression and compounded by natural disaster like the 1751 earthquake. In any case, Haiti’s mountainous beauty and prodigious output were mainly to the Europeans’ benefit.
Haiti’s slaves were among the worst treated in the New World. According to an excerpt attributed to Henri Christophe’s personal secretary, slaves were crucified on planks, buried alive, forced to eat excrement, lashed to stakes in a swamp to be devoured by mosquitoes, and thrown into boiling cauldrons of cane syrup, among other barbarisms. She/he is quoted as saying, “Have they not consigned these miserable Blacks to man-eating dogs until the latter, sated by human flesh, left the mangled victims to be finished off with bayonet and poniard?”
Many believe Haiti’s ‘curse’ is as a result of an infamous so-called devil’s pact, triggered by the slaves’ horrific abuse, and allegedly brought about through a Voodoo ceremony presided over by one Dutty Boukman at Bois Caiman in August 1791.
It is said that at the event, an animal was sacrificed and its blood drunk by attendees who took an oath in a satanic bond that would ensure the success of an imminent uprising against the French, the liberation of Saint Domingue, and the birth of the nation of Haiti. It is added that those in attendance were exhorted to ‘take revenge against the French oppressors, and cast aside the image of the God of the oppressors.’
However, those who blame Haiti’s woes on a two-and-a-quarter-century-old pact should also consider the part played by France, and later the United States, in destabilizing the country.
Two examples: France exacted 90 million (reduced from 150 million) gold francs from Haiti in exchange for recognizing its newly-gained sovereignty; it was in fact a form of reparation for ‘property’ lost by French plantation owners including land, crops, and the slaves themselves. And America, in the early part of the 20th century, launched a 19-year banking-instigated occupation of the island during which its resources were exploited in the name of development, and racial segregation encouraged.
Add to these certain ‘acts of God’ including a tsunami that occurred several years before Bois Caiman, and the cholera epidemic brought on by UN peacekeepers, and you may more accurately gauge the genesis and progression of Haiti’s ongoing trauma.
Then came the 2010 earthquake, and six years later, Matthew. I knew that semi-island nation would soon be hurting again. Real bad! Unlike his biblical namesake, Matthew didn’t bring the gospel (good news) to Haiti. Instead he brought an almost Egyptian-type Old Testament plague of hammering destruction and death.
No frogs or locusts, but a massive sweep of wind and water whipped to a howling frenzy that must have rattled the hardiest of souls and the most resilient disciples of hope still reconstructing a nation devastated by the 2010 quake and that cholera outbreak. I wondered, how much hurt can one nation take? And how much help can another nation, like Guyana, offer?
Guyana is occasionally compared to Haiti, and of course we have our own near-incomparable plethora of problems. But we have two things going for us that open the possibility of a special kind of assistance to that nation – a small population, and a large spread of uninhabited and uncultivated land. Haiti has neither. With an area a mere fraction of Guyana’s 83,000 square-mile spread, and a population more than ten times ours, it is also largely deforested, and seemingly denuded of hope.
What about having an interior gateway opened to some Haitians, maybe in collaboration with, or assisted by, the U.N., USAID or any of the dozens of kindred organizations.
Most of the Haitians I knew in the Bahamas were simple, (in the noble sense of the word) hardworking, and intelligent; nevertheless they were prone to the condescension thrown at them by many Bahamians. That is not to say they were all angels. It was reported that one of Nassau’s most violent gangs was composed of Haitian and Haitian-Bahamian youths. Any kind of relocation and assimilation into Guyanese culture would have to take these facets into consideration in addition to the possible practice of Voodoo which may be a real concern to Guyanese of orthodox, fundamentalist, religious persuasion.
In a recent article I said I have the vision, (of future progress) not necessarily the details. That’s what we have politicians, economic planners and logisticians for. But here are a few thoughts. Haiti is a part of Caricom, so assistance is imperative in crisis situations. Regional or international agencies and business entities can indeed help create viable habitats for human occupation in parts of our vast hinterland.
With regard to basic infrastructure, the Haitians themselves can no doubt offer their labour with little or no expense to Guyanese taxpayers. One or more self-sustaining agricultural communities may be the result. As I alluded to earlier, other considerations of a legal, political, and social nature will have to be looked by the relevant authorities.
My gut tells me that a lot of Guyanese will see trouble brewing in this kind of arrangement. Some will see an avalanche of refugees rushing into our country and overwhelming our limited resources and services. Others will find language and other cultural barriers too distracting to deal with. And once a human Haitian flow starts, how and when will it be controlled or stopped if it becomes necessary to do so?
These concerns are real, and I don’t have the answers. But when someone is drowning you don’t ask why he never learnt to swim or what will become of him after you’ve saved him. You just do what needs to be done at the time.
The tale of Haiti’s woes may be far from over. More than 200 years of history – of glory, gore, and grim disaster – are part of an ongoing narrative, a larger mural of grand movements and great miseries. (Notwithstanding the lifestyles of the ‘elite’ billionaires, bankers and bourgeoisie) Such a tale may never end, but new beginnings can alter the plot.
The story of Haiti embraces some remarkable and enigmatic characters – L’Ouverture and Christophe, Dessalines and Duvalier, Aristide and Martelly – the good, the bad, and the self-serving. We can add Guyana to the cast of characters, and hopefully add a beneficent twist to a tale worth telling.
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