Loading ...
In St Lucia, African Laureate Wole Soyinka speaks about Walcott, Haiti and Africa.
“I’m not superstitious. I don’t believe in divine forces. I don’t even use phrases like ‘act of God.’ ” Last night, Wole Soyinka delivered the Derek Walcott lecture.
But before last night’s lecture, Africa’s first Nobel Laureate spoke to the media on the subject of literature, conflict, oppression and Haiti.
Many people across the region are lamenting the earthquake in Haiti and turning to religious and superstitious explanations for what happened.
“It’s a curse on Haiti,” some think.
“It’s a punishment for all the devil worship,” others opine. Across the region and across the world, Christian karma was being blamed for the latest disaster to hit the first republic in the Western Hemisphere after America. God, many people say, was punishing Haiti for something. What exactly Haiti was being punished for, everyone disagrees.
But Africa’s first Nobel Laureate has a different, perhaps more sensible, though simple opinion.
“It’s just unfortunate,” writer Wole Soyinka told reporters yesterday during a press conference at the Bay Gardens Beach Resort.
In a discussion that touched on issues from literature to politics, Soyinka addressed the question of Haiti’s misfortune—both the natural and the man-made. Much of Haiti’s misfortune has, of course, been man-made.
“It stems back to the unequal relationship between us and the European world,” he said.
“It used to be one of equals, going all the way back to Benin and Portugal. They had trading, they had embassies. In the first writings of the penetrators, they were respectful.
“The distortion came through a mixture of evangelism both Christian and Islam combined with commercial interests. There was a turning point: The use of the Berbers to subdue the people south of the Sahara; the first shipment of slaves; the need to demonize Africa to justify slavery.”
Soyinka’s opinion was that Haiti’s most recent disaster was not some karmic consequence and that responses to the disaster were more important, more telling than the disaster itself. On this score, the Nobel Prize winner had some choice words for African leaders.
“They should really be ashamed of themselves,” the outspoken writer said of the continent’s leaders response (or lack thereof) to the most recent disaster in Haiti. “No symbolic gesture of sympathy, quite apart from humanitarian response. If they were conscious, they would be the first to act and to say something. Haiti, to Africa, is a very special zone in the Diaspora. It is the scene of great heroism.”
But aren’t Haiti’s leaders, like Africa’s leaders, responsible for the condition of the countries? Hasn’t history proven that the downtrodden are their own worst enemy? Even worse than the horrors of colonialism itself?
“It’s just unfortunate that revolution drags in its wake contradictions,” Soyinka summed up the problems that Haiti and African countries have in common. “It eats up its own people. Participants have to work together carefully so the leaders don’t become a mirror image of the thing they fought against.”
But according to Soyinka, Haiti might be in an even worse situation than some African nations that it could be compared to. He pointed to a flood in Mozambique which had the effect of consolidating national momentum.
“After the war of liberation in Mozambique, they fought each other,” he said. “There was brutal civil war. But they had a respite and then there was the flood, so they had the opportunity to harness all the national resources to recover. If Mozambique had not had that period of respite, they might be in a similar state as Haiti. Haiti did not have their period of respite.”
There was a period of hope, however, when it seemed that Haiti’s democracy would finally overpower its dictators.
“Aristide was one of the finer possibilities to help Haiti recover herself again,” Soyinka said. He has had contact with the former President of Haiti, who was ousted in a coup and ‘rescued’ by American soldiers who dropped him off in Africa.
Soyinka himself has been a target of dictatorial forces and in a way, has built an entire Nobel Prize winning career on active opposition to those forces.
He was first arrested in 1965 for seizing control of a radio station and demanding the cancellation of rigged elections. He was freed on a technicality. Two years later, during a civil war, he was jailed for trying to broker peace between the Nigerian and Biafran parties. He wrote poetry on tissue paper while in jail. This poetry became the collection Poems from Prison. He is a consistent critic, not just of Nigerian dictatorship, but of dictators all over the world, including Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, who many African descendants still sympathize with. His writings, he says, are concerned with “the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it.”
During the 1990s, the Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha pronounced a death sentence on him in absentia. He returned to Nigeria in 1999 to a hero’s welcome after the return of democracy.
When he won the Nobel Prize, he was on a transatlantic flight, unable to be contacted.
“I was one of the last to know about it.” His Nobel Prize. “It was very successfully leaked.”
(More on Soyinka’s lecture in Thursday’s issue.)
RSS
Mr Soyinka is spot on with the relationship between Africa and Europe before the slave trade. Relations between Africa and Europe before the slave trade was one of mutual respect and trade. They saw each other as equals. Why is it Africa, a continent with a vast amount of natural resources : gold, diamond, oil,..and the list goes on…is so (for want of a better word) ‘poor’ in its development? Well we all know the answer :corruption. As far as i am concerned it is the richest continent on earth. All the european powers built themselves on the wealth of resources pillaged from Africa from the 17th century onwards….and it is still happening. Well my people of Saint Lucia, lets work together to develope ourselves and our sweet Saint Lucia, and fight against the things that plagues and destroys our nation namely :crime, injustice, corruption and poverty. We all have our part to play in making Saint Lucia a wonderful country. Give love and be kind to each other and lend a hand to our bros & sis in Haiti. What they are goin through is not because they are cursed or are devil worshippers. All this devil worship nonsense was perpetrated by the colonials to further their own cause. Its time to set ourselves free from this mental slavery. Open our eyes people, we as Saint Lucians are making great strides and we have alot to be proud of. Well i know i am proud of you Saint Lucians…LOVE & PEACE..
Soyinka puts a lot of the history in an nutshell.
Haitians successfully chased out their colononisers from the island and established an independent state.From that moment onwards they were penalised for this.It is a systematic ,systemic ,and ongoing oppression.The key to this oppression is the economic leverage of the western nations which needed and still need the resources of the so called under developed world.
Additionally they still say we are the devil.
Unfortunately the voodoo religion which USED TO BE a great religion was subjected to abuse as well as infiltration by foreign dogma, and led to the destruction of the religion.Many people fascinated with supernatural power began to use the forces to do things which the SPIRIT never intended,AND never intends.
The consequent loss of spiritual power(spiritual is not the correct word to refer to something WAY BEYOND what is termed supernatural) and the attachment to the economic ties of the west gave the westerners the leverage to exact great harm on Haiti and on us Africans and African descendants.
BUT IT IS THESE TRIALS THAT THE SPIRIT IS USING TO DIRECT US BLACK PEOPLE TOWARDS BECOMING A TRULY SUPERNATURAL RACE.
CONSIDER OUR ABILITIES IN THINGS SUPERNATURAL,THINGS WHICH I DO NOT NEED TO WRITE TO YOU ABOUT BUT WHICH YOU ARE FULLY AWARE AND KNOW.
yes Haiti suffers now,but its future ,as well as our future as a black race is one of powers WAY BEYOND anything supernatural.
As Black people we follow where the Spirit and that leading is not in any book,not in preachings and writings of men led about by strange imaginings,who get tied up in things which they do not understand and for which the Spirit did not give them any understanding,bringing on THEMSELVES bewilderment ,frustration ,anger ,leading to insanity and death. ECONOMIC POWER AND ITS HARSH UNRELENTING USE IS OBEAH, has everything to do with it. As the Spirit now says obeah has quote.. nothing to do with it at all.. end quote
Mark laporte
yeah bad use of economic power by the westerns is the real obeah,an dey are the real obeahman.
but our obeah eh have nothin to do with Haiti situation.
sinserely
Hulla
This is a very wise man
The Hate and the Quake
Published on: 17th January 2010 by Sir Hilary Beckles
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…
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…
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 installment 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…
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.
l Sir Hilary Beckles is pro-vice-chancellor and Principal of the Cave Hill Campus, UWI.
A very visionary individual with the exact choice words to sum up the situation in Haiti but also challenge us in the region in our little so called haven of comforts. However be warned if we do not seat up every single nation in the Caribbean region are heading in that direction if we as citizens are not willing to challenge abuses by our so call leaders wha ever colour is in power and give up our dependency on handouts from more develop countries for our development and progress by taking responsibility to determine and produce through our work ethics to significantly set our economic destiny.
TO ALL READERS
Please read the following on the net: Oil in haiti economic reasons for UN/US occupation
Also check the following website:MargueriteLaurent.com see article entitled OIL IN HAITI.
Please explore this website.It tells so much from the haitians themselves
The above excerpt extrapolated by C. Didier, gives a history of the Haiti and its fight for recognition and independence within the world system. Wole say it best when he says that much of Haiti’s misfortune has been man-made. Let us then rise and help Haiti with sustained help and resources . Haiti needs its c’bean sisters and brothers’s help now.