Haiti

Haiti: The Aftershocks of History, Laurent Dubois. New York: Picador, 2013.

Summary: A history of Haiti, from colonial rule under France up to the earthquake of 2010.

If you are following world news you will have noticed the descent of Haiti into gang violence and a dissolution of its government with no president since the assassination of President Moise in 2021 and the resignation of acting Prime Minister of Ariel Henry in March 2024. Numerous citizens have been kidnapped, many have fled the country and the country is facing critical levels of food insecurity. With that in view, I picked up this history of the country to see if I might gain some understanding of the current events. Laurent Dubois narrates the history of the country from the colonial period under France up until 2010, although the period after the Duvaliers, father and son, is only briefly covered.

It is a history to make one weep. The country is the only country to gain independence through the revolt of a slave people, in this case against France. Slaves on the profitable sugar plantations rose under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture in a fight running from 1791 to 1804 for independence. Toussaint died as a prisoner of war during an attempt by the French to recapture the former colony. The French were finally defeated in 1804 under a coalition led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines who proclaimed himself emperor, re-established the plantation system rather than the small farms people wanted, and then died.

One element of this story is the instability, authoritarian character and corruption of leaders that goes back to the nation’s origins. Over its history, the country has experienced over 30 coups. Leaders re-wrote constitutions several time to protect their power, in one instance, for life. There was a reliance upon the military, or in the case of the Duvalier dynasty of 30 years, the employment of a private militia, the Tonton Macoutes to ruthlessly stifle opposition.

Another is the pattern of foreign interference throughout the country’s history, beginning with the colonial rule of France. After independence, France held the country in thrall through an onerous indemnity, that took the best part of a century to liquidate, setting up a destructive pattern of borrowing and debt that held a stranglehold on the country. For a period of time, the country’s treasury was a French bank!

The United States did not recognize Haiti for over fifty years, frightened by the idea of a successful slave revolt. Then with the expansion of U.S. Naval power Haiti first became attractive as a site for a coaling station. Later, business interests were interested in what could be extracted from the country. Internal order brought an invasion of U.S. Marines in 1915 to restore order, build roads and infrastructure, and promote agricultural reforms.

It was a high-handed paternalistic effort, with few bothering to learn the language and culture. When resistance was encountered, villages were destroyed and atrocities occurred for which there has never been a reckoning. Our Marines were only withdrawn in the 1930’s but our countries’ interests continue to be intertwined. In the Duvalier era, for example, Nelson Rockefeller can be seen in chummy photos with “Papa Doc” Duvalier. Dubois extends this paternalistic approach to many of the NGOs, aid and mission organizations working in the country, that often competed with local economies, supplanting local trades, draining resources, and often repeating the military’s mistake of not learning French or Creole, nor the indigenous culture.

Dubois presents a picture of a country in which the people often outshine the leaders, pressing to be free from plantation economies and foreign interests, and for government reforms. Sadly, the pattern of people rising to leadership, only to follow the corrupt, authoritarian models of their predecessors, is repeated again and again.

Finally, we see the natural devastation of the country, from monocultures that exhaust the soil, hillside erosions and the loss of topsoils, and deforestation, culminating in the devastating earthquake of 2010 (and another, after publication, in 2020). What is grievous is that this was a country once rich in natural resources that is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.

Amid all the devastation, Dubois still holds out hope that the people who rose from slavery can rise to build a new Haiti. I found myself far less certain, wondering how the habits of good civil government, the rule of law, ethical business practice and sustainable agriculture can be established and developed. Given the current descent into gang violence and anarchy, I wonder if we are watching a nation in the throes of self-destruction, one that could precipitate a terrible genocide. Is it not time for the international community to act to prevent great loss of life, provide critical aid, and to offer the breathing space to restore civil order? But only Haiti can do the rest.

The Comedians, Graham Greene. New York: Penguin, 2005 (my edition 1976).

Summary: Three men, Brown, Smith, and Jones meet on a ship bound for Haiti during the reign of terror of “Papa Doc” Duvalier. They are the “comedians” who must confront not only the tragedy of Haiti, but themselves.

One of the darkest periods of Haiti’s troubled history was the rule of “Papa Doc” Duvalier from 1957 until 1971. It was a reign of terror enforced by a secret police, the Tontons Macoute who killed between 30 and 60,000 while many others fled the country.

This is the Haiti to which the three main characters in the book are traveling aboard the Medea. Brown is a hotelier, who inherited the Hotel Trianon from his mother, and is returning, having been unable to sell the property, and drawn by a love affair with the wife of an ambassador. Smith is a former presidential candidate, of the Vegetarian Party, which got 10,000 votes in its election race. He hopes to establish a center for vegetarianism on the island. Jones is a confidence man, who consistently stays just one step of the law, on his tails even aboard ship. He styles himself a major, boasts of battle experience in Burma, Japan, and the Congo, and hopes to secure the rights to establish a golf club for Duvalier and his cronies.

Each faces the shattering of their “comedic” dreams in the face of the brutal realities of Papa Doc and the sinister Tonton Macoute epitomized by Captain Concasseur. From the moment Smith arrives, he must deal with the fleeing minister, Philipot, who commits suicide by his pool, and the later absurdity of his casket being carted away in the back of one of the Tontons vehicles, half sticking out the trunk. This was the same Philipot that Smith and his wife hoped to meet to pursue their vegetarian dream, only to discover that any dream of this sort must be accompanied by bribes and graft. Subsequently, Smith, in his rectitude stands up to the powers and takes his money across the border to the Dominican Republic, shedding his naive ideas about Haiti, but not his principles.

Jones is perhaps the most interesting, going from being held in prison as the law catches up with him at last, to becoming a crony, only to be found out as even shadier than the crooks in the regime. He hides out in the embassy where Brown’s lover, Martha lives and Smith, in his jealousy, traps Jones in his own lies and lures him to lead a band in a quixotic revolt against Duvalier. In doing so, Smith comes face to face with both his longing for and inability to believe in enduring love.

Like other Graham Green works, Brown in particular struggles between faith and doubt, between the Catholicism in which he was raised, and a world seemingly desolate of goodness, of purpose, and of love. It was interesting to me that Dr. Magiot, a Marxist, is the one true believer (other than Smith with his vegetarian-utopian dreams), whose life, and sacrifice is motivated by the long view of the fulfillment of a Communist vision of the future. Greene helps us understand the appeal of Communism for principled people faced with corrupt regimes and a subservient church. More than this, Greene uses the backdrop of the absurd comedic horror of Duvalier’s Haiti to strip the central characters of their comedic illusions and face them with who they were and what ultimately mattered to them.