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Rita Iton Posts: 325 Joined: 28th Jun 2009 Location: USA | Posted at 14:47 on 21st January 2010 Good morning all. Thought i would share this view on Haiti with you Sir Hilary Beckles. Cave Hill Campus. U.W.I.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 recognize 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 recognize 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 - ostracized 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 recognize 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 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. Sir Hilary Beckles is pro-vice-chancellor and Principal of the Cave Hill Campus, UWI. [**The preceding article by Sir Hilary Beckles was published in the Barbados Sunday Sun on 17 January 2010]. |
| Rita Iton Posts: 325 Joined: 28th Jun 2009 Location: USA | Posted at 16:57 on 22nd January 2010 Greetings everyone. Do have a wonderful weekend. |
Ron Brind Posts: 19041 Joined: 26th Oct 2003 Location: England | Posted at 17:29 on 22nd January 2010 Hi Rita and all, sorry I haven't been around lately, I'm still reading your last post! Lol |
Elaine Whitby Posts: 22 Joined: 1st Jan 2010 Location: UK | Posted at 17:43 on 22nd January 2010 hello all |
| Ron Brind Posts: 19041 Joined: 26th Oct 2003 Location: England | Posted at 17:48 on 22nd January 2010 Hi Elaine, how you doing? |
| Rita Iton Posts: 325 Joined: 28th Jun 2009 Location: USA | Posted at 18:02 on 22nd January 2010 I can understand that Ron. It is History, and it takes time if one is interested to check the facts out. No comment is necessary. It was just a very interesting article, I thought i would share. A great weekend to you both. |
| Ron Brind Posts: 19041 Joined: 26th Oct 2003 Location: England | Posted at 18:08 on 22nd January 2010 I agree Rita, and thank you for posting it. However, I was trying to be just a 'tad' funny! Thanks for your good wishes, which we hope bounce right back to you, take care dear friend! |
Sue H Posts: 8172 Joined: 29th Jun 2007 Location: USA | Posted at 19:58 on 22nd January 2010 Ha! The snow is already melting Hope you're all having a grand day. |
Posts: Joined: 1st Jan 1970 | editPosted at 20:03 on 22nd January 2010 Hi everyone, I read the long post, it has its I have done some cultural work in the Africans. The most thought provoking of course was in the Moromon bible, where it says that they fell out of the "Grace of God" for their laziness..which the church these days tends to like to be able to forget it ever being written. I always said I wonder if that was Micheal Jackson health problem of turning white with his skin, he had worked so hard in life..God was allowing him to not be black any more...if that makes any sense at all. But other people have had just as werid ideas..for instance..the 1800's Baptist felt that they coulnd't be "baptisted" because they were souls having returned from going through "purgatory" and sinless...so they decided to open up separate churches..that didn't involve being baptisted necessarily...if you were "black". That of course has also change through history...I think they get Baptized now. Two things came out from the Civil War here in the states also. Some historians now are saying it started not over civil rights, but rather that the Secretary of War back then was needing "free labor" for the building of Railroads..Pike was his name...he supposedly was behind the assination of Lincoln..whom is shirttail relative of my husband' side. The Genealogy chartwork is posted on the wall in Gettysburg, Pa by family there to John Lawson. John Brown, whom died for salvery issues, is in an picture of my mother's family 50th wedding anniversay when thy lived along the Kansas-Nebraska border. Hubby's side married into the Brown family...but they were into MIssouri by then and state politics...Govenor, and justices..they don't look to brown colored. But for them, any of them coming up with dark skin, as they seem to have some, I beleive some of it to be Cherokee/German related, and I also believe it to be more narrowly leading back to Queen Eleanor's "Spanish" family and her "Muslims" also known back then as the "Moors"...as it goes back to the PLanegent family and then would you believe back to the "Fisher King's" of Egypt. Now I have heard two tales on that also..that they are an species of "ET Reptailians" lived in the ocean(biblicaly called the Eilhom)...and that they are the remanents left of "Atlantis" also. They get in some really hair raising mini-wars along the way in history.. as well as the national ones over all this. I mean for instance the "War of Roses" and over here the "Civil War". Last entry in James Lawson's representation of the Bracken Baptist Church Association records was that they agreed amoung them that the issue of slavery was subject to God's higher authority in treating humanity as an whole...not that of mankind...let "your consious" be your guide. In my mother's side, when Jerimiah m. Sarah Ann Davis, he made her give up her slaves...or was it Keturah Hailey(2nd wife) ....one of them. Many of these people were into the ministry I might add also at this time. Lincoln was shirtail kin to the Davis family also in ways. As Joshua Davis m. Eliza Ann "Keith" Berry. Rev. Keith of Faquier Co., Va...this Berry (Richard) family was Abe Lincoln's aunt's husband...Nancy Hanks was apprenticed in their house, Abe's mother..before she married into the Lincoln's. The little cabin from which Abe educated himself in Kentucly history...belonged to Richard Berry...they were nieghbors' to the Lincoln's in Virginia. Many of the Berry family were Virginia "Orphans" I understand from Indian raids back then also...they were raised by many of the Reverands in the area, as well as neighbors, you can read "Chalkely's Va. Records" for that one. Abe himself also had the dark skin associated with family in many of their records. Faquier County was where they all met Geo. Washington also...on his first surveying job, before he got into the military and eventualy into the Presidency and the Rev. War. Washingotn's family were old English neighbors to the Planegent family in Northcumberland Co., , England...known as the Wessignton's back then and they were "Templar Knight's" back then...swore to protect the original lineage of Jesus, some say the "High Preist's of Jersuslam...so there you go back to this middle-eastern influence again. No doubt the skin an far cry from the coloring of most "vikings" that had worked England over fairly well prior. Wessington's also in ways were behind Robert Bruce in Scotland as well. HIstory has an "Robert" Lawson to it also.But my mother's side has the "Masonic Lodge" for many generations also...as well as the Norman Templar Knights names.. and such as William the Conquorer...and ties to Scotland in ways through marriages..and that of the Washington family. They have owned and lost this country over several times now I do beleive...reguardless of what side they were were on. This political thing is not soley an problem of Haiti's though in of itself for earthquakes. Today's paper again says that they could be seeing huge quakes for some time afterwards. They live on an major fault line. Thier building standards are shabby. Only 2 per cent of their forrested ground remains on the island. That means its an sitting duck for the Hurricanes come through and the erosion of the heavy floods they have there also...it means there is nothing for the soils to be put and stay intact with underground. the quake over there was only at 3 mile depth. Most quakes of this kind of magnitude start at 10 miles usually. There could be underground errosion going on from seeping water. If that is true, their political system won't make an difference. Haiti has also been explained for the recent 250 swarm mini-quakes now going on at Yelowstone Park (USA)...an super volcano in the world. One if it should go off ...could take out most of the USA...literally change world climate for some time. Shall we hope things settle down. I beleive that the ancients knew how to use "Ley Lines" to dispell the frequency (energy) waves spurned by earthquakes myself. We could stand to have more knowledge of that I think to really help others in such situations. By relieving the strain when its small, you might not have such big catastrophies, but there are other considerations also, such as the soil conditions, the storms, the droughts, etc. We DO "pay" for our discrimantions in life eventually, whatever from it comes in..so they can be included also perhaps...in short nuking the heck out of the world...can not make it very stable as an planet either. Do you remeber an couple of years ago down in the are there were huge black floating masses of what they thought was oil, they found out was algea...could it be underground gases released was the cause of that?..meaning volcanics in play that far back going on.I will stop for the length of this. I'm not finsished on all of this, but I guess one long post deserves another...and Gemini's are shall we say "Talkative". I thought I'd give you something to think about. My Cutural African book has pages full of black people that have made significant contributions to the world as an whole. Not just in sports, but in science and tehnology and politics worldwide. Like all people, of any color, there exists the need for "opportunity" for people to show their talents. |
Stephanie Jackson Posts: 3911 Joined: 13th Apr 2008 Location: UK | Posted at 06:58 on 23rd January 2010 Hello - was that you Shirley? Interesting post Rita and Shirley - if it was you (Ron you are a cheeky little devil!) At the moment I can't take much in - think my brain is suffering from the overload of work. Having a break from it today - only a week to go.
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