What more do we know about Marie-Jeanne Lamartinière, the fearless, young mulatto soldier who stood tall and striking - wearing a long white floating dress, her waist knotted with a white sash, a red scarf around her head, saber strapped down her shoulders, and rifle in hand - as she urged forward to victory against the 12,000 French, the 1,000 outgunned and outnumbered indigenous Haitian army, on the bloody days at the famous and decisive battle of Crête-Ã-Pierrot?
It
is rumored that after the murder of her husband, Brigade Commander
Lamartinierre, Marie-Jeanne became the lover of General Dessalines. Not
much else is recorded. We just have her picture in our minds from the
various paintings and oral stories, our Haitian lullabies, depicting
Marie-Jeanne in the midst of the inferno, a wounded soldier at her
feet, or in the line of fire outside the Crête-Ã-Pierrot fort, fighting
alongside her officer husband, Lamartinière.
There
is so much we need to know in order to know ourselves today. In order
to know we need not copy and paste another's history of ourselves and
engraft that hatred in our soul. There is so much we need to recover
from the destruction of African people, life, culture.
When I read the neocolonial chorus of "let's move on," of reconciling with lies and injustice, lwa Desalin pran mwen vre
-- I remember that the destruction of the African identity was built on
bitter, twisted lies that must be unearthed for the hidden and lost
African body to rise untainted; I remember that Dessalines did not copy
and paste what was considered the height of human development where
slavery, forced assimilation and colonialism was the rule. Dessalines
created a nation that rejected Bourgeois Freedom,
forced assimilation, colonialism, and enslavement of all types -
physical, psychological, economic. Dessalines' legacy has still to be
fully put into black and white papyrus form, but the Haitian masses,
thank goodness, have never become zombies, carbon copies, phonies.
They've never had enough missionary/ecclesiastic schooling to be other
than Dessalines' descendants. They understand and live self-referral.
That is why Haiti still exists, still struggles, still does not copy
and paste. Se lan lekòl lavi nou pran leson. Se pa lan lespas nou
apran. Se pa yon bagay ki soti o lè -- yon bagay etranje -- ki tonbe a tè
ke nou ranmase kòm pa nou. Non. Ayisyen pran sa ki touprè yo, ki sòti
lan yo, lan zantray yo, ki pou yo. Yo pa lan kopye kolè bagay
esklavajist-kolyanist.
Haitians learn from the university
of life. That's where they get their lessons, their view of life, the
world they create and extend. It's not from some economic theory by
some dead white guy overseas or, from Paul Collier, Bill Clinton, Ban
Ki Moon, Condi Rice, Colin Powell or some Washington/Canadian/French
think tank, foreign NGO or world renowned expert in humanitarian aid.
No. Haiti's masses mostly don't even fight their arrogance; they smile,
they agree, take what's useful and then go about trying to live with
what's in their hands. Haiti still exists, despite two centuries of
systemic, structural Euro-US impoverishment and destruction, because
Haitians live with their environment and mold it towards the
life-giving forces the best way they can. (See, Black is the Color of Liberty.)
The lucrative nature of the Haiti venture to the US, the United Nations and Brazil
On
this September day, the 251st year to mark the birthday of Jean Jacques
Dessalines (September 20, 1758 to September 20, 2009), Haiti is under
occupation and there is a lot of copying and pasting going on. Most of
our so-called intellectuals and politicians are not creating a nation
that serves Haitian realities. They have refused to raise the minimum
wage to a fair wage and are keeping free trade wages. They are passing
legislation and creating a space for foreign interests to thrive in
Haiti that Dessalines' law forbid.
In general, they are destroying Haiti by copying and pasting onto the
Haitian people, the Haitian soul, the Haitian reality, concepts and
policies that have nothing to do with Haiti, its masses' long term
health, wealth, mobility, useful education and progress.
Brazil,
who is in charge of the 9,000 UN troops in Haiti is making, as an
administration fee, 20% of the $600 million per year paid to the UN
troops in Haiti. The UN troops landed in Haiti right after the US
Marines left and that was right after US Special forces had put Haiti's
democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide on a plane
effectively rendering him back to Africa. The US/UN's primary "success"
to date in Haiti has been the murder, uprooting and killing of Haitian
men and women who opposed the disenfranchisement and occupation.
Haitians who mostly resided in the poorest areas of Haiti's capital,
mostly in Sitey Soley and who objected to the occupation. Site Soley is
an area in Haiti's capital with about 350,000 people crowded in great
misery and deprivation. Site Soley resulted and was created from US
free trade legislation for sweatshops back in the late 70s, early 80s.
On this September 17th
"Brazil and the United States ratified their plan on Thursday to
establish industrial plants in Haiti. This would enable the duty-free
export of products to both countries and thus support Haiti's
reconstruction." These newspaper's narratives mostly won't explain the
massive lucrative nature of the Haiti venture to the US, the United
Nation and Brazil, the financial interests in "their plan" for Haiti.
The general spin is that the fundamental motivation of this trade
initiative was humanitarian, "to aid Haiti's economic development
through sustainable production activity."
The authorities in the
US, UN and Brazilian governments won't explain that the
Brazilian-headed UN troops are, by-the-way, in Haiti not only to secure
the use of cheap Haitian labor for their transnational corporations, exploit Haiti's natural resources, but also to defend Brazil's dream of becoming more of a status quo power itself and gain a seat in the UN Security Council.
Brazilian
troops in Haiti, after securing Site Soley, are helping to maintain the
containment-in-poverty status quo with the US HOPE Act free trade
legislation.
Their soldiers' guns help keep the minimum wage
from increasing to the proposed 200 gourdes (.63 cents per hour), which
was not even high enough to meet the inflation rate. In recent months,
UN soldiers have collided with workers and protestors demanding the 200
gourdes higher salary, killed a few, thrown some in prison. It's in
Brazil's domestic interest because Brazilian corporations have successfully lobbied Washington and made Brazil a beneficiary under the Washington HOPE Act that allows for duty free textile goods from Haiti for 10 years.
That
means, for instance, the Brazilian company, Coteminas - Latin America's
largest textile company, owned by the brother-in-law of Brazilian
President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva - does not have to pay the higher
minimum salary ($200.95 per month or, roughly $7 per day) required in Brazil to
its workers because it can now pay Haitians, at the point of
UN-Brazilian guns, .22 cents an hour or $1.70 for an 8-hour day (its
even less than .22 cents an hour since Haitian workers are mostly
forced to meet daily work goals that take 10 or 12 hours to
accomplish.) This September, the Haitian minimum wage was voted to 125
gourdes (.38 cents for an 8-hour day) and the 200 gourdes fairer wage
that did not even meet with the rate of inflation was rejected by the
Haitian politicos working for the ruling oligarchy's interests. But
that .38 cents is not yet being applied. The 70 gourdes is. (See, Brazil raises '09 minimum wage 6.4 pct to 465 reais ($209.95 per month.)
Amending Haiti's Constitution under UN occupation: Neocolonialism's copy and paste impositions
Another
example of how this International Community is destroying Haitian life,
liberty and future is the current discussion about amending the 1987
Constitution. Back during the first US occupation of Haiti in 1915, the
Haitian Constitution was also amended and Dessalines' law prohibiting
foreigners from owning land was deleted. Today amending the Haitian
Constitution is an obsession of the International Community and its
Haitian blan peyi folks. Why? How can the 1987 Haitian Constitution
that was put together with the approval of the Haitian masses be
ethically changed when today the people are under occupation, the
Haitian parliament serves foreign interests and Haiti's president is
simply a puppet?
The process of revision or amendment of the
Constitution that is being deployed is not equitable. It's not public;
the public is not part of the discussion. There's just foreign concepts
copied and pasted into papers and pronouncement made by a committee
that does not consult with the people of Haiti, but with foreigners.
Like under the first occupation, in this one the masses are not
required to participate.
