Dessalines did not copy and paste like these Haitian puppets and parliamentarians are quick to do right now. Dessalines looked at the reality of the people, referred to his own experience and reality and then created an 1805 Constitution that met the needs and the realities of his people. Today's Haitian Parliament is paid by foreigners and goes to Canada, France, US and refers to their visions, their concepts of democracy and good governance that have nothing to do with current realities of Haitian life.
They don't bother to consult with the population. Behind close doors with foreign experts, right now the Haitian constitution is being revised.
Today, September 20 on the birthday of Dessalines, it's good to recall that one of the things Haiti's founding father did not replicate in Haiti was the forced assimilation and race system of the white nations. (See Dessaline's Ideal# 1). He leveled the racial, economic and social playing field that was glued together based on a person's lack of melanin content. Dessalines' 1805 Constitution did this by not making a distinction between mulatto, black or white -- all Haitians, he said, shall be known by the appellation, Black.
In the 1805 Dessalines constitution there was no difference between Haitians who were educated outside of Haiti and Haitians who lived in Haiti. Dessalines said Haitian are Black, every slave who touched Haitian soil became free, Black and would enjoy the full rights of Haitian citizenship. If you were white and you helped fight for Haiti's liberty, like the Polish who had left Napoleon's army to fight with Dessalines' African warriors, then under Dessalines' 1805 Constitution, you were Black and could own property in Haiti. Haitians then are defined, at the inception of the new country's history, as Lovers of Liberty no matter their skin color or economic resources.
In this way, the 1805 Constitution met the needs of Haiti.
It did not go to Thomas Jefferson or John Locke's hypocrisy. It dealt with the needs of all the people within its borders no matter their culture, race, gender or religion.
I've written much about Dessalines' Three Ideals and so I won't go into this right now. (See, Three Ideals of Dessalines).
Suffice it to know that Dessalines did not allow, in his 1805 Constitution for greater rights to the Mulattos who were insisting they had more rights to the plantations and land that had just been liberated because it was their white French father's properties. Dessalines said the Africans who fought for liberation shall not be left behind economically. All the country's asset was to be equitably divided.
This is why he was murdered. He refused to allow Pitit Deyò (say here the Mulattos) to have more rights than Pitit Andan (say here the Haitian masses). No, he said all who had fought for Haiti's liberty, whether their skin color was white, black or mulatto were Pitit Kay (Black) and must share equitably in the resources and therefore the power of the new nation. He wasn't into hierarchy either, but meritocracy. (See, From Slave to Emperor, His Majesty, Jean Jacques Dessalines, The greatest story marginalized and never told...)
"In Haiti, Black is de-racialized in terms of skin color giving the person superior substance but racialized as a people bound together because of their shared experience, distinct moral conscience vis-a-vis those they defeated, unique Kreyòl language and African-based culture. This paradox is the amazing genius of Dessalines' Haiti. He simultaneously empowered the Black "race" to both be proud of self and their lineage under the socia-politically constructed race paradigm and to transcend it. First, Haiti is racialized because in creating Haiti in combat against the US/Euro enslavement tribes, Jean Jacques Dessalines empowered the Black "race" to carry the mantle of the African struggle for justice against racism, colonialism, economic tyranny and imperialism. Second, Haiti is de-racialized because by naming and defining, in Haiti's first Constitution, the white settlers who fought on the side of the liberty, awarding them the appellation "Black," Dessalines showed his profound understanding that human nature goes deeper than skin color. Thus, he urged unity of humanity, co-existence, self-determination, working for consensus towards a common universal purpose, empowering both "Black" people and "white" people to not wear their identities on their skins, but to transcend it." (Dessalines' Three Ideals.)
The challenge for Dessalines' descendants and all Lovers of Liberty is to think up and extend a new world that meets the needs of all the peoples on this planet and that rises to meet our current circumstances. And for Haiti, we Haitians need to meet the needs of Haitians living both inside and outside of Haiti's borders.
If a man born at a time when before his life, his kind was locked into 300 years of total barbaric Western enslavement, a man who could not read or write, born with actually chains put on his feet, if that man would become one of the world's greatest warriors, thinkers and humanists to ever live, if that man with no great weaponry, no formal education could leave the world such a legacy, why, why can't we do better than we've been presented, be like the greatest warrior that ever lived. Confront the despots, protect nature and not leave any Lover of Liberty in the cold. To do that, we must issue from source, like Dessalines, Toya, Defile, Sanit Belè and Marie Claire Heureuse, not copy and paste.
Mesi papa Desalin. Happy Birthday papa Desalin.
Ezili Dantò/HLLN
September 20, 2009
********************
What's in a name?
Some names horrify enslavers, tyrants and despots, everywhere...
*******************
