By Jean Bertin
The following essay, rather than adding to or providing an epilogue to the long list of articles that tell the same story we’ve heard a thousand times before, has been conceived with other ambitions in mind.
Firstly, to provide a current look at the past representations and theories concerning the Haitian problem so as to patch together the broken mirror in which different groups – as suits their needs – want the country to be reflected. The other objective is to follow up on efforts to understand the problems related to my country’s future.
Slavery: A Topic of Concern in Today’s World
For centuries, slavery and the trade in black men and women were real institutions established at numerous points on the African continent. Everything began in the heart of the native societies in that region, for example in certain communities like the Sahelians, where most of the population were slaves.
After many years the business of selling slaves developed with other countries, always organized in the same way: slave-trading states and societies (in Ashanti, Zanzibar or Dahomey, for example) captured other Africans and sold them to foreigners via markets or sent them to specific customers.
The sale of slaves to societies of northern Africa had existed since antiquity and it is estimated that approximately 8 million Africans were exported to the countries of the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf regions between the beginning of the 16th century and the end of the 19th century. But the trans-Atlantic shipment of blacks to the American colonies was massive. Around 15 million people were shipped across the ocean during those same four centuries. The first advocates for abolishing the slave trade were Montesquieu and Daniel Defoe, and that idea caught on at the end of the 18th century, when the Enlightenment philosophers and religious leaders encouraged the precepts of tolerance and humanism.
In Europe and the United States, abolitionist pressure groups gradually won more adherents to their cause, including the politicians of that time. In Haiti, the bloody Saint-Domingue slave revolt in 1791 presaged the eventual emancipation of slaves elsewhere in the Americas.
But the Europeans, who even after abolishing the slave trade were still fearful of losing the benefits they derived from their American colonies, came up with a contradictory solution: “Trading in blacks, no, but using slaves, yes.” The Marquis of Condorcet suggested at that time that it would be much more profitable to produce on African land and with African labor American products such as sugar that were greatly coveted by European consumers, an idea that led to the beginning of the colonization of Africa. However, the American colonies still needed to import more slaves, causing a new trade in blacks to flourish between 1811 and 1870 , when 1.2 million slaves were illegally exported to Brazil.
With Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World in 1492, Spain took control of Hispaniola (the name the admiral gave to the island) until the late 17th century. The September 1697 Treaty of Ryswick split the island in two between Spain and France and that treaty was finally ratified in June 1777, with the western one-third of Hispaniola defined as the French colony of St. Domingue. The Haitian people were truly born with the declaration of Haitian independence on Jan. 1, 1804.
But refusing to use and adapt the exogenous socialization models that had produced good results in other countries, Haiti instead maintained the model to which it was most accustomed, slavery, resulting in two basic phenomena that are still seen in present-day Haiti: firstly, the concept of national identity thus far has not been established, meaning that the idea of Haitianness has yet to emerge; and secondly, the country has not had the legal framework necessary to support the creation and strengthening of the Haitian community. The Republic of Haiti was left adrift at a time when other parts of the world evolved and changed.
At present, the word “slavery” has been grossly de-contextualized and used to refer to various actions carried out for deplorable ends. Today, any badly paid job is described as slavery. But, who has never had a badly paid job they’ve been forced to keep for a period of time for various reasons? Who, after the first few months at a particular job, has not seen that his or her standard of living has fallen and therefore considered the salary to be insufficient? Everything is relative and if we call those situations slavery, then the following questions arise: “What country in the world doesn’t have slavery?” and “In which country of the world are all jobs well paid?” Curiously, many international institutions issue reports about what, according to their considerations, constitutes a form of “modern slavery.” Slavery probably has been modernized, but what is certain is that it has never ended. What businessman in the modern world has not taken advantage of the weakness of an employee who needed a raise? What professional has not capitalized on the vulnerability of a client? International organizations tend to use the criteria of countries that don’t qualify as examples. How can a job be characterized as slavery when, even though the pay is too little for people at a certain financial level, for others the remuneration is not only sufficient to meet their basic needs but even enough to provide financial assistance for their relatives?
The work of cutting sugarcane is no more of a “slave”-type task than work done for companies in the duty-free zones, which also rely on cheap labor. The labor force that is hired to cut sugarcane in Haiti is not the same as that hired in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic or Cuba. Likewise the labor force in the duty-free zones in Haiti and the Dominican Republic is not equivalent to that found in Miami or New York. In reality, although the international organizations have good intentions, they should review some of their criteria before passing judgment or issuing reports that put their credibility in doubt. Recently, an online newspaper published an Agence France-Presse report that told the story of a 6-year-old girl named Sylvine, who would wake up at 5:00 in the morning to fetch water at a public water source located 5 km. away. After completing that task, Sylvine would spend the rest of the day doing different chores: sweeping; washing other people’s clothes, including those of children her age; helping in the kitchen; washing dishes, etc. “I don’t have any time to play,” Sylvine told the reporters.
Reading this story, one invariably presumes that this girl is being abused and having all of her rights violated, that is if she lives at her family’s home. But if Sylvine lives in someone else’s home, apart from having her rights violated, her case can be defined as slavery. This is beyond dispute, but what remains unclear is the speed with which this 6-year-old girl walks and the time it takes her to carry out her chores, according to the AFP report. A girl at that age is capable of walking at a speed of 0.6 km/hr, which means it would take her 8 hours to walk the 5 km. to the water source. We would also have to estimate that it takes her about 15 minutes to fill the gallon – provided there are not many other people doing the same task (I say a gallon because the weight of a gallon of water in a plastic container is 9.5 pounds) – and that she walks back with the full gallon at an estimated speed of 0.5 km/hr, meaning she would spend 10 hours on the return trip. In total, this girl would spend an average of 18 hours and 15 minutes on the road and would arrive at home every day at 11:15 at night. That would be criminal. Not only would she not have time to play. She also would have no time to eat, to wash other people’s clothes, to sweep, to help in the kitchen or wash dishes. She also wouldn’t have time for a sufficient amount of sleep, since doctors recommend 12 hours of sleep for children at that age.
How have we arrived at this crisis in which the raison d’etre of actions carried out in the name of “borderless” humanitarian assistance has been turned on its head, even to the point where humanitarian groups call for military action to solve problems? These non-governmental organizations (NGOs), frequently called International Solidarity Organizations (ISOs) today are recognized and unquestioned protagonists in the area of development. However, this recognition often translates into a certain ambiguity.
Alex de Waal tells us that, since the end of the Cold War, international humanitarian aid organizations have assumed a growing role in the sphere of international relations. These specialized agencies of the United Nations or of NGOs have become significant political actors, active not only to the south of Europe, but also in western countries. These humanitarian organizations have significantly expanded their mission in the area of human rights as well as conflict resolution. Their frequent calls for foreign military intervention undoubtedly represent the most surprising example of the possible unbridled actions of “humanism without borders.” Freed from the tensions of the Cold War, the NGO’s were able to issue calls for military intervention in countries like Somalia or Rwanda, assuming considerable responsibility without taking into account the limits of their mandates or authority.
These humanitarian organizations, in issuing implicit or explicit political judgments that take them away from their traditional role, expose themselves to risks and conflicts that should be officially debated. Indeed, many individuals who have been involved in humanitarian aid operations during a conflict admit privately that even if their actions did some good they also did a lot of bad, even creating the conditions that justified their humanitarian actions. But these are things that have been kept secret and now it is time to break the silence, to start a debate about the role of these humanitarian aid organizations and about the socio-political consequences of their actions.
Santo Domingo, June 1, 2007
The following essay, rather than adding to or providing an epilogue to the long list of articles that tell the same story we’ve heard a thousand times before, has been conceived with other ambitions in mind.
Firstly, to provide a current look at the past representations and theories concerning the Haitian problem so as to patch together the broken mirror in which different groups – as suits their needs – want the country to be reflected. The other objective is to follow up on efforts to understand the problems related to my country’s future.
Slavery: A Topic of Concern in Today’s World
For centuries, slavery and the trade in black men and women were real institutions established at numerous points on the African continent. Everything began in the heart of the native societies in that region, for example in certain communities like the Sahelians, where most of the population were slaves.
After many years the business of selling slaves developed with other countries, always organized in the same way: slave-trading states and societies (in Ashanti, Zanzibar or Dahomey, for example) captured other Africans and sold them to foreigners via markets or sent them to specific customers.
The sale of slaves to societies of northern Africa had existed since antiquity and it is estimated that approximately 8 million Africans were exported to the countries of the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf regions between the beginning of the 16th century and the end of the 19th century. But the trans-Atlantic shipment of blacks to the American colonies was massive. Around 15 million people were shipped across the ocean during those same four centuries. The first advocates for abolishing the slave trade were Montesquieu and Daniel Defoe, and that idea caught on at the end of the 18th century, when the Enlightenment philosophers and religious leaders encouraged the precepts of tolerance and humanism.
In Europe and the United States, abolitionist pressure groups gradually won more adherents to their cause, including the politicians of that time. In Haiti, the bloody Saint-Domingue slave revolt in 1791 presaged the eventual emancipation of slaves elsewhere in the Americas.
But the Europeans, who even after abolishing the slave trade were still fearful of losing the benefits they derived from their American colonies, came up with a contradictory solution: “Trading in blacks, no, but using slaves, yes.” The Marquis of Condorcet suggested at that time that it would be much more profitable to produce on African land and with African labor American products such as sugar that were greatly coveted by European consumers, an idea that led to the beginning of the colonization of Africa. However, the American colonies still needed to import more slaves, causing a new trade in blacks to flourish between 1811 and 1870 , when 1.2 million slaves were illegally exported to Brazil.
With Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World in 1492, Spain took control of Hispaniola (the name the admiral gave to the island) until the late 17th century. The September 1697 Treaty of Ryswick split the island in two between Spain and France and that treaty was finally ratified in June 1777, with the western one-third of Hispaniola defined as the French colony of St. Domingue. The Haitian people were truly born with the declaration of Haitian independence on Jan. 1, 1804.
But refusing to use and adapt the exogenous socialization models that had produced good results in other countries, Haiti instead maintained the model to which it was most accustomed, slavery, resulting in two basic phenomena that are still seen in present-day Haiti: firstly, the concept of national identity thus far has not been established, meaning that the idea of Haitianness has yet to emerge; and secondly, the country has not had the legal framework necessary to support the creation and strengthening of the Haitian community. The Republic of Haiti was left adrift at a time when other parts of the world evolved and changed.
At present, the word “slavery” has been grossly de-contextualized and used to refer to various actions carried out for deplorable ends. Today, any badly paid job is described as slavery. But, who has never had a badly paid job they’ve been forced to keep for a period of time for various reasons? Who, after the first few months at a particular job, has not seen that his or her standard of living has fallen and therefore considered the salary to be insufficient? Everything is relative and if we call those situations slavery, then the following questions arise: “What country in the world doesn’t have slavery?” and “In which country of the world are all jobs well paid?” Curiously, many international institutions issue reports about what, according to their considerations, constitutes a form of “modern slavery.” Slavery probably has been modernized, but what is certain is that it has never ended. What businessman in the modern world has not taken advantage of the weakness of an employee who needed a raise? What professional has not capitalized on the vulnerability of a client? International organizations tend to use the criteria of countries that don’t qualify as examples. How can a job be characterized as slavery when, even though the pay is too little for people at a certain financial level, for others the remuneration is not only sufficient to meet their basic needs but even enough to provide financial assistance for their relatives?
The work of cutting sugarcane is no more of a “slave”-type task than work done for companies in the duty-free zones, which also rely on cheap labor. The labor force that is hired to cut sugarcane in Haiti is not the same as that hired in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic or Cuba. Likewise the labor force in the duty-free zones in Haiti and the Dominican Republic is not equivalent to that found in Miami or New York. In reality, although the international organizations have good intentions, they should review some of their criteria before passing judgment or issuing reports that put their credibility in doubt. Recently, an online newspaper published an Agence France-Presse report that told the story of a 6-year-old girl named Sylvine, who would wake up at 5:00 in the morning to fetch water at a public water source located 5 km. away. After completing that task, Sylvine would spend the rest of the day doing different chores: sweeping; washing other people’s clothes, including those of children her age; helping in the kitchen; washing dishes, etc. “I don’t have any time to play,” Sylvine told the reporters.
Reading this story, one invariably presumes that this girl is being abused and having all of her rights violated, that is if she lives at her family’s home. But if Sylvine lives in someone else’s home, apart from having her rights violated, her case can be defined as slavery. This is beyond dispute, but what remains unclear is the speed with which this 6-year-old girl walks and the time it takes her to carry out her chores, according to the AFP report. A girl at that age is capable of walking at a speed of 0.6 km/hr, which means it would take her 8 hours to walk the 5 km. to the water source. We would also have to estimate that it takes her about 15 minutes to fill the gallon – provided there are not many other people doing the same task (I say a gallon because the weight of a gallon of water in a plastic container is 9.5 pounds) – and that she walks back with the full gallon at an estimated speed of 0.5 km/hr, meaning she would spend 10 hours on the return trip. In total, this girl would spend an average of 18 hours and 15 minutes on the road and would arrive at home every day at 11:15 at night. That would be criminal. Not only would she not have time to play. She also would have no time to eat, to wash other people’s clothes, to sweep, to help in the kitchen or wash dishes. She also wouldn’t have time for a sufficient amount of sleep, since doctors recommend 12 hours of sleep for children at that age.
How have we arrived at this crisis in which the raison d’etre of actions carried out in the name of “borderless” humanitarian assistance has been turned on its head, even to the point where humanitarian groups call for military action to solve problems? These non-governmental organizations (NGOs), frequently called International Solidarity Organizations (ISOs) today are recognized and unquestioned protagonists in the area of development. However, this recognition often translates into a certain ambiguity.
Alex de Waal tells us that, since the end of the Cold War, international humanitarian aid organizations have assumed a growing role in the sphere of international relations. These specialized agencies of the United Nations or of NGOs have become significant political actors, active not only to the south of Europe, but also in western countries. These humanitarian organizations have significantly expanded their mission in the area of human rights as well as conflict resolution. Their frequent calls for foreign military intervention undoubtedly represent the most surprising example of the possible unbridled actions of “humanism without borders.” Freed from the tensions of the Cold War, the NGO’s were able to issue calls for military intervention in countries like Somalia or Rwanda, assuming considerable responsibility without taking into account the limits of their mandates or authority.
These humanitarian organizations, in issuing implicit or explicit political judgments that take them away from their traditional role, expose themselves to risks and conflicts that should be officially debated. Indeed, many individuals who have been involved in humanitarian aid operations during a conflict admit privately that even if their actions did some good they also did a lot of bad, even creating the conditions that justified their humanitarian actions. But these are things that have been kept secret and now it is time to break the silence, to start a debate about the role of these humanitarian aid organizations and about the socio-political consequences of their actions.
Santo Domingo, June 1, 2007
