Haiti: a communist state modelled on Liechtenstein?
Creative thinking for an intractable problem
[CREOLE BELOW]
“Soon the enlightened nations will put on trial those who have hitherto ruled over them. The kings shall flee into the deserts, into the company of the wild beasts whom they resemble; and Nature shall resume her rights.”
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767-1794): Sur la constitution de la France, Discours prononcé à la Convention 24 avril 1793
Whither Haiti? The communist model of … Liechtenstein?
What made Haiti the Pearl of the Antilles were sugar, indigo, tobacco and coffee. These cash crops had made French colonialists and plantation owners rich beyond their wildest imagination. The profitability of these crops was, modern men assume, dependent on slavery, on a zero payroll.
But there was no zero-payroll requirement for Saint-Domingue to be profitable. All slavery did was augment the profit. Saint-Domingue operated on precisely the same principle as modern industry: income less outlays equals earnings; an eliminated outlay simply augments earnings and affects retail pricing. What should have happened upon independence was a shift in the allocation of the profits derived from these cash crops, from repatriation out to France, to profit-sharing within Haiti. There was sufficient profit to pay a workforce—it was not as if, under colonialism, there was no workforce to pay; it is simply that the workforce that was there didn’t get paid. Unfortunately, when slavery was abolished in Saint-Domingue, the same was not true for forced labour.
When you work for yourself, self-employment, there is no payroll. Every sole trader knows this. You can budget your outgoings and your takings and your drawings all you want, but every sole trader knows that drawings are utterly dependent on what is left. What plagued Haiti after independence was the notion that the emancipated slaves thought they could all be rich like a French plantation owner. From their shared suffering pre-Revolution, through their shared suffering in their fight for emancipation and their shared struggle for independence had not come a sense of shared responsibility and shared effort for a shared future. Now, 2024, is the time for them to have that realization.
The population; the populace; the people
Are there still markets for coffee, tobacco, sugar and indigo? Yes, controlled by large conglomerates. Every market is controlled by someone. You just need to find your way beyond the barriers to penetration.
Haiti has a population of 11.3 million (area 27,750 sq. km.); Belgium’s population is 11.7 million (area 30,700 sq. km.); the Dominican Republic has a population of 11.4 million (area 48,700 sq. km.). On the basis of these raw statistics, Haiti is more akin to Belgium than to the Dominican Republic, its direct neighbor. Belgium’s economy is industrial and service industry-based, with modest contributions by agriculture and tourism. Belgium is wealthy. Belgium is capitalist. Belgium has no border controls to its neighbors; Haiti has a brick wall to its. If Haiti is to navel-gaze, then it needn’t gaze over-zealously at Belgium’s. Belgium is, on the other hand, more akin to the Dominican Republic than to Haiti. So, could Haiti ever be akin to the Dominican Republic?
- Is capitalism viable in Haiti?
- Can Haiti ever be as successful as the Dominican Republic?
- Has the wall built by the Dominican Republic across Hispaniola sealed Haiti’s fate?
- Can a country of 11 million function as a kibbutz? A commune? A cooperative?
A population is a head count: it tells you the number of people within a line drawn on a map, and nothing more, although when the statistics move on to describe the economy, defense, imports and exports, the word population starts to take on a more profound meaning. There is shared religion, and a shared language. There is a shared history and a shared cuisine. There is interaction and there is pride, which cannot but be shared, for without that, it is no pride. There is a shared notion that we work to live and we live to share, because sharing ensures amenity and tranquility. Sharing is the fundamental precept for all community-based human existence. Religiously, sharing what one has, grants benefit to the giver. Sharing is the basis of communality, of commonality, of commune, of communion, of the res publica, the public thing.
In the world of diversity, it is worth pausing to consider in how far diversity is achievable before a state of shared experience has already been attained. Does diversity coalesce, or does it … diversify? Whatever it does, what Haiti needs now is coalescence. It can wait for diversity.
If there is no recognition of this need for sharing in Haiti, then it has no future. It will turn inward upon itself and become a loose cannon. One that will shoot only inward, never outward. Haiti is as much a danger to itself as Russia is to its neighbors. There is a wall to the west of Russia to prevent the spread of its ineffectuality, called NATO. There is a wall to the east of Haiti, to prevent the spread of its ineffectuality, called the Dominican Republic. There are seas on all other sides of Haiti, which protect Haiti’s neighbors from its folly. But what does Haiti have within its borders to protect itself from its own ineffectuality, and its own folly? Is that Haiti’s destiny, the same as befell the Titan submersible: implosion?
Eleven point three million souls. If they were aboard a stricken vessel, off the Miami coast or floundering in the Southern Ocean, the world would dispatch rescue planes and craft and lifeboats to succor to their plight. What stops the world succoring to Haiti’s plight is the perception that Haiti’s vessel has been stricken by its own occupants. “Haiti has scuttled its boat.” There will be little hand-wringing outside Haiti about the state Haiti is now in.
That’s not only unjust, it’s unwarranted. I have no window into Haiti’s people, but I see them from afar, on YouTube and in the newspapers. They are resilient and they are resourceful. They may even have a president in the making who goes by the name of Barbecue. Don’t dismiss it: many a president across the world comes with a serious side-helping of “Who’d-a thought it?”, from de Valera to Putin. The Haitians remind me of a comment a Belgian friend once made to me about The Gambia: “Hopeless country, great people.”
The state of the people: a people’s state
The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia was a wrenching of power from the Republican government installed after the Tzar was toppled. What critics of the Soviet Union raise as a prime objection to the Bolsheviks is their (Lenin’s) totalitarianism. Communism is so closely associated with nefarious side-effects arising from its implementation that it has become indissociable from them. The prime objection has always been a lack of freedom, and a heavy trammel of governmental oversight and control. Well, what Wikileaks and Edward Snowden have long since revealed is that America operates a Stasi-society anyway, so that capitalism is no protection from oversight. When communism fell in the 1990s (elsewhere than in China (to John Major’s chagrin) and North Korea), capitalists guffawed and analysts smugly concluded that, as a statal system, it had been doomed to failure from the outset, for its idealism inevitably came a cropper at the hands of human nature and instinct. True, it on the whole did. But no less so than has capitalism, 30 years later.
The Haitian philosopher and diplomat Dantès Bellegarde dismissed communism as an unworkable Russian model for Haiti (albeit based on a German theory). He rather steered Haiti towards capitalism (and the makers of McIlhenny’s chilli sauce, who, in return for his admiration, viewed Bellegarde as fit only to sire mares).
Future models, with which to model the future
The capitalist model has been tried, and tried again, in Haiti, even since the 17th century, and has failed abjectly other than under the state of oppression from which it broke free in 1791. For 350 years. Do not seek to deny it: if Haiti is not a failed state, then what state ever was?
Is it time to try something new? To think out of the box that Haiti has become, a Pandora’s box that none will open? To try something that, instead of aiming high, will aim low, and still achieve something higher than a vast swath of Haiti’s society could ever aspire to at the present time? An experiment in brotherhood? Cooperation? Self-help? Humility? Self-respect? Education? Pride?
The way out of Haiti’s morass is not to impose upon it respect. But to instill in it self-respect.
- Self-sufficiency in agriculture, to feed its mouths.
- Light-industrial exploitation, for the export markets.
- Solar and wind-power development, to wean it off its need for fossil fuels.
- Responsible, responsible government.
- Wise husbanding of its rare natural resources of iridium, gold, copper and oil.
- Exploitation of the Caribbean Sea’s laid-back, relaxing ambience to draw tourism to its stunning coastline. A second Dominican Republic, for the independent adventurer. Safaris with local flavor and knowledge. Tapping into knowledge and experience of African cousins in Senegal, The Gambia, Kenya, South Africa.
A safari doesn’t need princes hunting wild animals. But it does need to get the wild animals out of Port-au-Prince.
The Liechtenstein/Armenia model
Liechtenstein and Armenia are two examples of nations that, on their own request, have been under the protection of a third state. But with different outcomes.
Liechtenstein lost the First World War. It was on the side of the Austria-Hungary Empire. At the Peace of Versailles, Liechtenstein got cast out of Austria-Hungary and knew not where to go. They sought the protection of the least-imperialistic country in the whole world: Switzerland. They entered into a protection treaty that sees Liechtenstein today as a ward state of its guardian Swiss neighbour. So avid was Liechtenstein to protect itself from vulnerability that, in the Second World War, it declined to allow Swiss troops to be stationed there to ward off the German armies. Liechtenstein remained free from the Third Reich, but took a gamble by forbidding its very own army from coming onto its territory to defend it.
Elsewhere, and more recently, Armenia was under the protection of the Russian Federation when Azerbaijan evicted the Armenian population from Nagorno Karabakh in 2023. Azerbaijan extended an apology to Moscow for the deaths of Russian troops stationed at garrisons in Armenia for its protection, to which Russia effectively said, “Think nothing of it.”
So, a protective relationship can be effective at warding off invasion by its absence, as in the case of Liechtenstein, or it can fail to prevent invasion, even if it is present, as in the case of Nagorno Karabakh. The effectiveness of a guardianship-style protective arrangement depends somewhat on who it is that is being protected, and who it is that is doing the protecting.
Whichever model might apply, no external guardian can protect a third-party nation from itself. This we already know. Kenya is deluding itself.
Haiti: a communist state modelled on Liechtenstein. Did you ever hear anything so bizarre ...? Haiti changed the course of history once. It can do so again.
Revisit Bellegarde. Revisit communism.
[KREYÒL ANBA]
Ayiti: yon eta kominis ki modele sou Liechtenstein?
Panse kreyatif pou yon pwoblèm ki pa ka rezoud
“Talè konsa nasyon eklere yo pral jije moun ki te dirije yo jiskaprezan. Wa yo pral kouri nan dezè yo, nan gwoup bèt sovaj yo sanble ak yo; epi Lanati pral reprann dwa li yo.”
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767-1794): Sur la constitution de la France, Discours prononcé à la Convention 24 avril 1793
Ki kote Ayiti prale? Modèl kominis la nan ... Liechtenstein?
Sa ki te fè Ayiti pèl Zantiy yo sete sik, indigo, tabak ak kafe. Rekòt lajan kach sa yo te fè kolonyalis franse yo ak pwopriyetè plantasyon yo rich pi lwen pase imajinasyon yo. Pwoblèm nan ak rentabilité nan rekòt sa yo se ke li depann de esklavaj, sou yon pewòl zewo.
Sa a se aktyèlman pa vre: fatra! Pa te gen okenn kondisyon zewo-pewòl nan Saint-Domengue, jis ogmante pwofi. Saint-Domengue te opere jisteman menm prensip ak endistri modèn. Sa ki ta dwe rive lè endepandans la se te yon chanjman nan alokasyon pwofi yo te sòti nan rekòt lajan kach sa yo, soti nan rapatriman an Frans, nan pataje pwofi ann Ayiti. Te gen ase pwofi pou peye yon mendèv—se pa t kòmsi, anba kolonyalis, pa t gen mendèv pou peye; li se tou senpleman ke mendèv la ki te la pa t ’jwenn peye. Malerezman, lè esklavaj te aboli nan Sendomeng, menm bagay la tou pa t ’pou travay fòse.
Lè ou travay pou tèt ou, travay endepandan, pa gen okenn pewòl. Chak machann vann sèl konnen sa. Ou ka bidjè depans ou yo ak pran ou yo ak desen ou yo tout sa ou vle, men chak komèsan sèl konnen ke desen yo konplètman depann sou sa ki rete. Ki sa ki te boulvèse Ayiti apre endepandans la se nosyon ke esklav emansipe yo te panse yo tout te kapab rich tankou yon mèt plantasyon franse. Soti nan soufrans pataje yo anvan Revolisyon an, atravè soufrans pataje yo nan batay yo pou emansipasyon ak lit pataje yo pou endepandans pa t ’vini yon sans de responsablite pataje ak efò pataje pou yon avni pataje. Kounye a, 2024, se moman pou yo gen reyalizasyon sa a.
Popilasyon an; popilasyon an; pèp la
Èske toujou gen mache pou kafe, tabak, sik ak indigo? Wi, kontwole pa gwo konglomera. Chak mache kontwole pa yon moun. Ou jis bezwen jwenn wout ou pi lwen pase baryè yo nan pénétration.
Ayiti gen yon popilasyon 11,3 milyon (sipèfisi 27.750 km. kare); Popilasyon Bèljik la se 11,7 milyon (sipèfisi 30.700 km. kare); Repiblik Dominikèn gen yon popilasyon 11,4 milyon (sipèfisi 48.700 km. kare). Sou baz estatistik kri sa yo, Ayiti pi sanble ak Bèljik pase Repiblik Dominikèn, vwazen dirèk li. Ekonomi Bèljik la se endistriyèl ak sèvis endistri ki baze sou, ak kontribisyon modès pa agrikilti ak touris. Bèljik se rich. Bèljik se kapitalis. Bèljik pa gen okenn kontwòl fwontyè pou vwazen li yo; Ayiti gen yon miray brik pou vwazen li yo. Si Ayiti se pou lonbrit-regade, Lè sa a, li pa bezwen gade twòp-zèl nan Bèljik la. Bèljik, yon lòt bò, pi sanble ak Repiblik Dominikèn pase ak Ayiti. Kidonk, èske Ayiti ka janm sanble ak Repiblik Dominikèn?
- Eske kapitalis viab ann Ayiti?
- Eske Ayiti ka gen yon siksè menm jan ak Repiblik Dominikèn?
- Èske miray Repiblik Dominikèn te bati atravè Ispanyola te sele sò Ayiti?
- Èske yon peyi ki gen 11 milyon dola ka fonksyone kòm yon kibboutz? Yon komin? Yon koperativ?
Yon popilasyon se yon konte tèt: li di w kantite moun ki nan yon liy trase sou yon kat, e pa gen anyen plis, byenke lè statistik yo avanse pou dekri ekonomi an, defans, enpòtasyon ak ekspòtasyon, mo popilasyon an kòmanse pran sou. yon siyifikasyon pi pwofon. Gen relijyon pataje, ak yon lang pataje. Gen yon istwa pataje ak yon cuisine pataje. Gen entèraksyon ak gen fyète, ki pa ka pa pataje, paske san sa, li pa fyète. Gen yon nosyon pataje ke nou travay pou viv epi nou viv pou pataje, paske pataje asire amenity ak trankilite. Pataje se prensip fondamantal pou tout egzistans imen ki baze sou kominote a. Relijyon, pataje sa yon moun genyen, bay benefis pou moun ki bay la. Pataje se baz kominite, kominite, komin, kominyon, res publica, bagay piblik.
Nan mond lan nan divèsite, li vo pran yon poz pou konsidere nan ki jan divèsite ka reyalize anvan yon eta de eksperyans pataje deja te rive. Èske divèsite kole, oswa èske li … divèsifye? Kèlkeswa sa li fè, sa Ayiti bezwen kounye a se koalesans. Li ka tann pou divèsite.
Si pa gen okenn rekonesans nan bezwen sa a pou pataje an Ayiti, Lè sa a, li pa gen avni. Li pral vire anndan sou tèt li epi li pral tounen yon kanon ki lach. Youn ki pral tire sèlman anndan, pa janm deyò. Ayiti se yon danje menm jan ak Larisi pou vwazen li yo. Gen yon miray nan lwès Larisi pou anpeche gaye inefikasite li yo, ki rele Òganizasyon Trete Nò Atlantik. Gen yon miray ki sou bò solèy leve Ayiti, pou anpeche pwopagasyon inefikalite li yo, yo rele Repiblik Dominikèn. Gen lanmè sou tout lòt kote Ayiti, ki pwoteje vwazen Ayiti yo kont foli li. Men, kisa Ayiti genyen nan fwontyè li pou pwoteje tèt li kont pwòp inefikasite l, ak pwòp foli pa l? Eske se desten Ayiti a, menm jan ak Titan submersible a: enplozyon?
Onz vigil twa milyon nanm. Si yo te abò yon bato ki frape, sou kòt Miami oswa k ap flote nan Oseyan Sid la, mond lan t ap voye avyon sekou ak bato ak bato sovtaj pou sekou nan sitiyasyon yo. Ki sa ki anpeche mond lan sekou nan mizè Ayiti a se pèsepsyon ke veso Ayiti a te frape pa pwòp okipan li yo. “Ayiti kraze kannòt li a.” P’ap gen ti tòde men andeyò Ayiti sou eta Ayiti ye kounye a.
Sa pa sèlman enjis, li pa jistifye. Mwen pa gen fennèt sou pèp Ayiti a, men mwen wè yo de lwen, sou YouTube ak nan jounal yo. Yo fleksib epi yo gen resous. Yo ka menm gen yon prezidan nan fè ki ale nan non Barbecue. Pa ranvwaye li: anpil prezidan atravè mond lan vini ak yon èd serye nan “Ki moun ki ta panse li?”, soti nan de Valera ak Putin. Ayisyen yo raple m yon kòmantè yon zanmi Bèlj te fè m yon fwa sou Gambia: “Peyi san espwa, gwo moun.”
Eta pèp la: eta pèp la
Revolisyon Bolchevik nan Larisi se te yon dechire pouvwa nan men gouvènman Repibliken an te enstale apre Tzar la te ranvèse. Ki sa ki kritik Inyon Sovyetik leve kòm yon premye objeksyon kont Bolchevik yo se totalitaris yo (Lenin a). Kominis se tèlman asosye ak move efè segondè ki soti nan aplikasyon li yo ke li te vin endissosib nan yo. Premye objeksyon an te toujou yon mank de libète, ak yon gwo pilye nan sipèvizyon ak kontwòl gouvènman an. Oke, sa ki Wikileaks ak Edward Snowden te revele depi lontan se ke Amerik opere yon Stasi-sosyete de tout fason, se konsa ke kapitalis pa gen okenn pwoteksyon kont sipèvizyon. Lè kominis te tonbe nan ane 1990 yo (yon lòt kote pase nan Lachin (nan chagren John Major) ak Kore di Nò), kapitalis yo te ri e analis yo te konkli ke, kòm yon sistèm leta, li te kondane a echèk depi nan kòmansman an, paske ideyalis li yo te vin inevitableman. yon cropper nan men yo nan nati imen ak ensten. Se vre, li an jeneral te fè. Men, pa mwens pase kapitalis, 30 ane pita.
Filozòf ak diplomat ayisyen Dantès Bellegarde te rejte kominis kòm yon modèl Ris ki pa ka fè pou Ayiti (kwake te baze sou yon teyori Alman). Li te pito dirije Ayiti nan direksyon kapitalis (ak moun ki fè sòs chili McIlhenny a, ki, an retou pou admirasyon li, te konsidere Bellegarde kòm anfòm sèlman pou kwaze juments).
Modèl lavni, ak ki modèl lavni an
Modèl kapitalis la te eseye, e te eseye ankò, an Ayiti, menm depi 17yèm syèk la, e li te echwe abjèkman lòt ke anba eta de opresyon nan ki li te libere nan 1791. Pandan 350 ane. Pa chache nye li: si Ayiti pa yon eta ki echwe, ebyen ki eta ki te janm ye?
Èske li tan pou eseye yon bagay nouvo? Pou w panse soti nan bwat ke Ayiti te vin tounen, yon bwat Pandora ke pèsonn pap ouvri? Pou eseye yon bagay ki, olye pou yo vize wo, pral vize ba, epi toujou reyalize yon bagay ki pi wo pase yon seri vas nan sosyete Ayiti a te kapab janm aspire a kounye a? Yon eksperyans nan fratènite? Koperasyon? Oto-èd? Imilite? Respè pwòp tèt ou? Edikasyon? Fyète?
Wout pou sòti nan maras Ayiti a se pa enpoze sou li respè. Men, pou antre nan li pwòp tèt ou respè.
- Oto-sifizans nan agrikilti, manje bouch li.
- Eksplwatasyon limyè-endistriyèl, pou mache ekspòtasyon yo.
- Devlopman solè ak van, pou sevre li nan bezwen li yo pou konbistib fosil.
- Responsab, gouvènman responsab.
- Saj mariman nan resous ra natirèl li yo nan iridyòm, lò, kwiv ak lwil oliv.
- Eksplwatasyon anbyans detann lanmè Karayib la pou atire touris sou bò lanmè sansasyonèl li yo. Yon dezyèm Repiblik Dominikèn, pou avanturyé endepandan. Safaris ak gou lokal ak konesans. Frape nan konesans ak eksperyans nan kouzen Afriken nan Senegal, Gambia, Kenya, Lafrik di sid.
Yon safari pa bezwen chèf lachas bèt sovaj. Men, li bezwen fè bèt sovaj yo soti nan Pòtoprens.
Modèl Liechtenstein/Ameni
Liechtenstein ak Ameni se de egzanp nasyon ki, sou pwòp demann yo, te anba pwoteksyon yon twazyèm eta. Men, ak rezilta diferan.
Liechtenstein te pèdi Premye Gè Mondyal la. Li te sou bò a nan Anpi Otrich-Ongri. Nan lapè Vèsay, Liechtenstein te mete deyò nan Otrich-Ongri e li pa t konnen ki kote pou l ale. Yo t'ap chache pwoteksyon peyi a pi piti-enperyalis nan lemonn antye: Swis. Yo te antre nan yon trete pwoteksyon ki wè Liechtenstein jodi a kòm yon eta pawas vwazen gadyen Swis li. Liechtenstein te tèlman anvi pwoteje tèt li kont vilnerabilite ke, nan Dezyèm Gè Mondyal la, li te refize pèmèt twoup Swis yo te estasyone la pou anpeche lame Alman yo. Liechtenstein te rete gratis nan Twazyèm Reich la, men li te pran yon jwèt aza pa entèdi pwòp lame li soti nan vini sou teritwa li yo defann li.
Yon lòt kote, ak pi resamman, Ameni te anba pwoteksyon Federasyon Larisi la lè Azerbaydjan te degèpi popilasyon Amenyen an nan Nagorno Karabakh an 2023. Azerbaydjan te pwolonje yon ekskiz bay Moskou pou lanmò twoup Ris ki te estasyone nan ganizon nan Ameni pou pwoteksyon li. Larisi te efektivman te di, “Pa panse anyen de li.”
Kidonk, yon relasyon pwoteksyon ka efikas nan anpeche envazyon pa absans li, tankou nan ka Liechtenstein, oswa li ka echwe pou anpeche envazyon, menm si li prezan, tankou nan ka Nagorno Karabakh. Efikasite yon aranjman pwoteksyon gadyen-style depann yon ti jan sou ki moun li ye ke yo te pwoteje, ak ki moun li ye ki fè pwoteksyon an.
Kèlkeswa modèl ki ka aplike, pa gen okenn gadyen ekstèn ki ka pwoteje yon nasyon twazyèm pati kont tèt li. Sa nou konnen deja. Kenya ap twonpe tèt li.
Ayiti: yon eta kominis ki modele sou Liechtenstein. Eske ou janm tande yon bagay dwòl konsa...? Ayiti chanje kou listwa yon fwa. Li ka fè sa ankò.
Revwar Bellegarde. Revwar kominis.