Is there a racist conspiracy to keep Haiti in ruins?
Haiti in the 18th century was a slave island. People like You and I were kidnapped and then forced to work under such grueling conditions that most died within 8 years.
Haiti however freed itself from the yoke of Napoleon Bonaparte and France. A slave army that defeated one of the most capable Generals/Strategists in history.
Is there currently or in the past a understanding among white countries to destroy Haiti as revenge of their audacity to free themselves?
Please, only participate if you are a serious person as this is a very serious subject.
I’m French so I can tell you we don’t learn about Haïti in History class. I was curious some time ago so I did a bit of research about it. It was quite inspiring to see that the young independent nation was actually prosperous in its early years. But being a small island-country is hard, even more so when you have to pay a debt of 150M francs to France ($560M today). I wouldn’t say Haïti’s misery is maintained by racism today, but by the ravages of past imperialism. And in the 1800s, racism was more a justification for colonisation rather than the discrimination/segregation we see since the 20th century.
Interesting, so we can rule out at least that the general public has any cause to hate Haiti? Have you ever heard anybody in France express a desire for revenge against Haiti?
No I’ve never met a French person who hates Haiti for becoming independent. There might be 1 or 2 die-hard bonapartists like that somewhere, but we just see them as a lunatic minority like the other monarchists. Most people don’t even remember Haiti being part of France. But there are still a lot of nostalgics of French Algeria and other former African colonies. And boy that’s very cringe for our diplomatic relations sometimes!
I will say that living in an imperial core, the understanding of the world we receive is almost ahistorical and blind to any analysis of power. We are not taught about the IMF and we are blind to countries/communities that our systems control. Haiti is just an island of poor people we don’t think about unless there is a call for donations or someone goes on a “charity trip” (morality puff vacation).
There is an intentional wall between people in the imperial core and the imperial periphery - maybe because when we learn about how our governments and corporations actually work we oppose them. But a lot of people choose willful ignorance for sure. Worse than hate or revenge, the general populace is taught to not care - would be too inspirational to care.
From the IMF’s and France’s perspective, they have subverted and recuperated the Haitian revolution. Welcome to client statehood.
It will take solidarity across national, racial, religious, etc lines to undo the harms of colonialism/neocolonialism and white supremacy.
I wonder what happens to people who try to make it so?