In this path-breaking work, Susan Buck-Morss draws new connections between history, inequality, social conflict, and human emancipation. _Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History_ offers a fundamental reinterpretation of Hegel's master-slave dialectic and points to a way forward to free critical theoretical practice from the prison-house of its own debates. Historicizing the thought of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the actions taken in the Haitian Revolution, Buck-Morss examines the startling connections between the two and challenges us to widen the boundaries of (...) our historical imagination. She finds that it is in the discontinuities of historical flow, the edges of human experience, and the unexpected linkages between cultures that the possibility to transcend limits is discovered. It is these flashes of clarity that open the potential for understanding in spite of cultural differences. What Buck-Morss proposes amounts to a “new humanism,” one that goes beyond the usual ideological implications of such a phrase to embrace a radical neutrality that insists on the permeability of the space between opposing sides and as it reaches for a common humanity. (shrink)

El objetivo de este texto es proponer una reflexión sobre las teorías sobre la cultura o de la literatura originaria en los diferentes países del Caribe y su presencia en los estudios literarios y culturales del continente. Dibujado con amplias pinceladas, tiene el objetivo de poner en claro el ensayo titulado La isla que se repite (1998) del cubano Antonio Benítez Rojo y, a partir de su lectura, nos aproximamos de la canción Haití, de Caetano Veloso y Gilberto Gil, grabada (...) originalmente en el CD Tropicalia II, de 1993.Los planteos de Benítez Rojo traen elementos que se encuentran en la base de nuestra cultura, marcada por la presencia de los negros y de su cultura por toda América. De cada área y de cada región brotó un tipo de música y ritmo que tiene como rasgo común constituirse en una voz contra la tiranía. El negro spiritual, entonado en las iglesias de América del norte, el jazz, el blues, el samba, el son, el tango, la rumba, la salsa, el merengue, la cumbia, prácticamente todas las expresiones musicales de América, están relacionadas con la música y el ritmo producido por los negros desde que, por primera vez, pusieron los pies en nuestro continente. (shrink)

Buscar-se-á analisar o Programa Pró-Haiti, ação afirmativa instituída pelo Governo Brasileiro para facilitar o ingresso de haitianos em algumas universidades públicas brasileiras, após o terremoto que afetou o Haiti em 2010. A discussão se dá em torno do atendimento ou não do princípio da igualdade e da justiça distributiva. A conclusão baseia-se na necessidade de o programa atender às políticas públicas, com o propósito de concretização da cidadania. O tema se justifica pela atualidade e por alcançar o interesse (...) de profissionais das áreas do Direito e de Relações Internacionais. Utilizar-se-á, como metodologia, a análise documental e bibliográfica. (shrink)

En este artículo analizaremos los posibles criterios epistemológicos que, en el contexto de la filosofía hegeliana de la historia mundial, circunscriben el largo proceso revolucionario haitiano en un no-lugar narrativo. Contrario al imaginario político, económico y cultural europeo de fines del siglo XVIII y comienzos del siglo XIX, que vio en la Revolución haitiana un acontecimiento que directa o indirectamente repercute en las transformación geopolítica global, en los discursos abolicionistas y en la flujos comerciales a través del Atlántico, Hegel parece (...) en principio desatender la especificidad del proceso, aunque, como sostenemos en este contexto, es posible rastrear los motivos de una exclusión deliberada que responder a una ideas precisas de libertad y terror que anteceden, y por tanto determinan, el lugar de la Revolución haitiana en la historia mundial. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Haiti Can't BreatheNéhémy Pierre-Dahomey (bio)Translated by David F. BellI'm not particularly familiar with recent politics in Haiti. Nor, as it were, with the contemporary history of the country. In some sense, the difference between recent politics and contemporary history is rather delicate. History would be the most profound social, political, and economic points of contention behind the daily lives of a population under siege. Not simply those (...) talked about while people travel in public transportation (Haitians talk a lot while in public transportation), but also the interpretive matrices mobilized to speak about these problems. As for current events, they are the province of newspaper headlines, those front pages and editorial pages most often read and shared, the public opinion machine.Of course, a few snippets of news come to me: the rise of kidnapping, political instability, the opposition declaring that the presidential mandate has ended, a government sponsored referendum to change the constitution, upcoming elections. As I write this piece (summer 2021), armed banditry is rife in many working-class neighborhoods. There are victims by the dozens nearly every day.As I was asking myself how best to express the bicentennial dyspnea of the Haitian people, I learned about the assassination of the president of the Republic in his private residence.Haiti could not breathe. Now it is suffocating.I recently published a novel entitled Combats (March 2021) in which the characters live in a nineteenth-century rural setting. They experience the full force of the first consequences provoked by the infamous independence debt, well understood by Haitians and analyzed by international specialists such as David Graeber and Thomas Piketty.After its independence in 1804, Haiti was not accepted into the concert of nations. The country, founded by hordes of previously enslaved Blacks and by freed Mulattos, was a bad example, a model not to be emulated so geographically near a slave society, the United States, and the Antilles belonging to France. No economic power, that is, no white country defining itself as such, recognized the independence of the new Black, abolitionist, and egalitarian population. The isolation of Haiti thus began at the very moment of its foundation. [End Page 165]In a vain attempt to escape the embargo and to construct a collective destiny at the international level, Haiti accepted a colossal debt imposed on it by France. Charles X, king of France and Navarre, forced Jean-Pierre Boyer, supreme leader of the Haitian nation, to assume the responsibility for a ransom of 120 million francs. The economist Thomas Piketty calculates that this was equivalent to 28 billion euros in today's currency. David Graeber, in his Debt: The First 500 Years, considers it to be the most egregious debt in history. In truth, for Haitians, this strange transaction consisted in buying lands they had already conquered in their independence struggle, having taken them from the previous colonial settlers representing the French state.Since the previously emancipated ancestors were considered the colonial settlers' property, Haitians, under threat from the French army, assumed the weight of this debt, which really consisted in purchasing—from their previous torturers—their very persons and those of their grandparents. In other words, after the war of independence, begun by Black Maroons as soon as they arrived on the island of Haiti, pursued by Toussaint Louverture against slavery, brought successfully to a conclusion by Jean Jacques Dessalines through victorious military battles (November 1803 at Vertières, for example), after this long road toward emancipation, France, supported by all the foreign powers of the period, extracted from Haiti recognition of the debt in 1826, that is, during the first half of the nineteenth century, at the very moment when the independent countries of the world were beginning to undergo a massive industrialization.Haiti clearly missed out on this entrance into the industrial age of the steam engine. It remained an "essentially agricultural" country because every year it had to pay debt service—including interest—every year until the second half of the 20th century!Like many others I saw the images of the white man, Derek Chauvin, resting his knee on George Floyd's neck for eight... (shrink)

In this path-breaking work, Susan Buck-Morss draws new connections between history, inequality, social conflict, and human emancipation.

La langue française se trouve dans une situation ambiguë en Haïti. Isolée par rapport au créole, concurrencée par la montée en puissance de l'anglais, elle fait montre cependant d'une étonnante vitalité caractérisée par la créativité des écrivains haïtiens et l'originalité de leur production par rapport à tout modèle. On assiste depuis une vingtaine d'années à un double mouvement de promotion du créole comme langue officielle et de culture, tandis que le français, longtemps apanage d'une mince élite descend également dans la (...) rue et sert de moyen d'expression à une génération florissante de jeunes talents.French, as a language, is in an ambiguous situation in Haïti. The majority of the population hardly understands it. It is isolated on the island and in the Caribbean because most of the neighbour countries speak English or Spanish. Yet French is part of the national heritage. The new wave of young talented authors use both French and Creole and constitutes a chance for French to become more than a tool for the dictators but a source of inspiration as well. (shrink)

Dans votre conférence inaugurale au Collège de France en 2019, « Urgence(s) d’écrire, rêve(s) d’habiter », vous avez souligné les liens entre la littérature et l’histoire d’Haïti et, à la fin de votre conférence, vous avez évoqué la spécificité des poésies et des romans écrits par des femmes. Ce sont ces deux points que nous allons principalement développer dans cet entretien réalisé par écrit. Clara Palmiste & Michelle Zancarini-Fournel : On affirme souvent aujourd’hui que la littérature per...

This work, using the case study of the Haitian Revolution, positions Paul C. Mocombe’s theory of antidialectic within Hegel’s dialectical reasoning. Mocombe posits that the antidialectical position in Hegel’s dialectic is the position of each selfconsciousness when they initially encounter each other at the onset of the master/slave dialectic. Whereas, the master seeks to move to the dialectical position in order to dominate and eliminate the original (antidialectical) position of the slave, the slave remains in this antidialectical position so long (...) as they accept death and seek to fight against their enslavement for the purpose of maintaining and reproducing their original, antidialectical, position, which is social, political, economic, and ideological. In any other instances, they (the slaves) are either in the dialectical, seeking to maintain the status quo, or negative dialectical, seeking to integrate the status quo on equal footing with the master, positions. (shrink)

_Resumo_ Este artigo tem por objetivo problematizar a ideia de ser a América Latina um espaço do _puro contingente_, como defende o filósofo argentino Enrique Dussel. Recorrendo a um evento extraordinário do século XIX, a Revolução Haitiana, defendemos a ideia que, mesmo no espaço colonial, é possível encontrar a circulação e a defesa de ideias universais. Mais do que isso, essa revolução apresenta um bom exemplo de como podemos refletir sobre a _universalidade hegeliana_, elaborada por dois grandes pensadores contemporâneos: Susan (...) Buck-Morss e Slavoj Žižek. _ _ _Palavras-chave: _Dussel; Buck-Morss; Žižek; universalidade hegeliana. _ _ _Abstract_ _ _ This article aims to problematize the idea of Latin America being a space of _pure contingent_, as defended by the Argentine philosopher Enrique Dussel. Using an extraordinary event from the 19th century, the Haitian Revolution, we defend the idea that, even in the colonial space, it is possible to find the circulation and defense of universal ideas. More than that, this revolution presents a good example of how we can reflect on the _Hegelian universality_, elaborated by two great contemporary thinkers: Susan Buck-Morss and Slavoj Žižek. _ _ _Key-words: _Dussel; Buck-Morss; Žižek; hegelian universality. _ _. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:How was Haiti?Sadath Sayeed"She smelled of milk and urine. Chacko marveled at how someone so small and undefined, so vague in her resemblances, could so completely command the attention, the love, the sanity of a grown man."—Arundhati Roy from The God of Small ThingsFather and SonTwenty minutes before I was to be taxied to the airport in Port-au-Prince, the baby boy handed to me did not breathe continuously. (...) He didn't breathe at all. Born a few hours earlier at home—probably in one of the hundreds of make-shift tent cities. I did ask if the baby cried after he came out of mom. Yes. He didn't suckle well and stopped crying. Dad decided to get help. Climbed onto a moped with his baby wrapped in a blanket. Must have tucked him under one arm and rode between piles of rubble to the closest health care facility.People at this other place tried to help his baby boy breathe. They pushed air into his mouth like you are doing. After a few minutes, they said that they couldn't help anymore."Go to the University hospital."From a shirt sleeve pocket, he pulled a crumpled white piece of paper with some writing scribbled on it. I gathered it documented this last visit. They took the time to hand him a note before they sent him on his way.What did Dad think? Thanks for the note. Okay, now what? Swaddle my baby. Tuck him under one arm. Hop on my moped.Strained ResourcesL'Université d'État d'Haïti has been the main teaching hospital for all of the country for decades. Many, if not most, formally trained Haitian health care providers have spent some time in Port-au-Prince at this institution. As important as it is, it has suffered from neglect over many, many years. The earthquake made matters exponentially worse. [End Page 98]Dad must have been directed to the pediatric service when he arrived. There, a few Haitian pediatric residents and nurses were doing what they did every morning. Tending to an overcrowded patient population of babies, children, and parents. The pediatrics building was left uninhabitable. All inpatient and outpatient care took place on a street where the tents had been erected.In the ICU, tent twenty beds filled a space probably meant for ten military style cots. Metal cribs and full adult hospital beds were jammed next to one another to fill every possible nook. Parents slept on the adult beds with their sick children or underneath the cribs. Siblings too. Outside, hundreds of parents would line up starting at six a.m. and stand in line for hours so that they could get their children seen in a couple of smaller tents that were used to run the outpatient clinics. Moms would fan their kids under the shade of trees on the side of the road. Feed them some milk or juice while they waited. Smile at us passers-by. They seemed to possess a bottomless well of patience.Power cords with extension wires littered the street-hospital floor under the canopy.When it rained, we were only modestly concerned about electrocution. A single 1950's style metal desk with two worn out chairs greeted visitors to the entry way and was usually occupied by some of the medical staff. A single, large metal fan that had collected enough dust and soot in its circular cage to look bearded hummed a breeze toward the desk.A bottomless well of patience and resiliency. In the popular media, this last word has been thrown around a lot to describe the character of the Haitian people. It is insufficient. Their adversity is truly absurd. Sense cannot be made of the scene in the pediatrics tents months after the earthquake struck, nor elsewhere on that campus, let alone outside its walls.The local medical staff hadn't been paid a dime in many months even prior to the earthquake. They suffered unimaginable losses during the earthquake. They still came to work."We love our children. They love us too."What so many of us think of as charity... (shrink)

Reviewing what was taking place in Haiti shortly after Clinton "restored democracy" in 1994, I was compelled to conclude, unhappily, in Z Magazine that "It would not be very surprising, then, if the Haitian operations become another catastrophe," and if so, "It is not a difficult chore to trot out the familiar phrases that will explain the failure of our mission of benevolence in this failed society." The reasons were evident to anyone who chose to look. And the familiar (...) phrases again resound, sadly and predictably. (shrink)

The Five Senses of Haiti discusses a series of medical mission trips by physicians and medical students to the Central Plateau of Haiti delivering care in the outpatient setting. Practitioners describe their experiences through the use of their five senses to draw contrast between modern health care and medical practice in the developing world. Physicians in a resource poor setting are left without the usual diagnostic armamentarium and the safeguards and distractions of the modern hospital setting. This deficit (...) creates an opportunity to devote time and focus to individual patients. Practicing medicine in this context clinicians use a heightened sense of awareness and increase their reliance on physical exam findings. Global medicine creates an opportunity for medical students to learn and physicians out of training to practice overlooked physical exam skills in the modern era. Physical exam findings and patient care yield diagnoses and fosters the bonds of the doctor-patient relationship. (shrink)

This paper addresses the silence about the Haitian revolution in the oeuvre of Karl Marx. He, who regarded revolutions as “locomotives of world history,” ignored the history of the revolution in Haiti and remained silent about its protagonists. In a brief approach to this paradox, I argue that the main reason for this blank space was Marx’s deficient analysis of contemporary racism. This is made clear in relation to 1) his acceptance of the biological meaning of race, 2) his (...) involvement in two main racisms of the time, antisemitism and colonial racism, and 3) his differentiation and gradation of historical subjects. The consequences were dramatic not because of Marx’s involvement in the racist zeitgeist but insofar as his learning process with regard to the relevance of anti-colonial movements and his awareness of negative societalization as well as its significance were not reflected in a theory of racism. This was to prove a debacle for subsequent attempts at a Marxist analysis of racism and has had effects that are still evident today. (shrink)

El artículo presenta una descripción sobre las estructuras coloniales hasta el siglo XVIII, alude a las reformas borbónicas para centrarse posteriormente en la Revolución de Haití de finales de ese siglo y comienzos del siglo XIX con el fin de determinar su influencia en el pensamiento republicano de Simón Bolívar. Se argumenta que la liberación de los esclavos, la eliminación de todo tipo de servidumbre, al igual que otros principios del republicanismo, son tomados por Bolívar de la Revolución haitiana más (...) que del pensamiento político ilustrado francés e inglés. Se sostiene, finalmente, que la apuesta de Bolívar constituye un clásico ejemplo de la lucha por la expansión democrática de los derechos donde la educación, la virtud cívica, la lucha contra la corrupción y la búsqueda de sociedades más igualitarias son constitutivas del republicanismo. (shrink)

This teaching case study poses classic questions about following orders versus serving one's conscience. It tracks the actions of Captain Lawrence Rockwood, an intelligence officer with the Tenth Mountain Division of the United States Army, who was sent to Haiti in September 1994 as part of the mission to oust the dictator Cedras and put the elected Aristide in power. Captain Rockwood felt that his conscience, his humanitarian duty and international law all required that he inspect the National Penitentiary (...) where, intelligence reports showed, political prisoners were being tortured and murdered. His chain of command was unanimous in refusing him permission to inspect the prison and in directing that he do nothing that would endanger fragile relations with the peacefully departing Cedras regime. The case is intended for use in courses on force and justice, for ethics and leadership classes at military academies, at chaplaincy schools and seminaries or in classes on law of war and international law, civil-military relations, peacekeeping and new missions for the military. (shrink)

Medicine and morality in rural Haiti are shaped both by different local religious traditions and by biomedical and folk medicine practices. People who become ill may seek treatment from Western doctors, but also from herbalists and religious leaders. This study examines the decisions guiding such choices, and considers moral issues arising in a society where suffering is associated with guilt but where different, sometimes conflicting, ethical systems coexist. It also reveals how in the crisis of illness people rework religious (...) identities and are forced to address fundamental social and political problems. (shrink)

Whenever fellow humans suffer due to natural catastrophes, we have a duty to help them. This duty is not only acknowledged in moral theory, but also expressed in ordinary people’s reactions to phenomena such as tsunamis, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Despite being widely acknowledged, this duty is also widely disputed: some believe it is a matter of justice, others a matter of charity. Although central to debates in international political theory, the distinction between justice and charity is hardly ever systematically drawn. (...) To fill this gap in the literature, I consider three accounts of this distinction, the ‘Agent-based’, the ‘Recipient-based’, and the ‘Mixed’ View, and argue that they are all unsatisfactory. I then offer a fourth alternative, the ‘Autonomy’ View, which successfully overcomes the difficulties affecting its rivals. I conclude by considering the implications of this view for the moral grounds of disaster relief in earthquake-stricken Haiti, New Zealand, and Japan. (shrink)

Rather than considering the modernist aesthetic of primitivism as singular, this article contends that there are multiple and diverse primitivist projects. Each of these speaks to its historical co...

During the summer of 2021, Jovenel Moïse, Haiti’s 58th president, succumbed to an internationally-coordinated assassination attempt carried out by Columbian mercenaries, and others. The head of state sustained a broken femur, fractured skull, and gunshot wounds, among other signs of trauma. Furthermore, his wife of 25 years, Martine, clung to life nearby, gravely-injured and pretending to have expired. This piece, at first, highlights the effects of foreign intervention on Haitian history. It then pinpoints the compounded obstacles that Haitian leadership (...) must surmount in placing Haiti on a path toward prosperity. Some of the points made pertain to the way(s) in which Haiti’s crisis began in the late 1400’s, when Spain’s Catholic Monarchs funded Columbus’s search for new trade routes to lands east of Europe. Conclusively, this work details how, in 1804, amidst a sea of hostility, Haiti proclaimed its independence as the world’s first Black-led republic, inspiring slave revolts throughout the world and majorly contributing toward U.S. expansion, through compelling France’s sale of the Louisiana Territory. (shrink)

This article explores the idea of community and ‘internal concord’ in a radically divided, post-independence Haiti. As the country negotiated the process of decolonization from France, Haitian political writings and speeches repeatedly returned to the problem of how a truly united Haiti might be envisaged. These reworkings of the idea of community were instrumental in the work of postcolonial nation-building in Haiti in the first half of the nineteenth century. Yet the publication of Haiti's Rural Code (...) in 1826 gives a different perspective on the process of national construction of community through work, particularly agricultural labour. The article seeks to look beyond the ideals of unity and Concordia which were being vigorously proclaimed at the time, in order to understand the impact of questions of work and worklessness on political discourse surrounding the idea of postcolonial community in nineteenth-century Haiti. (shrink)

Natural disasters in populated areas may result in massive casualties and extensive destruction of infrastructure. Humanitarian aid delegations may have to cope with the complicated issue of patient prioritization under conditions of severe resource scarcity. A triage model, consisting of five principles, is proposed for the prioritization of patients, and it is argued that rational and reasonable agents would agree upon them. The Israel Defense Force's humanitarian mission to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake serves as a case study for (...) the various considerations taken into account when designing the ethical-clinical policy of field hospitals. The discussion focuses on three applications: the decision to include an intensive care unit, the decision to include obstetrics and neonatal units, and the treatment policy for compound fractures. (shrink)

Abstract:ABSTRACTOn January 12, 2010, an earthquake in Haiti sent shockwaves across the world, triggering an unprecedented international response. In the months that followed, international news, legal, development, human rights, and solidarity agencies highlighted the issue of gender-based violence, which has by all accounts increased since the earthquake. Despite activists' nuanced understanding and efforts, official responses have been inadequate while reproducing troubling, albeit familiar, discourses that tend to trigger either denial or demonization. This article aims to address this situation by (...) offering necessary context, grounding violence in Haitian women's own analyses, before and after the earthquake. To understand the narratives and realities Haitian women face, it is critical to first understand structural violence, the long-term, often invisible system of inequality and poverty and how structural violence intersects with intersectionality, the multiple forms of oppression based on distinct but overlapping identities, such as of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, and parental status. As in other contexts, these pre-existing gender inequalities rendered Haitian women more vulnerable to disasters. Through the testimonies and lived realities of Haitian women, this article highlights the continuities and argues for the need for intersectional interventions grounded in Haitian women's own lived experiences and priorities. (shrink)

Durant ces dernières années, le comportement sexuel des jeunes femmes dans les pays en voie de développement occupe une place de plus en plus importante dans les programmes de santé reproductive. En effet, à Haïti, par exemple, près de 35 % d’entre elles ont deux partenaires sexuels ou plus, ce qui a des conséquences fâcheuses tant sur la jeune fille que sur son environnement. L’objectif de cet article est d’identifier les différents facteurs socio-économiques qui influencent le multipartenariat sexuel chez les (...) jeunes femmes à Haïti. Les données utilisées dans le cadre de ce présent article proviennent de la dernière Enquête démographique et de santé (2017) et ont fait l’objet d’une analyse univariée et d’une analyse multivariée à travers un modèle logit. De ces analyses, il ressort que les variables « milieu de résidence », « niveau d’éducation », « religion », « niveau de vie », « accès à Internet » et « statut matrimonial » sont les facteurs clés dans l’explication du multipartenariat sexuel observé chez les jeunes filles à Haïti. (shrink)

This article develops Celia Britton's insights into community in French Caribbean writing in two ways. First, it considers Jacques Roumain's Gouverneurs de la rosée and its image of community in the broader context of modern and contemporary Haitian fiction; and second it discusses representations of community in two Haitian works written after the earthquake of 2010, an event that literally destroyed many communities and has forced Haitian authors to rethink relationships between different groups in Haiti and between human life, (...) the cities, nature and the land. (shrink)