Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
This gives you an entry into any number of facets of Haitian life. Because it is really a compilation of around 180 extracts on Haiti, many written by Haitians. So you get a real sense of Haiti’s history, politics, religion, social life and culture. Charles Arthur and Michael Dash are two experts on Haiti who wrote a very good introduction to each chapter, which taken together would make a worthy book in its own right.
Your next book is Libète, an anthology compiled and edited by Charles Arthur and Michael Dash.
This book is a deeper introduction to Haiti. It really gives you an entry into any number of facets of Haitian life because it is really a compilation of around 180 extracts on Haiti, many written by Haitians. So you get a real sense of Haiti’s history, politics, religion, social life and culture. Charles Arthur and Michael Dash are two experts on Haiti who wrote a very good introduction to each chapter, which taken together would make a worthy book in its own right.
It has also got excellent bibliographical information for people who want to find out more on matters such as voodoo or the true reasons for Haiti’s poverty. Little-known historical facts are illuminated – for example the efforts by the British to snatch the French colony during the revolution. A lot of people in the UK have absolutely no idea that most of 20,000 British soldiers died in one of the most disastrous military expeditions in Britain’s colonial history. Most of them were killed by yellow fever, admittedly – but the whole story of the Haitian slave army is a remarkable bit of history.
So, this really is an excellent introduction to the many different sides of Haiti. For example, the decline of the peasant economy and the environmental degradation are very clearly explained in chapter three. This is followed logically in the next chapter which sets out the problems of life in the slums and the underpaid assembly sector, all of which gives a very good analysis of why Haiti is economically as poor as it is. Yet the book also describes the richness of its culture which is quite distinct from other Caribbean islands!
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Christian Wisskirchen has worked on Haiti since 1991. In 1992 he was among the founders of Haiti Support Group, which has become the leading pressure and solidarity group on Haiti in the UK. He is now chairman. He wrote a dissertation on the Haitian boat people (refugees) in 1994 and worked as a UN Human Rights Officer in Haiti in 1995. He is also head of International Relations of the Bar Council of England and Wales. During the US occupation from 1915-1945 Haitian uprisings were brutally suppressed, he says. For example, a Haitian worker in a forced labour gang set up by the US forces was murdered in cold blood when he was considered lazy by one of the guards. During that period the US restructured the Haitian army to become an oppressive tool for its foreign policy objectives in Haiti for decades to follow, and that was only ended by the dismissal of the army by President Aristide in 1995 (who was overthrown also by officers trained by the US army, at the notorious Fort Benson ‘School of the Americas’).
