When I read this article, i thought the USA was the only one with a crappy foreign policy against Haiti… It seems, our brethren up north have been following our lead… or have we been following theirs?

http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?x=36296
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Canada’s role in Haiti is ‘destructive’

by Yves Engler
January 13, 2005

January 1 was the 201st birthday of the first nation of free people in the Americas. Its citizens are descendents of the only successful slave rebellion in human history.

The country is of course Haiti, which in its 201st year finds itself occupied, not just by International Monetary Fund or World Bank policymakers, but by well-armed foreign soldiers. Some in the international community want to deepen and extend this occupation. They call it making Haiti a UN protectorate.

All this, it should be noted, follows last February’s foreign-orchestrated overthrow of Haiti’s constitutional order: the elected president and hundreds of elected mayors, council members and senators throughout the country were forced from office. The poor — especially those associated with ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas party — have been the primary victims of the recent upheaval. Food prices have skyrocketed, thousands of government workers fired, and thousands more jailed or killed.

The Canadian government, through the Ottawa initiative and soldiers sent to “secure” the airport the night Aristide was forced out of the country, has played no small role in orchestrating Haiti’s recent social/humanitarian disaster. Fortunately, however, our country is not preordained to play a destructive role in Haiti, even if we have an under-acknowledged colonial legacy.

On a recent trip to Haiti, I found that many people were perplexed by Canada’s current policy towards their country. Those I talked to generally had positive things to say about Canada’s role after the 1994 restoration of Aristide. Some people asked if Canada’s Haiti policy changed because Paul Martin took power. Others pointed out that it might be Ottawa trying to curry favour with Washington after not (officially) joining the Iraq debacle. (One person thought it might have something to do with Canada never having its own colonies: Haiti is just the right size, he said.) Whatever our government’s motives, the Haitians I talked to all said Canada is currently playing a destructive role in their country.

Ten months of Canadian-backed terror against the poor of the hemisphere’s poorest country is enough. It’s time to change our government’s anti-democratic and élite-friendly policies in Haiti. Haiti solidarity activism, which has been slow to take off, should become the Canadian left’s top foreign policy concern.

Why Haiti more than other conflicts?

Canada also has a significant presence in Afghanistan but the domestic situation there is substantially more complex. The occupation in Afghanistan is not so clearly anti-poor or anti-democratic. The constitutional order Canada helped overthrow in Haiti represented the poor majority and it is the poor who currently face the brunt of the repression.

Opposition to Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine is critical but U.S. opinion/action is of overwhelming importance to change. Successful Canadian solidarity work could (and should) move Canada towards the position of the rest of the world: condemning Israeli policy at the UN, which would certainly be of some help to Palestinians. But without the U.S. halting its vast sums of military aid and continuous UN vetoes it’s unlikely that the Canadian left could accomplish a great deal more.

Iraq is clearly a larger humanitarian catastrophe than Haiti but again we have little control over Iraq’s destiny. In Haiti, on the other hand, Canada is acting aggressively to legitimize the murderous installed regime by giving cash, through Paul Martin’s recent visit and by playing host to the recent Montreal conference with some of the Haitian Diaspora. Canada is also in charge of the entire 1600-member UN police force. The UN police are coordinating with the Haitian police — increasingly reconstituted with former military officers — that are responsible for a large number of the political assassinations.

In our age of “war on terror” the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine obviously take on an even greater political significance than the immense suffering of those countries’ inhabitants. The conflicts contribute to racism against Arabs and Muslims in Canada, for example (all those anti-Arab rants in the Asper-owned papers.).

In the same way, the overthrow of Haiti’s elected government and the recent deterioration of living conditions are intertwined with deep-seated racism. Mainstream reporting about Haiti has a significant undercurrent of “look at those poor blacks unable to govern themselves.” The discussion about turning Haiti into a UN protectorate is just the extension of this racist idea. (Iraq is stable enough for elections but Haiti isn’t?).

More fundamentally, it’s not a coincidence that the campaign to de-stabilize the country gained momentum as Haiti prepared to celebrate 200-years of independence. The world’s powers have never taken kindly to Haitian independence; not when slaves defeated the English, Spanish and French empires between 1791 and 1804 nor when the Lavalas government broke ties between Haiti’s police and the U.S. in 1999. (This came four years after the Army, created by the U.S. during its occupation of 1915-1934, was disbanded.)

Haiti’s anti-colonial, pro-black and anti-oppression symbolism is an integral part of its history. The slave-holding nations, hoping to crush its example, refused to recognize its independence. For 60 years the U.S. refused recognition and the colony of Canada, with slaves in Montreal until 1834, wasn’t a great deal kinder.

The right, especially the active white supremacist elements in the Republican Party, have used Haiti to advance their racist world view. But the left, aside from a few black Pan-Africanists, has done little to combat the right’s racism toward Haiti and has mostly forgotten any connection with Haiti’s inspiring example of human liberation.

“Brothers and friends, I am Toussaint L’Ouverture, my name is perhaps known to you. I have undertaken vengeance. I want liberty and equality to reign in San Domingo.”

How many of us have read about Toussaint L’Ouverture? Or the slaves who liberated themselves, their island and provided support for Latin American independence? Our children should learn about Haiti’s shining example of fighting human oppression, not just about how that country is very poor.

If we want to move forward with our struggle for liberation we need to be grounded in our successes. All the more so when right-wing forces use Haiti’s successful slave rebellion to humiliate and destroy its people today.

Haiti’s social movements, I was told by people there, have enough strength to once again overcome the country’s small élite and create a more just system. But foreign powers are interfering and supporting Haiti’s élite, moving the balance of powers in the élite’s favour. That is why our solidarity is of utmost importance.

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For those interested in organizing or taking part in demonstrations (planned for Saturday, February 26) in Canada or throughout the world commemorating the one year anniversary of the overthrow of Haiti’s constitutional order get in touch with Anthony at afenton@riseup.net.

For those interested in bringing Haitian speakers to Canada or the northeast of the U.S. get in touch with Yves at (514) 807-9037 or yvesengler@hotmail.com.

A little something for the culturally-inclined among us…

We are all Documentarians
By: Hadji Williams

Back in 1999, I taught a college class on marketing and pop culture. I asked every student to bring in their favorite CD because music is a major gateway into a people’s culture; and in order to market to a people you have to understand them and understanding their music is a great place to start. The plan was for everyone to bring in something they were into—ideally everyone’s tastes was a little different—and we’d all learn a little bit about each other then discuss how those insights could apply to marketing.

As the teacher, I brought in my favorite CD at the time—Slick Rick’s The Art of Storytelling. When it was my turn to play my CD I rushed to the end and cranked up the live version of Lodi Dodi and let it bang. As Rick flowed eccentric, the entire class just gawked at the speakers like it was alien talking. Out of about 25 students around 20 were white and all were under 25. They had no clue who or what they were hearing. Not one of ‘em.

About halfway thru the cut “Kelly”, this little blonde girl who couldn’t have been more than 20 smiles all knowingly then screams out, “That’s the ‘Snoop Dogg song’!” A couple other kids chime in with “oh yeah, she’s right” and a couple knowing head nods. She continues, “Why is this guy singing Snoop Dogg’s song?”

I tried explaining that Snoop Dogg’s Lodi Dodi was a cover (a bad one at that) of one of the 3 or 4 greatest songs in the last quarter century but they weren’t hearing it. They knew what they knew and they knew Lodi Dodi was Snoop Dogg’s. Period. And what’s worse is they were then and now, no different from millions of folks who are filled with misconceptions about our culture and communities. Anyway, that’s when I first realized that black folks and the hiphop community at large has to be responsible for documenting and preserving its culture and artforms itself.

“We have an overarching goal–the world of
manifold civilizations animated by the vision of cultural equity.’’
—Alan Lomax, 1977

Last year, I dropped a joint called, “Will the real Documentarians please stand up?” I spent much of that piece complaining about how mainstream America and corporations were misrepresenting our culture and communities. Well, this year I’d like to try something different.

Number One: Stop blaming the obvious. As people of color we (myself included) have to stop blaming white people (or most of them), corporations and the mainstream media for portraying our cultures and communities in negative light. Why? Because for the most part, they’ve established a good 600-year plus track record of marginalizing and commoditizing communities and cultures of color at almost every turn; and that’s just on this continent alone. At some point, being surprised or just angry about something that’s par for the course just becomes a waste of energy.

Number Two: Define yourself first. As black folks, Native Americans and Hispanics, we should all be able to agree on at least one thing: If you don’t tell your story someone else will tell it for you; and if they’re not part of your community and don’t respect your community, they will tell your story wrong until you force them to do otherwise. Consequently instead of waiting for Viacom, Condè Nast, Clear Channel, Rolling Stone, etc. to get it right, we need to commit to getting it right ourselves and stop relying on them to do something they have no interest in ever doing.

Number Two (a): Stop supporting those who co-opt and misrepresent us. This one’s easy to me. When we see niggers, bitches, hoes, pimps, etc. in the media, we need to stop supporting those outlets. We need to take our dollars and patronage to outlets willing to portray us in three dimensions, just as they do with whites and other communities.

Number Three: We need to demand better of ourselves as artists, as consumers and as individuals. One of the reasons you see a lot of clowns in the media, is because unfortunately, we keep giving them a lot of clowns to choose from. When you drop that 16 filled with negativity or that video filled with hoes, you give everyone that’s against you an opportunity to say, “See, I told you so… That’s how they are!”

Number Four: Educate. We have to commit to educating those outside of our communities about what we truly are. And most importantly, we have to refuse to accept their ignorance or arrogance for getting things wrong. Teach those who want to learn and destroy the lies of those who want nothing more than to spread them.

The kids in my class lacked knowledge because of the ignorance of their community. They spread their ignorance because some people just arrogant enough think they have the right to speak for everybody, hence, most of the crap you see in the media and history books, etc.

As people I believe that our first mission is to love God, next– love each other; and lastly: love our culture and communities. So my mission for 2005 and beyond is to respect, embrace and document my culture and wherever the opportunity allows, help others do the same. As a writer and author, my contribution will obviously start with my pen. But whether you’re a DJ, an emcee, a B-Boy/B-Girl, a graf writer a fashion designer, a writer or whomever, we all play a role in documenting preserving and elevating our culture. And again, because all of us are consumers each and every one of us can play the greatest role in this by simply supporting those who are doing it right and refusing to support those who do otherwise.

Don’t sleep; we are all Documentarians. We are all vessels for our heritages. We are all contributors to our culture. We are all recipients of those who came before us and struggled and sacrifices. We are all part of the same family. Consequently, we all have a responsibility to make sure that we as individuals and as communities are portrayed properly. We are responsible for what we leave behind. We’re the only ones that will ensure that our respective cultures, artforms and heritages are properly preserved and passed on. If we don’t take control of our culture and tell our stories someone else will—and it will be same folks who think Snoop Dogg wrote Lodi Dodi.

“Practical men often regard these expressive systems as doomed and valueless. Yet, wherever the principle of cultural equity comes into play, these creative wellsprings begin to flow again…even in this industrial age, folk traditions can come vigorously back to life, can raise community morale, and give birth to new forms if they have time and room to grow in their own communities. The work in this field must be done with tender and loving concern… This concern must be knowledgeable, both about the fit of each genre to its local context and about its roots in one or more of the great stylistic traditions of humankind.”
—Alan Lomax

Hadji Williams is author of KNOCK THE HUSTLE: HOW TO SAVE YOUR JOB AND YOUR LIFE FROM CORPORATE AMERICA, (www.knockthehustle.com, coming March 2005.) It’s hiphop’s first success guide for business, culture and life. Email him at: author@knockthehustle.com.