HaitiAnalysis.com

"Live Free or Die", Jean-Jacques Dessalines once told his battle-hardened soldiers.

Haiti's independence struggle led by leaders such as Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines remains sketched in the collective historical memory, recited in music and schools of the poor.

Haitians often attach great importance to this day of independence, but rarely are Bois-Caiman, the slave revolt in the north, or the decisive Battle of Vertières given such attention.

The great black strategist Toussaint Louverture for his resistance was kidnapped. Napoleon hoped that this would crush the slave rebellion. But the message of Toussaint did not fade as Jean-Jacques Dessalines took to the reigns of Haiti's defense.

Under the command of Dessalines, Haiti won its independence at the Battle of Vertières on November 18, 1803. The assembled French army under the command of General Rochambeau was handed a crushing defeat.

By 1804 militia's of former slaves in Haiti were successful in overcoming one of the largest and best trained standing military forces in the world, the army of Napoleon. But victory and freedom also meant isolation, as the great powers sought to crush the threatening example of liberation that Haiti provided for slaves and abolitionists. Before his stand at Harper's Ferry, the brave American abolitionist John Brown wrote of his admiration for the Haitian revolutionaries.

Whereas Haiti had won its formal independence over European armies, it remained a country constrained by foreign elites who remained present in changing forms: as merchants or today's multinational corporations and international financial institutions.

History Repeats

A shockingly similar incident to that of the capture of Louverture occurred on Haiti's 200th anniversary when Haiti's popularly elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was violently overthrown to the great excitement of intervening international actors.

While foreign organizations have sought to control the historical discourse, poor Haitians continue to pass on their own stories of their ancestor's great victories.

Even as some religious authorities have sought to rewrite the history of the poor, the poor have not allowed for their historical dates to be erased. In modern times the national unity and sovereignty of the country itself has again become contested as a transnational process of globalization intensifies the accumulation of power and wealth into the hands of a few.

While on November 18 President Preval set a wreath on a monument of Dessalines there was no official celebration.

While the official organs of power did little to remember the key date, the poor of Port-au-Prince put together their own celebration. On November 18, 2007 to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Vertières grassroots groups gathered in downtown Port-au-Prince.

An organizer from one Bel-Air popular organization explained well their reason for gathering. "We want a national conference of all the sons and daughters of Haiti, to get Haiti out of this situation." In regards to the history and its modern significance, she added, "it is important that the political actors demonstrate their understanding."

It is time to unite, the organizer added. "We in the [poor] neighborhoods are united for peace and reconciliation." Citizens from the popular neighborhoods of Cité-Soleil, Lassa Line, Martissant, Grande Ravine, and Carrefour were all present.

A nation without a memory is not a nation. The mantra of corporate globalization has sought to redefine and erode national sovereignty in the hopes of justifying the lie that we are unable and undeserving of self-empowerment.

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Photo by Wadner Pierre