Tag Archives: Haiti

The tragedy of post-colonial self-determination

Posted on June 10, 2022 by

In her challenging book Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (2019), political scientist Adom Getachew discusses self-determination in the Anglophone Black Atlantic, with special emphasis on post-colonial independence as well as Caribbean and African federations.  It would be interesting to compare the political thought of intellectuals and statesmen such as George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah, Eric Williams, Michael Manley, and Julius Nyerere, which she explores, with that of contemporary writers.  In particular, it would be fascinating to study the failure of self-determination that started in the 1960s in light of contemporary tragedies of autonomy that focused paradigmatically on Haiti, such as Monsieur Toussaint (1961) by Edouard Glissant, Toussaint (1961) by Lorraine Hansberry, Drums and Colors (1961) by Derek Walcott, The Tragedy of King Christophe (1963) by Aimé Césaire, and C. L. R. James’ revisions to The Black Jacobins (1962) that recast it as a post-colonial tragedy.

8 June 2022

Posted in autonomy, Blog, founding, governance, revolution, theatre

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The tragedy of Haiti in history, drama, and performance

Posted on May 30, 2022 by
Last week, as I read in The New York Times the four-day series
“The Ransom – The Root of Haiti’s Misery: Reparations to Enslavers”
and I continued work on Aimé Césaire’s superb drama The Tragedy of King Christophe (1963, 1970)
for my book-length project The Tragedy of Revolution,
I took the train to Chicago and caught the last performance of the wonderful American premiere of this Shakespearean tragedy.
On the way home, I was reminded of what the Martinican Césaire said when talking about a visit to the Caribbean island:  “In Haiti I saw mainly what should not be done!  A country that had supposedly conquered its liberty … and which I saw more miserable than Martinique, which was a French colony! … It was tragic.”
30 May 2022

Posted in Blog, founding, freedom, governance, hubris, revolution, terror, theatre, tragic politics

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“The Root of Haiti’s Misery: Reparations to Enslavers” (ΝΥ Times)

Posted on May 22, 2022 by

“In 1791, enslaved Haitians did the seemingly impossible. They ousted their French masters and founded a nation. But France made generations of Haitians pay for their freedom — in cash.”

Posted in founding, freedom, governance, Nota Bene, revolution, tragic politics

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Crystal Eddins: “The First Ayitian Revolution”

Posted on May 18, 2020 by

“And given that the island was essentially a black space from the mid-1500s forward, we can think of this historical trajectory not in terms of the maroons fighting back against empires, but as empires attempting to repress – and in some cases to co-opt – those who had already liberated themselves.”

Posted in Blog

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Jeremy Popkin: “Vive la révolution!”

Posted on January 20, 2020 by

“Must radical political change generate uncontainable violence?  The French Revolution is both a cautionary and inspiring tale.”

Posted in defeat, gender, governance, Nota Bene, revolution, rights, terror, tragic politics, violence

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“Haiti on Brink of Revolution to Overthrow US-Backed Regime”

Posted on October 1, 2019 by

“Revolutionaries destroyed police headquarters, attacked residences of government officials, and burned a jail and courts to the ground in different parts of Haiti on Friday.  Insurgents are fighting to overthrow the corrupt right-wing regime of Jovenel Moise, who is backed by the US.”

Posted in In The News, revolt

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Mohammed Elnaiem: “Did Kongolese Catholicism Lead to Slave Revolutions?”

Posted on February 8, 2019 by

“The legacy of Kimpa Vita, a Kongolese woman Catholic mystic, was felt from the U.S. to Haiti.”

Posted in founding, freedom, gender, Nota Bene, revolution

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Jamil Khader: “Liberal Politics and the Challenge of White Supremacy: Anti-anti-Eurocentrism and the Question of Identity Politics”

Posted on May 26, 2018 by

‘Liberal and leftist commentators thus need to draw the ultimate radical conclusion from this anti-anti-Eurocentric position: The struggle for racial justice must be grounded in a dialectical materialist understanding of “the gap” between the particular and the universal which, according to the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, not only destabilizes identity from within, but also serves as the foundation for a true universality. Žižek’s crucial point here is that identities should be taken up on the promise of actualizing this immanent universal dimension that was opened up precisely through the brutal history of genocide, slavery, colonialism, internment, etc.’

Posted in freedom, justice, Nota Bene, revolution, rights, Žižek

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Richard Seymour: “Was the Haitian revolution a ‘bourgeois revolution’?”

Posted on January 23, 2018 by

“I suspect that the Haitian revolution is not simply incommensurable with the category of ‘bourgeois revolution’ but that, in its singularity, it represents a question for the telos to which that category belongs.”

Posted in freedom, Nota Bene, power, revolution

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“Donald Trump’s Vile Words should Remind us that America Owes Everything to Haitians”

Posted on January 12, 2018 by

“Most reactions to this [Trump’s reference to Haiti and African nations as ‘shithole countries’] have understandably focused on Trump’s berserk racism. But it’s worth remembering that his comments are grotesque for another reason: Without the bravery of Haitians, Thomas Jefferson would never have been able to complete the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and the United States as we know it today would not exist.”

Posted in freedom, In The News, revolution

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