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Books on Haiti and the
Caribbean
Hubert Cole. Christophe: King of Haiti. New
York: The Viking Press, 1967.
C.L.R. James.
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution
(1938)
Edourad Gissant.
Caribbean Doscourse (2004)
/ Barbara Harlow.
Resistance Literature (1987)
Josaphat B. Kubayanda.
The Poet's Africa: Africanness in the Poetry of Nicolas Guillen and Aime
Cesaire
(1990)
Myriam J. A.
Chancy.
Framing Silence: Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women (1997)
Paul Laraque and Jack Hirschman.
Open
Gate An Anthology of Haitian Creole Poetry
(2001)
David P. Geggus, ed.
The Impact of the
Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World.
University of South Carolina Press, 2001.
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* *
Haiti,
America, and the Rest of the World
By Joe Williams III
I have read many viewpoints of the revolt in
Haiti. I notice
that a world debate has emerged concerning that nation. Haiti
has a population of 8 million people, about the population of
Los Angeles. Its
agriculture accounts for 42 pre cent of its gross domestic
product. Over 67
per cent of Haiti’s population lives in poverty.
It is known as one of the poorest nations in the world.
It has a foreign debt of over 1 billion dollars. It has 4
vehicles forever 1000 people. Its industrial labor force is only 6%.
The island of Haiti has no organized labor
movement, no military force, and no industrial working class. It
main source of income is tourism and agriculture.
The U.S. Government invaded and occupied Haiti in 1915 to
1934. Since then,
the U.S. Government has had control of the political and
economic situation in Haiti.
The U.S. dictates not only what form of government Haiti
has, but its leaders, and its means of production.
The United States foreign policy concerning Haiti is
directly responsible for the current chaos in Haiti.
The current violence is a result of the U.S. Government
pulling the plug on Haiti’s economy and foreign aid.
The U.S. Government is preparing to place a
military outpost in Haiti.
It will control the productive forces of Haiti, and
surrounding nations. It
is the same blueprint that is being used in Iraq, and other
Middle East nations.
It is very unfortunate that the American
working class is, by in large, supporting the U.S. invasions and
occupations around the world. The analysis is very simple.
The major U.S. corporations have become International
operations. The
U.S. Government sets the policies, the Military invades the
countries, and the corporations develop the economic conditions.
Then capitalism becomes the order of the day.
I have read where a lot of American activists
are hoping that the rebellion in Haiti emerges into a class war.
It will never happen.
The conditions are not in Haiti.
However, if the American working class was aware of its
historical role to overthrow International Capitalism, then the
economic and political reality of areas like Iraq and Haiti
would be emancipated. The
reality is the struggle of the American working class, the Iraqi
working class, and the Haitian workers, are the same struggle,
primarily because we are exploited by the same enemy.
It is a sad moment in history for us American workers to
expect the Haitian people to defeat their/our International
aggressors.
If we were really aware of our duty and
responsibility as exploited workers, we would have millions of
workers protesting these U.S. invasions. But, if we in fact knew our power and responsibility as an
International working class, the California supermarket strike
would have ended in less than a week.
However, we as workers, have no political
voice, other than the lying Republicans and Democrats.
We have no real International labor unions that are
independent of the Government and the Military.
So, when we see an uprising like Haiti, we
get excited, because, at least they are active.
But the American working class, in solidarity, with the
rest of the world’s working masses, has the only solution to
this planet's problems. We
must unite all races, and all societies of workers, to break
this economic chain from our backs.
What we produce collectively from the earth, we must
share collectively with each other; then and only then will
greed and exploitation become a thing of the past. * * *
* * Joe Williams Bio I was born in New Orleans during the Jim
Crow segregated. I had to ride in the back of the bus, could
not attend movie theaters with whites, couldn't drink out the same
water fountains, and I had to learn how to read out of used books
that were handed down from white schools.
I moved to Chicago in the early 60s.
I joined Jesse Jackson's Operation Breadbasket. I helped
organize the economic boycotts of various supermarkets.
I later moved to Los Angeles and became
a radical. I was involved in the following movements:
1.
The peace and anti-war movement.
2.
The anti-police abuse and terror movement.
3.
The labor movement.
4.
The African Liberation Movement.
5.
The prison rights movement.
6.
The free all political prisoners movement
I also became a political and social
writer.
1. Political and social commentaries.
2. Social poetry.
3. News articles.
I now reside in San Diego, California.
Contact:
tedoil@aol.com * * *
* *
The Impact of the
Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World
Reviewed by Mimi Sheller
Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789-1804
A Brief History with Documents
By Laurent
Dubois and John D. Garrigus
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Hopes and Prospects
By Noam Chomsky
In this urgent new book, Noam Chomsky
surveys the dangers and prospects of our
early twenty-first century. Exploring
challenges such as the growing gap
between North and South, American
exceptionalism (including under
President Barack Obama), the fiascos of
Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S.-Israeli
assault on Gaza, and the recent
financial bailouts, he also sees hope
for the future and a way to move
forward—in the democratic wave in Latin
America and in the global solidarity
movements that suggest "real progress
toward freedom and justice." Hopes and
Prospects is essential reading for
anyone who is concerned about the
primary challenges still facing the
human race. "This is a classic Chomsky
work: a bonfire of myths and lies,
sophistries and delusions. Noam Chomsky
is an enduring inspiration all over the
world—to millions, I suspect—for the
simple reason that he is a truth-teller
on an epic scale. I salute him." —John
Pilger
In dissecting the rhetoric and logic of
American empire and class domination, at
home and abroad, Chomsky continues a
longstanding and crucial work of
elucidation and activism . . .the
writing remains unswervingly rational
and principled throughout, and lends
bracing impetus to the real alternatives
before us.—Publisher's
Weekly
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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