In Defense of Aristide

& the Viability of Haitian Democracy

Editorial by Rudolph Lewis

Aristide represents the most liberal and revolutionary forces in Haiti. After his US removal from the presidency, violence continues on the streets of Haiti in defense of his importance to the thwarted dreams and hopes of Haitian workers and peasants. At work in this political chaos, there are two contending forces -- those who support Aristide and those who wish to oust or kill Aristide. On the sidelines are those who wish to dismiss Aristide’s significance.

Those who wish to oust or kill him are not anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist, but rather reactionary forces -- former Ton-Ton Macoutes, disbanded right-wing army officials, and other criminal elements interested in supplanting democracy, supported with money and guns by the most reactionary forces in the United States. And worst, this farce is sustained by commercial media.  In such a scenario, one must stand with the supporters of Aristide or with the reactionary forces.

Those who suggest that the Haiti situation fits into some classical scenario of workers contending with the bourgeois state are guilty of wishful thinking and day-dreaming. Haitian politics has yet to reach that stage of development as it has not reached that stage in the USA. Calling for a Marxist Haitian state is armchair theorizing and doctrinaire posturing. Building and sustaining that kind of consciousness among an illiterate people and against the most reactionary forces in the hemisphere is a present impossibility.

As suggested by many, Aristide, like any politician (or any person) is/was not perfect in every decision made. (Toussaint the Great also made mistakes.) But I am convinced by what I know of events that he has the best interest of the Haitian poor and illiterate at heart and did all that was in his power to defend their interests, more than any other public figure in Haiti.

On these grounds, he is deserving of support, even now in his imposed exile by US Marines. Those who suggest that he is a petty bourgeois aligned with the oligarchic forces of Haiti seem to go over the top. That any state in the Caribbean can establish a workers' state presently as called for by the most radical of intellectuals is to demand too much of one of the most exploited sectors of North America. We do not desire another Granada, a flash-in-the-pan socialism.

Thus it seems to me right and proper to defend what is indeed possible presently and what is supposedly the ideal even for US conservatives, a liberal democratic state apparatus that attends to the needs of the poor and the defenseless. It is Western racist hypocrisy that must be attacked.

This Haitian coup points out that right wing forces not only in Haiti but also those in the USA aligned with Bush government agents will not even allow such a moderate Caribbean state in Haiti. Clearly there is a hatred for the blackness of Haiti and Haitian history. These USA extremists now demand absolute capitulation to bestial exploitation and the meanest of repression. Aristide's removal is symbolical of this mindset of radical right-wing politics.

A support of Aristide is thus a stance against such crass imperial politics. Despite his radical critics, Aristide is indeed a martyr for Haitian democracy, even though US agents decided against his murder, just as Toussaint was a martyr for black state independence, even though Napoleon  tactically decided against his assassination.

I will not participate in any damning of Aristide. That sort of venom should be directed at our own (American) politicians and specifically the Bush-Powell administration. For us to be attacking liberal supporters of Aristide (black or white) will gain us nothing, not for the poor of Haiti, nor even a unified phalanx against the agents who orchestrated this fiasco in Haiti.

Some of us may feel self-righteous about the purity of our politics and more caring about the welfare and destiny of the Haitian people than Aristide who worked among and for them most of his life. But that kind of stance or polemic does not move us closer to what we all desire for Haiti or our own society -- the elimination of injustice in all areas of life. From any fair evaluation, Aristide exacted more social progress than in any era of Haiti’s political life and, like Toussaint, left roots that will continue to grow and develop.

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