HAT3564: Haitian Culture and Society The Duvalier Years (Part 2) (Lecture 1)
[00:00:01.05] All right, welcome back to Haitian Culture and Society. My name is Ben Hebblethwaite. This is Module 12, and this is the first lecture of four. So let's get started. All right, so we are working on the Duvalier Years Continued. Module 11 introduced that historical period, and now we continue with it in today's lecture. Of course, you can find the measurable learning objectives on the Canvas page, and I advise you to check them out.
[00:00:38.23] The first text that we are studying in this module is called Dance on the Volcano by Marie Chauvet, who was born in 1916 and is one of Haiti's most important 20th century voices. She wrote a number of important novels. I am best familiar with Amour, colete et folie-- Love, Anger, and Madness-- which I'll mention momentarily. She was a courageous social critic who laid bare the unjust long historical workings of race and class in Haiti. She's an incredible novelist and critic of Haitian society.
[00:01:20.17] Chauvet traces the consequences of these injustices for Haitian women. The novel Dance on the Volcano follows the extraordinary career of real-life historical figure Minette, a mixed-race opera singer whose immense talent affords her great privilege despite the constraints of race and class in the colony. And intervening in the politics of the revolutionary moment, the character Minette becomes a tragic heroine in the literal theater of revolution that was Saint-Domingue. So keep in mind, this is a kind of anachronistic or historical novel that imagines the past, but based on a strong knowledge of Haitian or Saint-Domingue history.
[00:02:16.13] Now I quickly jump two centuries into the future to show you here some pictures of the Tonton Macoutes. The reason being Chauvet's novel Love, Anger, Madness, specifically deals with some of the crimes, and in particular, the crimes that were committed on women by members of the government security forces and the paramilitary. So here you can see officered policemen on the one hand. But here you see the volunteers for national security. There the VSN is the acronym. And they're more paramilitary type security personnel, like the president's personal paramilitary.
[00:03:07.75] OK. There you see some goose-stepping in the photograph on the upper left. And here on the right, quite a famous image of the Tonton Macoutes president's paramilitary organization there marching with their guns in tow and their sheriff-like hats. There is the author, Chauvet, and now we're quickly going to toggle back to the Saint-Domingue colonial period that she imagines in her novel Dance on the Volcano. Because she's also interested in race, gender, and problems of authoritarianism in the past, right.
[00:03:49.17] I mean, in some ways, the authoritarianism that we see in the Duvalier period stems from the colonial past. It's a neo-colonial authoritarianism. Well, back to the novel. The subtle illusory and crucially important distinction of race and class that determine the parameters of women's life at the time is a concern of Chauvet in this story and in her other writings. The trans-atlantic realities of the colony are addressed. "All of Port-au-Prince was at the harbor, joyously anticipating the arrival of the new governor."
[00:04:27.34] The racial competition of the colony is attended to by the author. She writes, "The mulatto and Negro women were gathered a certain distance away, as was the custom. They had pulled out all the stops to rival the elegance of the white Creole and European ladies." OK. So here you have the different racial groups in competition with each other. And we will see that the white women did not particularly appreciate the competition, right. So she writes of the cruel racist laws that white women initiated through the Saint-Domingue French legislation or legislators. And that banned them from wearing proper shoes.
[00:05:21.01] So indeed, the white women demanded that the new regulation directed at those creatures who had dared to imitate their clothing and hairstyles. So Chauvet's novelistic analysis of the psychology of white women is quite interesting. She writes, "Their real desire was to punish and humiliate these rivals who had become far too appealing to their own husbands and lovers." And keep in mind that these husbands and lovers were originally, for the most part, from France. And France has a cold, gray climate, especially in the north.
[00:05:57.86] So then to come to this colony where the racial diversity surpassed anything they had ever seen and to encounter so many alluring Creole women, all right, created all kinds of tensions. Especially when you had a multiple-partner sexual culture practiced by Frenchmen. And still, to an extent. The monogamous Frenchman would be upset at that. Now how freed women were seen by whites-- she writes, "products of the despised slave caste." Now even though white men had fathered them, right. Any distinction is used against you in this hyper-racist colony.
[00:06:44.51] But there's this interesting discussion of how the mixing of blood leads to heightened beauty in Chauvet. She writes, "The combination of the two so vastly different blood strains had created the most prestigious beauty in these women." OK, so a far cry from the ideas about bastardization that we found in the poetry of Phelps. OK, and here's just a quick painting, a famous one, depicting relationships among women on racial lines. There you see the white woman and the mixed-race woman both reposed and served by a Black woman.
[00:07:29.88] Chauvet examines the sexual tension between people of different racial backgrounds. She writes, "The officers in their sparking uniforms made no attempt to hide the lustful looks they were giving to the beautiful Negresses with their hair done up in madras scarves as sparkling with jewels as their feet." And laughter conceals anger. And this is an interesting comment. "From time to time, they broke out in great cascading bursts of laughter. But this noisy gaiety was by no means sincere, for their eyes were full of contempt." OK. So where you don't have the freedom to express yourself and where you're expected to please men, you have this dueling identity written on the faces of these mixed-race women. On the one hand, a sweet smile or a pleasing smile. On the other hand, contempt for the injustice of the racial disorder.
[00:08:35.88] And then every racial group was in a rivalry that produced a fight to the death. For example, the rivalry also between the white planters and the freedmen planters. Rivals between the domestic slaves and field workers. And as you remember from the first module, the colony of Saint- Domingue is very much characterized by conflict and rivalry. And here we have that theme explored in greater depth with new angles by Chauvet. Saint-Domingue was in a state of perpetual tension that produced a strange heaviness in the atmosphere.
[00:09:16.25] There's a contrast between the inside and the outside. So she writes, "Elegant clothing and wigs. A sort of menace hung in the air." And there's awareness of the colonial hierarchy. "Dais for the governor, newly appointed by the king." So Saint-Domingue is a colony, a French colony, that is run by a French king. And bringing memories of colonial tension to the 20th century novel and reenacting them. So she writes, "The mulatto woman took a bouquet of flowers from her bodice and threw it to the man, who caught it smilingly." The blonde turned around immediately. 'Foul Negress,' she screamed."
[00:09:56.96] Here, you get the tension. On the one hand, the attraction of the white men for the mixed-race women. On the other hand, the competition and the fierce anxiety of the white women for the attractiveness of the mixed-race women, who must have appeared far more local and reflected the culture of the colony more than their European whites. And that must have been appealing.
[00:10:26.25] And then the culture of racism and racial sensitivity in the French colonies is discussed. "That slight note of originality that any white person could detect at first glance." So here you have this honesty about the sensitivity of the French colonists, the white people from Europe, for racial mixture. And their use of racial mixture against people who did have a mixed race or were Black, right, as you know. And then Chauvet illustrates how novels can cathartically remind readers of the racist past. In so doing, they educate readers, but they also perpetuate trauma.
[00:11:07.74] Now the next text is an interview with Jean-Claude Duvalier, and it's on Duvalier's liberal agenda. Francois Duvalier transferred power to his adolescent son Jean-Claude Duvalier via constitutional amendment. And it was a further mutation in 20th century Haitian politics, where you have the appearance of dynastic power-- one family member to another. And rumors circulated attesting to Jean-Claude's susceptibility to the influence of his mother and later his wife, Michele Bennett, whom he married in 1980, to the disapproval of the Duvalier family. It's not unusual for family members to disapprove of the people that we choose to marry.
[00:11:53.49] There you can Michele Bennett in the photograph below. The issue was that she came from a mulatto, a mixed-race family in the Haitian elite and didn't really reflect the Black power political ideals of Francois Duvalier. But anyway, he did what he wanted. He married her. And he announces in this interview a top-down program of economic modernization and liberalization. And he announced a new direction in a slogan he would repeat through the duration of his presidency. "My father made the political revolution. I will make the economic revolution."
[00:12:40.43] He also used to say-- I'll give you one in Creole. [SPEAKING CREOLE], which means "Little tiger is still a tiger," meaning his daddy was a tiger-- he's a baby tiger, but he's still a tiger. Still tear you into pieces if he needs to. And he did. And he focused his attention on attracting investments from multinational corporations, especially those in the United States and international financial institutions. Haiti became a haven for subcontract manufacturing enterprises that profited from Haiti's large population of unskilled and meagerly paid laborers. OK.
[00:13:17.57] So think about being in the Haitian government and selling your nation as a place for foreign investment because you have unskilled and meagerly paid laborers. That sounds pretty skeptical. Pretty negative. But such is the world. He made mild concessions to civil liberties and independent political activism. And a measure of free expression was added. He erratically issued reprieves to political prisoners. He grudgingly allowed a small number of non-Duvalierist candidates to run for public office. And he stage-managed liberalization. An unanticipated groundswell of independent journalism and local political activism threatened the integrity of the Duvalierist regime.
[00:14:10.58] OK, so he gave some room for the free expression in the press, and he got a big pushback. And his solution was to unleash the paramilitaries on emerging pockets of independence. Jean-Claude failed to resolve the contradiction latent in his government, which was seeking new legitimacy through fostering increased civic participation and public opinion on the one hand, but then ultimately relying on repression to remain in power.
[00:14:48.90] So this is the rough outline of the political impasse in Haiti. A lack of meaningful bodies for political participation, allegations of external political influences, ever-present signs of military repression across the country. And his idea of governing Haiti is summarized here, where he says, "I knew Haiti was a difficult country and that Haitians, like the French, wouldn't be easy to govern." He denies his mom's influence, saying, "My mother does not play a mystical role that some would ascribe to her. She doesn't directly exert pressure on me."
[00:15:28.17] He talks about his circle of influence, which included mostly young people. He asserted his interest in economic liberalization, which meant making small concessions here and there for press freedoms, democratic elections. There's a self-reflexive comment where he writes, "The country exists in a certain psychosis of fear." He talks about repelling 13 invasions since 1957. I mean, you've been in power for more than 20 years. If the country's in a psychosis of fear, I wonder why. Shouldn't it be you and your regime that fed on fear and based its expansion in perpetuity and fear? And there is a limit to his tolerance. He says, "Liberalization must not exclude vigilance." OK.
[00:16:22.95] And he has a kind of Haiti First Politics, where he says, "We must, above all, concern ourselves with stemming the hostility of our powerful neighbors before reaching out to the Third World." OK. So as a developing country, Haiti's not in a position to share its wealth, its finances with other countries. But it does exert huge influence through its intellectuals. And then there is reference to mild reform but core retentions of the past, where he says, "I'm not thinking of deviating from the schemes of he. The schemes he, Francois Duvalier, traced, even if I situate my action on other grounds. My father won the political battle. I will win the economic battle."
[00:17:08.34] Well, that is the end of lecture one, and I look forward to seeing you for lecture two very soon.