“October is not too far away, and those Haitians who are not slaves know only one God beneath the almighty Bondye. The spirit of all omnipresent good and beauty is neither Paul Farmer, Bill Clinton nor cholera-MINUSTAH.” – Ezili Dantò of HLLN, August 27, 2011
Paul Farmer is not a God but the face of the UN/USAID/World Bank
October is not too far away, and those Haitians who are not mentally enslaved or integrated into the unjust Eurocentic dominion holding the world hostage, know only one God beneath the almighty Bondye. The spirit of all omnipresent good and beauty is neither Paul Farmer, Bill Clinton nor cholera-MINUSTAH. To those worthy of the name Ayisyen, only one man took action that is the embodiment of Bondye’s divine courage and warrior essence as expressed on earth and his name is – Jean Jacques Dessalines. Lafanmi sanble! Nou fè yon sèl kò depi lè marasa, lè mò e lè mistè. Ginen poze. Janjak’s humanitarian achievements for the world since the white settlers’ “New World”-era began, remain unmatched.
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Desalin’s Law is the law most recognized by Haitians. After defeating, in combat, the then Euro-superpowers; after 300-years of monarchical Europe’s and the white settlers’ brutal enslavement of Africans, in 1804, the year of Haiti’s Independence, Haiti’s founding father set down Dessalines’ Law for Haiti to prosper and remain sovereign. It is as follows:
“Never shall a colonist or a European set foot on this territory with the title of master or proprietor. This resolution shall henceforth form the fundamental basis of our Constitution.”
“No whiteman of whatever nation he may be, shall put his foot on this territory with the title of master or proprietor, neither shall he in future acquire any property therein.”
Folks, the European and colonist didn’t come back to Haiti as just master or proprietor. No sireeee. He/she came back as GOD!
Reading yesterday’s news, as usually, one comes upon the colonial narrative on Haiti. Yesterday I read a Hartford Courant article about God (http://cour.at/oMqdL1). Yes, “GOD” and “saints” cast in the image of white men in Haiti.
| What’s in a name? Some names horrify enslavers, tyrants and despots, everywhere…
Three ideals of Dessalines (See also: A message to Paul Farmer, the Senate, Dobbins & Francois by Ezili Dantò, Jan. 30, 2010; Beating back the elite’s rabid rage; Seismic shifts and Avatar Haiti) |
Of course, I paid attention. Wasn’t I just in US Federal court just last December with another white God working in Haiti for ten years molesting Haiti boys who the Ezili Network helped get 20-years behind bars, with 10 years of supervised release? So all Gods working in Haiti claim our attention at the Network.
Unhinged from the actual history of anthropologist (that is, the study of Black and Brown people by mostly white men and women) in Haiti to ensure their Euro-tribes dominance; oblivious to the history of the “benevolent” missionaries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America, “God is in Haiti,” blithely reported the Hartford Courant article. No, not the one Michelangelo cast in the image of his male lover and that’s purported to be the image of Jesus and is framed at Catholic Cathedrals and protestant churches all over the world. Another one.
And you thought Haitians were Godless!
But here we are with more than one white God.
Yep, “God” the article explained is in Haiti, living behind foreign military bases and NGO color-coded distribution charts. Well, maybe not explained as blatantly as that, but that’s the coded message nevertheless…
God is in the Haiti where Haitians are dying in droves from not having clean water because it’s been infected with foreign feces. The Haiti where the UN is collecting nearly $1billion per year, has been in Haiti for over seven years and no improvements have been made. Just a nightmare for the masses, one international crime perpetrated after the other without any end in sight, as the Caribbean’s only billionaires, living in Haiti, become richer and while the likes of Paul Farmer consolidate their narcissistic narrative and leverage it to share in the stolen bounty at the World Bank, IMF and with USAID on the backs of suffering Haitians. That Haiti. The one where Bill Clinton’s “better, post-earthquake reconstruction” is about moving FEMA trailers from Katrina fame into Haiti, complete with formaldehyde and all. That Haiti.
Yesterday, when I read this Hartford Courant article on “Author Tracy Kidder To Discuss “Mountains Beyond Mountains” at Trinity.” (http://cour.at/oMqdL1), I thought of Dessalines’ law.
In that article, as usual, the first line was “Paul Farmer is a physician, anthropologist and, as one of his former patients in Haiti put it, a god. Farmer, who has made it his life’s work to transform health care on a global scale by focusing on the poorest and sickest people, is the subject of author Tracy Kidder’s book, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World.”
Farmer has Tracy Kidder writing his press, as he rampages through Haiti, Rwanda, the Congo, doing the old missionary thing, along with his cohorts, Bill Gates and Bill Clinton, leaving behind Black and Brown death, oppression and indignity.
But, hey, he’s a God to a patient in Haiti somewhere. A patient who was most likely suffering from, if not the ravages of US policies of fraudulent “free trade,” containment in poverty for Haiti, then some of the ravages of USAID/Obama/Bill Clinton-like tourism haven initiatives of the past forty or so decades, where HIV-transmitting US/Euro Northern tourists’ impose their neoliberal, death-plan, “development ideas” on Haiti.
It’s been over a decade since Kidder keeps repeating that “God”-line about Farmer, as if time has stood still and Farmer hasn’t sold out to Officialdom; is not now the face of Officialdom – of USAID, the death-squad organizers (which he sought to head) and the UN, the coup-consolidators in Haiti? As if Farmer is not the UN deputy spokesperson for Clinton/Obama’s cholera democracy in Haiti? ( See, Bolivia urges US aid agency expulsion. ED Note- “Uhmmm, are you taking notes Haiti politicos?”)
For those icons who symbolizes Western so-called “civilization,” time mostly freezes at their best face in time. For Blacks, unless you’re servicing their tyranny, time freezes at our worst moments in life. Ezili’s Network corrects the imbalance for Haiti with the counter-colonial narrative. Haiti is smaller than Rhode Island with only 10 million Blacks inheriting a unique revolutionary legacy and beautiful African culture that is in jeopardy of extinction. It is sacred territory, from its inception, a place where a Black woman and man could be free within a sea of US-Euro enslavement, forced assimilation, colonization and neocolonialism. Today, that territory must continue to belong to the sovereign descendants of Dessalines’ revolution as a world heritage place, protected by all right-thinking nations who wish to lift up universal human freedom, not profit-over-people Bourgeoisie Freedom.
“From the viewpoint of the discoverers, terror is only terror when it terrorises them, their descendants or their friends… –.Jacques Depelchin (Africa: In Solidarity with Site Soley). And from the viewpoint of their victims, Lila Watson said it best: “If you have come here to help me then you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine then let us work together.”
Which leads me to the point of this response. Every time I read that the “good doctor” Paul Farmer is a GOD to Haiti, I wonder whose Haiti they are talking about? Cholera-democracy Haiti, NGO-corrupt and UN-occupied Haiti? Or, Dessalines’-Haiti? And thus, I take this moment for the record, and for historical purposes, to speak for the voiceless Haiti and for the defiant, still-whole and uncompromised, un-conflicted Haiti – the Haiti that’s not been rendered sick, docile, subservient, infirmed and more likely to promote the interests of foreigners than itself. No, nix that. I take this moment to recall the words of Haiti’s founding father, Jean Jacques Dessalines:
“…I command a people whose courage repel obstacles and grows by dangers. Let those homicidal cohorts come! I wait for them with a firm foot and a calm eye. I freely resign to them the shores and the spots where towns were; but woe to those who come too near the mountains; better would it have been for them to be swallowed up in the depths of the sea, than to be torn to pieces by the furious hands of the children of Hayti. War against the tyrants ”always war— war till death; that is my motto:– Liberty, independence: that is our rallying cry.
Generals, officers, soldiers: differing from him by whom I was preceded, the ex-general Toussaint L”Ouverture, I have been faithful to the promise which I made you when I took up arms against tyranny, and as long as I live I will keep my oath. Never shall a colonist or a European set foot on this territory with the title of master or proprietor. This resolution shall henceforth form the fundamental basis of our Constitution.
If other chiefs, after me, in following an entirely opposite course, shall dig their graves, and that of their fellow patriots, then you will have to accuse only the law of that destiny which shall have prevented me from rendering my fellow citizens free and happy. May my successors follow the plan which I have traced for them; it is the best system to consolidate their power; it is the greatest homage they can pay to my memory.” –Jean Jacques Dessalines, April 28, 1804, Head quarters at Cape Haitian, First year of independence.
Ezili Dantò
Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (“HLLN”)
August 27, 2011
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Felipe Luciano interviews Ezili Dantò on WBAI wake-up call, Friday, August 26, 2011 on UN-Cholera in Haiti, their latest denials….
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Forwarded by Ezili’s Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
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Donate to support Ezili Network and Zili Dlo – Clean water is life and health for Haiti http://bit.ly/7UMx7q
UN still lies but admits to setting water purification systems inside their basis nothing for their victims http://bit.ly/qZZsX3
Ezili’s HLLN denounces massacres of Haiti Vodouist, holds UN responsible for
inaction – http://bit.ly/mRLrhf
Zili Dlo website photos
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Facebook Zili Dlo photos
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Ezili HLLN’s 14-Points for the Voiceless in Haiti: For a Return of Haiti’s Sovereignty and for Disaster relief, Rebuilding with Human Rights, Healing and Dignity – http://bit.ly/9lXlRF
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“Transformation is only valid if it is carried out with the people, not for them. Liberation is like a childbirth, and a painful one. The person who emerges is a new person: no longer either oppressor or oppressed, but a person in the process of achieving freedom. It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors.”– Paulo Freire, from Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Haiti, beloved, are you taking NOTE:
“The expulsion of USAID should be not only an act of sovereignty, but an uncompromising defense of the process of change,” AFP quoted Quintana as saying on Wednesday.
He further pointed out that the expulsion of the American aid agency would show “the same courage” as the 2008 kicking out of the US ambassador to the Latin American country. ( Bolivia urges US aid agency expulsion, August 25, 2011)
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Bolivia urges US aid agency expulsion
Juan Ramon Quintana, the head of Bolivia’s Agency for Development of Regions and Frontiers, said the expulsion of USAID would help “the process of change” in the country.
“The expulsion of USAID should be not only an act of sovereignty, but an uncompromising defense of the process of change,” AFP quoted Quintana as saying on Wednesday.
He further pointed out that the expulsion of the American aid agency would show “the same courage” as the 2008 kicking out of the US ambassador to the Latin American country.
Quintana went on to say that the move should be considered as a “self-defense mechanism” for Bolivia.
The latest row between La Paz and Washington has widened after Bolivian President Evo Morales on Sunday blamed the US for interfering in Bolivia’s domestic affairs and inciting opposition in the country to protest a key highway construction project through a nature preserve.
Morales said that US diplomats in Bolivia had contacts with leaders of the indigenous-led protest. The US embassy, however, denied Morales’ remarks.
Quintana further stated that the contents of letters between USAID — an arm of the State Department involved in economic and humanitarian assistance — and indigenous leaders revealed a plot aimed at disrupting “the judicial process” in the South American country.
Morales expelled the former US ambassador to La Paz, Philip S. Goldberg, and a group of American drug agents from his country in 2008, arguing that they were attempting to undermine the Bolivian government.
In the past years, the US Congress-funded National Endowment for Democracy and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have openly backed and promoted opposition movements in Bolivia.
DB/GHN/HRF
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Hartford
Author Tracy Kidder To Discuss “Mountains Beyond Mountains” at Trinity
August 26, 2011, Source: Hartford Courant
On Campus
Submitted by Michele Jacklin, Dir. of Media Relations, Trinity College, on 2011-08-25.
Tracy Kidder.
Paul Farmer is a physician, anthropologist and, as one of his former patients in Haiti put it, a god. Farmer, who has made it his life’s work to transform health care on a global scale by focusing on the poorest and sickest people, is the subject of author Tracy Kidder’s book, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World.”
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Kidder will discuss the book on September 2 at 4 p.m. at the Koeppel Community Sports Center, 175 New Britain Ave. The lecture is free and open to the Trinity community as well as to the public. A book signing will follow Kidder’s presentation.
Kidder’s work of nonfiction has been called “a masterpiece,” “an astonishing book,” “touching, funny and inspiring” and “brilliant, concise and original.”
The book chronicles the life of Farmer, who set out to cure infectious diseases and bring the life-saving tools of modern medicine to desperately poor people. Kidder’s account takes readers from Harvard, where Farmer studied, to Haiti, Peru, Cuba and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that “the only real nation is humanity.”
In 1987, Farmer helped found a non-profit organization called Partners in Health, which describes its mission as both medical and moral. The group treats roughly 1,000 patients each day for free in the Haitian countryside, and works to cure drug-resistant tuberculosis among prisoners in Siberia and in the slums of Lima, Peru. When Farmer won the MacArthur “genius” award, he turned over the money to Partners in Health.
Kidder trailed along as Farmer toiled at his hospital in Haiti, hiked vast distances to follow up on patients and then “burned the midnight oil” writing grant applications and preparing speeches. Kidder also accompanied Farmer on his many trips to Cuba, Latin America and Russia.
Margaret Lindsey, dean of the First-Year Program, said Kidder and his book were selected for incoming students to read for several reasons. “There were many global paradigms built into the book that we thought that would provide really good conversations for first-year seminars, and that go across every discipline,” said Lindsey. “We wanted a book that has broad-reaching themes so that it can become a topic of universal conversation.”
In addition, Trinity’s advisory committee selected the book at about the time of the Haiti earthquake, a natural disaster that caused people to focus on that Caribbean country, particularly its daunting poverty and public health problems.
“We were fascinated by the degree to which public health issues in Haiti were made so clear by a contemporary world event,” said Lindsey. “Paul Farmer has shown that you can change the world not by being a hero but by creating work that can be reproduced,” said Lindsey. Those are important lessons that Kidder’s book can impart on the first-year students.
Kidder is a graduate of Harvard and the University of Iowa.
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Jah love sister Ezili.
Thank you so much for your courage in taking on the big power brokers in the disaster that has become Ayiti. You pay homage to our beloved Emperor Jean Jacques Dsssalines so beautifully. We should all strive to know his words,his works and live by his oaths. I know that in the future I will and I will insist that my children do the same.
A gazilliion thanks for all that you wrote. We have to make sure that our people know that no white man can ever be “god” to us. They are there to fix (however minimally or temporarily) the problems that their kinds created. And that requires commited and loving Haitian scientists from all fields.
We espescially have to insist that commited Haitian anthropologists and social scientists are trained in the Dessalines tradition of “Inyon fe la fos”. Too often those of us who get a pass in that field back down or stand down from the path and as a result we get our people confused and calling folks like Paul Farmer “god”.
His organization is another ne-liberal outfit there to complete a benign mission. Our mission is freedom with love.
Jah bless.