The Haitian Meatgrinders or Hell on Haiti

Haiti has been put through three different meatgrinders---one made in Spain, another made in France, and one made in the United States. The design of each meatgrinder is somewhat different; the end result is the same; the poor are crushed, smashed by physical and social death.

The Spanish meatgrinder had a flashy motto---God, Glory and Gold; the end result---Genocide; none of the original Indian inhabitants/cultures have survived, not in Haiti, not on any of the Caribbean islands.

The French meatgrinder also had a flashy motto for Haiti---the Pearl of the Antilles; Haiti was highly productive in terms of sugar and other tropical foods. But the Pearl was Hell for the slaves who labored to make Haiti highly productive; Haiti was the French Hellhole.

The American meatgrinder was operated by an American white, rich, male elite in cooperation with a Haitian white/mulatto rich, male elite---an evil blending of color, class and culture with poor blacks oppressed and marginalized.

Scholars give different labels to the mechanical parts of the Haitian meatgrinders: colonialism, neocolonialism, slavery, neoslavery, debt slavery, dictatorship, plutocracy, and 'democracy'. The systems of oppression are redesigned from time to time, given a new coat of beautiful paint on the outside. But each new design crushes the poor---500 years of oppression, 500 years of poverty; 500 years of social death, PTSD, of cultural dysfunction.

How did Jesus describe the meatgrinder of his times? He called the beautiful, holy Temple, "a den of robbers." Jesus warned, "Woe to the rich!" He condemned the evil combination of God and Money. Jesus tackled the twin social evils of oppression and ethnocentrism immediately (Luke 4:18 and 4:25-30).

In America our Temple is called: American exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant. The nice sounding mottos legitimate arrogant American exceptionalism, demonic expansion, deistic oppression and superior Anglo culture. This is impressively symbolized by the St. Louis Arch; to white Americans, the arrogant Arch symbolizes exploration and Westward expansion; to Native Americans, the Arch symbolizes exploitation and extermination.



Hell on Haiti: 500 years of political and economic oppression

Spanish military, political and economic domination of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, including the western third of the island now called Haiti, reduced the Native American from an estimated several million down to 29,000 within two decades. Ruthless oppression resulted in near physical genocide, or as one historian termed it, "Hell on Hispaniola." Today, there are no identifiable Native American cultures or peoples left on any of the Caribbean islands---total cultural genocide.

The island was repopulated with African slaves in order to grow tropical crops such as sugar cane for export to Europe. The Hell continued. The French replaced the Spanish as the administrators of Hell on Haiti.

When the French Revolution occurred in France, it inspired the Haitian slaves to rebel in 1791. By 1804, the Haitian slaves had gained their freedom by defeating the powerful French army. But the price was high; the country and the economy had been badly damaged. France threatened to reinvade Haiti so the Haitians built up a military force to defend themselves. Ever since, they have had an overly militarized society which usually has controlled both the political and economic institutions.

France finally agreed to sign a peace treaty with Haiti in 1825, but only after Haiti agreed to exorbitant reparations for another 100 plus years. These massive, unjust reparations to slave holders may have permanently affected Haiti's economy and wealth. At the same time that the U.S. was massively investing in railroads and education, Haitians had little money left over to do so; all the money was going to France. Haiti found it very difficult to create political and economic stability during the 1800s and 1900s.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the United States began a process to gain commercial and military privileges in Haiti. To protect U.S. economic interests as well as to protect approaches to the Panama Canal, the U.S. Marines occupied Haiti from 1915-1934. Haiti signed a treaty establishing U.S. political and economic domination. The HELL continued.

According to Jean Claude Cerin, "one legacy of the American occupation was a unified army, which quickly became a power in itself, constantly seeking political domination." Hell quickly returned to Haiti under the dictatorial reigns of the infamous "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc." These reigns lasted from 1957 to 1986 when a popular revolt drove "Baby Doc" out of Haiti.

One result of this long and tragic history---500 years of oppression---is that approximately 80 percent of Haiti's population lives in grinding poverty. There is no "safety net" to protect the poor so for most Haitians the hell continues.

What light does the Bible shed on this terrible injustice? What is the biblical perspective on oppression?

Thomas Hanks, author of God So Loved the Third World: The Biblical Vocabulary of Oppression and a Hebrew scholar, asserts that there are 555 references to oppression in the OT, that "oppression smashes the body and crushes the spirit." Or one could say that systems of oppression, decades, even centuries of oppression, smash a people and crush their culture. End result; mass individual post traumatic stress disorder and social death with damaged social institutions, a dysfunctional culture, and cycles of extreme poverty.

Exodus provides deep insights into the nature of oppression and the damage it does. According to Hanks, oppression crushes, humiliates, animalizes, impoverishes enslaves and kills persons created in the image of God. Read Exodus, chapter 1 in total, but especially verses 11-14 in the NIV. Note these words: slave masters, oppress, forced labor, oppressed, ruthlessly and hard labor. And later, kill. More details on the oppressor, Pharaoh, are found in chapter 5.

After centuries of slavery, God speaks directly to Moses (6:1-9), and forcefully asserts that He IS going to deliver the children of Israel from their bondage. "Moses reported [the message from God] to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement [RSV: "broken spirit"] and cruel bondage."

From The Message, 6:9 reads: "But when Moses delivered this message to the Israelites, they didn't even hear him---they were that beaten down in spirit by the harsh slave conditions." When oppression creates hopelessness, what do Christians do? You and I must come along side the crushed, take them by the hand, and TOGETHER create a new future. This new future can be built around Luke 4:18-19; the Spirit-filled church must create Jubilee justice ministries that will release the oppressed poor.

My paraphrase of James 1:27 and 2:8 reads: "Pure religion puts the needs of oppressed widows and orphans, i.e., the poor, as the top priority in the church; this is what loving your neighbor really means---you combine love and justice."

Oppression has reigned for 500 years in Haiti. Are my readers ready to join me in seeing to it that Jubilee justice reigns for the next 100 years? The best place to start in rural Haiti is to assist the Haiti Christian Development Fund in Fond-des-Blancs. Here hope is beginning to crowd out hell.