Haiti and the U.S.: Mythologies About Freedom

In both Haiti and the U.S., citizens wax eloquent about the glory of freedom with some justification; both fought vigorously to gain their freedom.  But much of their talk about freedom is divorced from the brutal reality of oppression and may even serve unintentionally as cover for oppression.

In the U.S., after the abolitionist movement, the Emancipation Proclamation and the brutal Civil War, free slaves walked off their plantations.  As they crossed the property lines, instantly the freed slaves became homeless, foodless and landless.  Hungry and subject to disease, these freed slaves died in large numbers; one scholar estimates a million slaves died.  Freedom and death, an odd coupling.  For a brief period of time after the Emancipation, freedom and justice were combined as Jubilee justice or "40 Acres and a mule."  Soon this brief experiment with justice vanished.  For most of U.S. history, freedom and justice have not been combined.  Instead, it has been freedom and black inferiority, freedom and black oppression, freedom and black death.

In the book, Haiti: after the quake, there is a foreword titled Neg Mawon with a picture of the Haitian statue of liberty.  The foreword is written by a Haitian, Joia S. Mukherjee; it is a combination of honest history and eloquent mythology.

The first two paragraphs are the most concise, accurate statement about Haitian history that I have seen---about the righteous revolution of slaves, about the unending history of oppression.  Strangely, this essay then moves from honest history to eloquent mythology "about what makes Haiti mighty: mighty without material wealth, without natural resources, without arable land, without arms."  In other words, mighty in its poverty, illiteracy and inadequate nutrition!!

The earthquake did not destroy the free man Neg Mawon; "He symbolizes the complex history of the Haitian people: stolen from Africa, marooned on an island, and liberated through a brave and radical revolution. . . . Neg Mawon  is the indefatigable spirit of the Haitian people. . . . a country whose spirit and people will never be broken."

But missing from this eloquent mythology is a statement about the Haitian church becoming an instrument of Jubilee justice that release the oppressed poor, a church that has combined freedom and justice.  Haiti will become mighty only if justice is added to the mix.  Mighty only if community development educates the illiterate, feeds the hungry and heals the sick.

The American church has also failed to end oppression, to do justice.  An elegant mythology about our founding fathers who were oppressors will not release the oppressed, heal the trauma.

Neither eloquent historical mythology (freedom without justice) nor flawed Reformation theology (justification without justice) will release the oppressed.  For 500 years since the Reformation, white European ethnocentrism and oppression have ravaged the world, killing and enslaving multiplied millions of person created in the image of God.

Graham Cray, author of an article "A Theology of the Kingdom," discusses the need for intervening justice; Cray writes:  "The king was expected to make active intervention on  behalf of those who could not secure justice for themselves. . . . Many other psalms link God's rule with a justice which actively intervenes on behalf of the weak and oppressed. . . . The prophets also portrayed God as the one who intervened to bring justice. . . .  God's king (Jesus) will intervene to bring justice. . . .  Jubilee . . . the image of an intervention to restore justice is clear."