BOOK REVIEW: Haiti: The Tumultuous History---From Pearl of the Caribbean to Broken Nation by historian Philippe Girard (2005)

This is my book review of Haiti: The Tumultuous History---From Pearl of the Caribbean to Broken Nation by historian Philippe Girard (2005), professor of Caribbean history.

As you read my review of this history of Haiti, filled with brutality and violence, remember that there was no Gandhi, King, Mandela, John Perkins or Jean Thomas to lead Haitians in the way of love, reconciliation, non-violence, justice and cooperatives.  After generations of slavery, the freed slaves knew nothing of democracy with civil society social institutions, so they far too often repeated the French model of domination, violence and racism.  Fortunately, in Fond-des-Blancs today, Christian Community Development and cooperatives are providing a new and better model.

The author of Haiti, Girard, presents a somewhat different history of Haiti, one that is not only highly critical of French leaders, but also Haitian leaders as well.  In his well-meaning attempt to be brutally honest in his analysis, a biased free market ideology shows through from time to time and distorts his interpretations and recommendations.  But overall, Girard wants to understand what went wrong over the 500 years of Haitian history so Haitians can chart a different future.

By way of comparison, many interpretations of U. S. history have glorified and sanctified American leaders such as Washington and Jefferson who owned slaves and whose "democracy" denied women, the poor, Native Americans and African Americans equality.  In spite of Lincoln's eloquent words, our founding fathers did not create a government of all the people, by all of the people and for all the people.  They created a plutocracy (rule by the rich), not a full-fledged democracy.

From Spanish genocide to French slavery to a slave revolution to political despotism and poverty; also to U.S. neo-colonialism.  Even when U.S. intentions were good, they were often stupid and paternalistic with negative results.  From crisis to crisis---political crises, economic crises, corruption crises, foreign intervention and embargo crises, ongoing poverty crises, illiteracy crises and hurricane and earthquake crises.  Girard comments:

Courage, suffering, incompetence, and energy: it is not difficult to understand why outsiders have always found Haiti to be at once mesmerizing and horrifying  Haiti is one of the most stunningly beautiful islands of the Caribbean. . . .  its violence rarely matched in the annals of human history. . . . genocides, brutal slave systems, countless civil wars and foreign invasions, torture chambers. . . . Haiti was richer than the United States during colonial times.

To the outsider, Haiti represents an incomprehensible mixture of African culture, French culture and U.S. influence.  Haiti is fiercely anti-French and anti U.S., yet given an opportunity, Haitians want to emigrate to France and the U.S. 

The country is plagued by racial conflict [between mulattoes and blacks; mulattoes a richer minority and blacks a poorer majority]; leaders are often corrupt and uncaring; and Haitians expect foreign countries, not Haitians, to pull the country out of poverty. . . . Even today, roads are built with international aid, schools are funded by U.S. churches, and clinics are run by European NGOs.  All the tasks normalyy performed by a functioning government are neglected:

History hangs like a long shadow over Haiti.  The violence and exploitation of the past are difficult to forget; and yet, past ills too often serve as a convenient excuse for Haiti's present shortcomings. . . .  Just like a child who grows up in an abusive, broken home, then finds it hard to adjust to the world of adulthood, Haiti was conceived in blood, tears, and theft, hardly the best building blocks for nationhood.

Many [of the early Haitian leaders] were so molded by the prerevolutionary colonial mindset that their main ambition was to become plantation owners. . . .  French plantation owners had been idle masters, so Haitians equated social success with inactivity, and work with domination (to this day, the Creole expression "to sweat" also means "to be stupid").  Dictatorship, political instability, and labor exploitation; such were the true legacy of the revolution, which did nothing to lay the groundwork for a lasting, free-market democracy.

The Haitian Revolution: "Half of the country's population had died in the previous thirteen years of fighting."

Haitian soldiers rounded up French, planters, soldiers, and merchants all over Haiti and slaughtered them---men, women, and children. . . . All the colonial crimes were revisited in reverse. . . .  For decades, the vast majority of Haiti's population remained illiterate and unskilled, substantially hindering Haiti's economic development.  Securing one's freedom in an orgy of white blood also set a violent tone for future political discourse. . . .  ambitious generals gained, kept and then lost power through violent means.

I am reminded of the biblical admonition to love your neighbors and enemies, reconciling with your neighbors and enemies, praying for your neighbors and enemies, doing justice in behalf of your neighbors and enemies.

To be continued

Some quotations from Greed and Good

Some quotations from Greed and Good; I have now upgraded this from rec. reading to required reading---all 700 pages!!  Sam is an expert on economic inequality/oppression and he even includes a brief but excellent section on the OT Jubilee:

J. P. Morgan, the grandest capitalist of the late nineteenth century . . . insisted on a twenty-to-one pay ratio between workers and top executives. . . . Peter Drucker consistently championed the notion that pay ratios between workers and executives ought to be kept within a fifteen-or-twenty times range.  [Pizzigati rec. 10-1 ratio]

Colleges and universities took Title IX to heart.  They really had no choice.  Most couldn't survive a semester without federal support. . . . All America benefited.

American private enterprises currently face no negative consequences for choosing inequality.  These enterprises can pay their workers pittances and their executives millions---and still merrily collect our tax dollars [billions in subsidies].  Why should we let them?

To keep current on economic inequality, subscribe to Sam Pizzigati's online newsletter, Too Much: on excess and inequality.  To keep current on the racial wealth gap, google IASP, Thomas Shapiro, a top-notch sociologist and the nation's expert on the racial wealth gap.  See the Feb., 2013 article "The Roots of the Widening Racial Wealth Gap."

Woe to the Rich

From the lips of Jesus, Luke 6:24 "Woe to the rich."  Chapter 16 of Luke provides context and interpretation for this blunt, uncompromising verse: 

1.  A person cannot serve both God and Money at the same time.
2.  The highly religious Pharisees "loved money."
3.  The story of the rich man and Lazarus.
4.  In 19:46, Jesus describes the temple as "a den of robbers."

With this context, I could paraphrase this verse: "Woe to the religious rich."  Could the religious rich be the worst kind of rich?  Historically, this verse could be paraphrased:

1.  Woe to the atheistic rich---the Russian, Communist elite.
2.  Woe to the dictatorial rich---Papa Doc and Baby Doc and a host of Spanish kings.
3.  Woe to the deistic rich---the American founding fathers, especially the slave holders, Washington and Jefferson.
4.  Woe to the socialistic rich---the growing wealth gap in Sweden and Norway, the semi-socialistic nations.
5.  Woe to the capitalistic rich---American corporations.

It appears that the rich are clever enough to manipulate and exploit any type of economic, political or even religious system.

Capitalism

Gretchen Morgenson, a common-sense capitalist, doesn't want us to ruin capitalism with stupidity and greed. Alan Greenspan, a libertarian capitalist, was the Fed chair for many years; to some, he appeared to be a financial/economic genuis. Apparently even President Clinton, a Democrat, fell under his economic charms. President Clinton, in one of the worst decisions of his presidency, signed the bill that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act. After the Great Depression, Glass-Steagall was passed to put a wall between the capital of commercial banks and the capital of investment banks. Speculative (high-risk) investment could not put at risk the capital of commercial banks and bring them down if the investments went bad. Glass-Steagall represented common sense capitalism, the kind that Gretchen Morgenson, financial journalist for the New York Times, believes in. Morgenson saw the Great 2008 Recession coming in advance. All the signs of unregulated financial markets were there. Morgenson saw them; Greenspan did not.

An analogy. A modern highway with thousands of cars requires some regulation for the safety of the common good---speed limits and stop signs.  A stupid libertarian would remove most of the stop signs and increase the speed limits. But a common sense Department of Transportation would keep them in place. Gretchen Morgenson is a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist; she once worked for the conservative Forbes business magazine. She wants capitalism to work well for all citizens; she wants to avoid the boom and bust cycles which hurt everyone.  Capitalism needs some stop signs and speed limits, some common sense rules and regulations to control speculation, greed, corruption and crime. Clinton and Greenspan began to pull up some of the stop signs; Bush and Greenspan continued to pull up more. A big crash became inevitable; it almost turned into another Great Depression. Apart from unprecedented action by the Fed, it would have become a Depression. 

Here is how Dean Starkman describes Mortenson, the common sense capitalist, in an article in the July 6, 2009, The Nation, entitled "The Most Important Financial Journalist of her Generation: Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times."  According to Starkman, Morgenson understood and fearlessly reported on the financial mess well ahead of most business reporters. She realized that "something in the system had gone deeply awry. She came to identify excessive "compensation [that] lies at the center of today's [financial] crisis."  

Morgenson asserts: "I believe in capitalism. To me it is natural that I would go after the people that are wrecking it."  For her, capitalism needed both better ethics and better regulation. For her, too much of modern American capitalism had become corrupt and often criminal. The mortgage crisis was rigged; it was predatory lending. "Capitalism should be made to work for everyone, not just the big shots." Corruption and crime may be inevitable when more people are making money by handling money than from producing goods.

In 2014, it is proving hard to put the hyperindividualistic, libertarian genie back into the financial bottle. Morgenson is still a financial journalist for the Times. Google her to find out her current analysis. She thinks that current laws and regulation are too lax. Some financial institutions are not only too big to fail, they are also too big and secretive to regulate. If you think capitalism itself is a problem and you want an alternative, google Mondragon to examine a cooperative economic model created by a Spanish Catholic priest.

Was Jesus a radical?

Was Jesus a radical?

"To be truly radical is to understand the root [cause] of the problem."  Angela Davis

White abolitionists who worked hard to abolish slavery weren't radical enough, biblically speaking.  They stopped at freedom for slaves but did not follow up with justice for the freed slaves (40 acres and a mule).  In fact, many white abolitionists were actually racist, as Lincoln was, (they believed that whites were superior to blacks) at the same time that they were against slavery.

In American eyes, white abolitionists were radical, but biblically they went only halfway.  Since ethnocentrism/racism was not rooted out, soon slavery was replaced by another system of oppression which enslaved blacks again.  Slavery was replaced by segregation, sharecropping and prison work gangs.

Was Jesus radical enough?  Jesus the radical, revolutionary prophet who pushed hard for the incarnation of the kingdom of God here on earth, identified ethnocentrism and oppression as the root social evils plaguing Palestine (Luke 4).  So he prophetically proclaimed that the revered temple was a den of robbers, that the religious leaders, many of whom were rich, neglected justice and the love of God.  He also scorched the religious rich ("Woe [doom] to the rich") who put Money on a par with God.

Jesus also had a radical solution: incarnate the kingdom of God in behalf of the oppressed poor; pursue Jubilee justice; practice love and do justice to fulfill the Law and the Prophets.  Only the Spirit-filled church (Acts 4:32-35) can fulfill this demanding assignment.  An Americanized church can't, and it is likely to be a part of the problem more than a solution.

In Mt. 5:10, Jesus warned that those who did justice would likely experience persecution.  After Jesus cleansed the temple and called it a den of robbers, the chief priests sought his death.  In their eyes, Jesus was a dangerous revolutionary.  After all their practice of ethnocentrism and oppression produced prosperity---for them.

A true story reported by a white pastor in Leadership:

Do white evangelical theologians need to get close to the pain of the oppressed poor before they can and will produce a relevant NT theology of society, a kingdom of God theology that puts the oppressed poor first?  The following is a true story reported by a white pastor in Leadership, summer 2010, page 46:

Right after I spoke [on Zacchaeus], a woman from the Cowichan tribe told her story of being physically and sexually abused as a child in a nearby Residential School.  In fact, she only told the story of her pain so that she could tell the story of her joy: how Christ was redeeming and reclaiming and healing her in mind, body, and spirit.

But the room was heavy when she finished.  The white pastor got up, overcome with emotion, and said she was sorry.

"I'm not apologizing because I was involved in what happened to you," she said.  "I'm apologizing because I wasn't involved.  Because, even when I knew terrible things were happening in those schools, I still did nothing."

Then the pastor said, "If you are white and want to join me in apologizing, I simply as that you stand."  I stood.  All the white people stood.

We were completely unprepared for what happened next.  The First Nations [Indians] people began to weep.  Then their weeping turned to sobbing.  And then their sobbing turned to wailing.  It was piercing.  I felt the shame of all the wrongs my forebears had committed.  I felt the shame of all the ways I, though not involved personally, had been personally uninvolved.  Apathetic.  Not wanting to know and, once knowing, wishing they'd just "get over it."

The wailing continued, got deeper, got louder. 

When I could bear it no longer, an older First Nation woman---a chief of her tribe---came to the front, took the microphone, and said, "I do not want those of you who are standing to carry the weight of this.  I forgive you.  On behalf of my people, we forgive you."

Peace like a river swept over me, and I wept.

Biblical Depth of White American Evangelicalism

Yesterday, I sent some quotations from Spencer Perkins---his report on a trip to South Africa in 1989, prior to Mandela's release from prison.  My rereading provoked some anger, some deep disappointment about the biblical depth of white American evangelicalism.

Some of the closest disciples of John Perkins seem to be highlighting the message of reconciliation, but, in comparison, minimizing justice.  They have a good NT theology of reconciliation, but the lack a NT theology of justice.  So even in 2014, evangelicals still have a long ways to go in spite of hundreds of Christian colleges, universities and seminaries.  What's wrong?  Are we stuck in the Middle Ages?

In modern America, Tim Keller and Ken Wytsma are two of the best white writers on justice; but strangely, judged by their books, they seem to be unaware of the unjust mass incarceration of young black and Latino males, and the unjust massive racial wealth gap swirling around them in society.  Michelle Alexander asserts that in America, contrary to what we are usually taught, as a nation we really don't destroy systems of oppression; we merely redesign them.  Slavery was replaced by neoslavery---segregation, sharecropping, incarceration.  Legal segregation was replaced by mass incarceration and the racial wealth gap.  Mass incarceration, prison, is close to slavery; the racial wealth gap is close to sharecropping with low wages and poverty.

In the midst of all this, evangelicals still don't have an adequate NT theology of social evil---ethnocentrism and oppression.  Nor do they have a NT theology of justice---love, reconciliation, Jubilee justice, shalom, all related to the Spirit-filled church and the kingdom of God.

Any volunteers?