I am one of those people who surf the internet for hours before travelling to a certain place, retrieving tons of information about it and figuring out what to expect in advance. So when I decided to come to Haiti for a month, I naturally went on Google Images to get an idea of what I was heading for. The pictures I could find were mainly of two kinds. There were maps; and there were pictures showing the misery that poverty, the earthquake, and the hostile weather had caused. That was it. Apart from a couple of images of people at the beach, bleakness was all I could see. No sign of cultural, culinary or even natural beauty whatsover — just a barren land.
So when I arrived to Haiti a few days ago and found myself in one of the most beautiful countries I had ever seen, I was amazed. Port-au-Prince is a very stimulating city, in which a variety of different customs and social layers blend, creating a vibrant cultural energy that is truly staggering. It breeds a thrilling artistic activity, which finds its expression in the most disparate ways. The variegated Haitian music ranges from the rocky mini-jazz to the ceremonial vodou drumming, and can be heard in the streets like in the bars of the magnificent hotels that somehow still remind me of the long-gone colonial period. The visual arts are just as variegated as the music. The city is not only enriched by colourful wall paintings, wooden statues and other artefacts; even the pickup trucks and iconic tap-taps speeding through the streets are brightly painted.
The cultural richness of the city is matched by the breathtaking landscapes of the coast and the hinterland. The geographical conformation of the country is particularly fortunate, since it combines the beautiful Caribbean sea with sheer yet fertile mountains. Waterfalls, idyllic basins and symmetric plantations guarantee amazing views.
This is of course not to say that Haiti is a heaven on earth and there is no misery. I have been for a voluntary project to the infamous Cité Soleil in Port-au-Prince, where even the Haitian are scared to go, and witnessed the atrocious conditions in which people live there. With no running water, no food, and no houses where to stay, people live in metal boxes among debris and garbage, haunted by a stagnant smell that cannot even be described. Yet this does not mean that desolation is all one can find in Haiti. It does not justify the fact that, unlike for other developed countries, little evidence of its beauty can be seen on the internet.
This discrepancy between what the media show and what I’m actually experiencing got me thinking. Such falsified image of Haiti is actively fostered by the more developed countries, and the US in particular. Amy Potter’s extensive research on the newspaper coverage of Haiti clearly shows that this country is commonly depicted by American newspapers as a barren land, as a failed country that has no hope. As she points out, this misleading picture supports the idea of Haiti being in desperate need for help, in need “for outside interference”. This has of course great resonance in the world of politics, where the status of ‘failed state’ can easily be used as an excuse for influencing and controlling the decisions of the leaders — and the Haitian troubled history testifies this.
It’s however in the field of culture that such misleading image of Haiti seems to leave the deepest scars. Not only is Haiti depicted as a culturally poor country with no attractions, but even as unworthy of a literature. Indeed, Haitian literature is often labelled as a ‘literature of exile’, since apparently written by exiled writers reflecting their condition of exiles in their works. Yet this labelling does not acknowledge the vibrant literary production that flourishes within the country, nor that Haitian writers living abroad do not actually consider themselves exiles. As Nadève Ménard explains in The Myth of the Exiled Writer, “the continual insistence on exile as dominant trope of Haitian literature plays into the idea of Haiti as unlivable. The underlying message is that Haiti is not worthy of these writers and their works. That it can neither produce nor nourish them. The successful Haitian writer has either escaped from Haiti or in rare cases triumphed in spite of it”. Again, this portrays Haiti as a “desolate place desperately in need of foreign saviours”.
This image of Haiti helps attracting swarms of volunteers to the country, but also risks to generate a very dangerous mindset in them: that of going to a primitive, uncultured place which needs to be civilised — be it politically, economically or culturally. It promotes an attitude which is precisely that of the first colonists, claiming to bring light to the dark places of the earth. In fact, it betrays the very backward attitude that rich countries adopt towards the developing world, an attitude that actually damages them even more.
These thoughts have been haunting me for a couple of days; I wrote them down, but I wasn’t able to formulate a conclusion. Then I had the chance to spend some time in a Haitian school today. When I arrived, the kids were singing a beautiful song in French: ‘Haïti, une princesse à admirer!’. The teacher, Monsieur Deruisseau, proudly explained to me that he had composed it himself, and that his pupils were learning it as part of a sketch meant to be performed at the end of the school year. The lyrics were beautiful, and stroke me with their optimism. They encapsulate the wonderful impression I got of Haiti in these first few days, and send a very positive message to the world, which should be remembered: “Haiti, a princess! We must admire her; she has many treasures, which must be exploited. You have a beautiful sun — they say it’s amazing! — and beautiful flowers, beautiful rivers. Your children are proud. Our country does not die. Let’s adorn the villas, let’s plant lilacs, let’s sweep up the jumble, let’s use the hoes, let’s clean the sewerage. Then our country will become a paradise”.
Esprit de l'escalier 