[News] Haiti - Whitewashing the History of Abolition

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/concannon08252007.html

Weekend Edition
August 25 / 26, 2007


Amazing Grace


Whitewashing the History of Abolition

By BRIAN CONCANNON

This week the world officially commemorated one of the pivotal events 
of modern history with deafening silence. On August 23, 1791, a group 
of slaves in Haiti led by a man named Boukman ignited a revolt that 
changed the world. They attacked their French masters, and kept 
fighting until Haiti wrested independence from Napoleon in 1804. 
Haiti's rebellion metastasized: the independent nation run by former 
slaves inspired people held in bondage throughout the world, and 
forever undermined the "moral" and philosophical underpinnings of 
slavery. Slavery held on for decades- more than seven decades in the 
U.S. - but from that time on it was fighting a losing battle.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 
(UNESCO) proclaims August 23 the official "International Day for the 
Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition," but there is 
little behind the proclamation. The UNESCO website's link to 
"Activities Worldwide" shows a blank page for the United States. 
France, alone among former slave trading countries, has an activity 
listed, but that is for last March's launch of a virtual UNESCO 
exhibit, aptly titled: "Lest We Forget." The link to the virtual 
exhibit does not work. There is no mention of the anniversary in any 
major U.S. media outlets, and very little even on the internet.

In contrast, the film Amazing Grace, about William Wilberforce and 
the fight to end the slave trade in the British Empire, made a big 
splash when it opened last February. In less than four months, enough 
people saw the film in the United States for the movie to gross $21 million.

Wilberforce, a wealthy member of the British Parliament, risked his 
reputation, his political career and even his health in a long 
struggle to convince his colleagues to pass the Slave Trade Act. The 
Act became a critical step in ending slavery when enacted in 1807, 
and both Wilberforce and the Act deserve an important place in history.

But neither deserves to overshadow the Haitians and their revolution. 
Haitians risked their lives as well as their health and careers- over 
300,000 Haitians died fighting for abolition, many cruelly tortured 
and mutilated along the way. Haitians actually ended slavery in the 
country, for good, while the Slave Trade Act only ended the transport 
of slaves by ship in the British Empire (the Empire did not actually 
abolish slavery until 1834). But it is the Slave Trade Act, not 
Haiti's revolution, which is widely celebrated as the beginning of 
the end of slavery.

The orator, statesman and emancipated slave Frederick Douglass was 
appointed U.S. Minister to Haiti, where he saw the disservice that 
history was already doing to the country. In an 1893 address to the 
Chicago World's Fair, Douglass acknowledged the contributions of 
Wilberforce and the other abolitionists in England and the United 
States. But he reminded his listeners that:

"Until Haiti struck for freedom, the conscience of the Christian 
world slept profoundly over slavery. Until she spoke no Christian 
nation had given to the world an organized effort to abolish 
slavery..... Until she spoke, the slave trade was sanctioned by all 
the Christian nations of the world, and our land of liberty and light 
included."

Amazing Grace actually advanced the process of writing Haiti out of 
the history of abolition. I caught only one reference to Haiti in the 
film- a sentence about the revolution's outbreak in a scene from the 
early 1790's. The film managed to chronicle the abolition movement's 
progress through to 1807 without even mentioning 1804's actual abolition.

The world had another chance to give Haiti its due three years ago, 
during the bicentennial of the nation's independence. On the big day, 
January 1, 2004, Thabo Mbeki, President of the most powerful African 
nation, South Africa, came to celebrate. But the former slaveholding 
nations, led by the United States, disliked the economic policies of 
the people Haitians had elected to serve them, so they boycotted the 
events. They also forced the less powerful countries of Africa and 
the Caribbean to stay away, so Haiti's historic celebration was muted.

Instead of sending congratulations to Haiti's government, the United 
States sent guns and money to those trying to overthrow it. When the 
international spotlight did arrive in Haiti seven weeks later, it 
came to witness the violent return of another brutal U.S.-supported 
dictatorship. That dictatorship led to another 4,000 Haitians dying 
in political violence.

I enjoyed Amazing Grace despite its slighting of Haiti, and found it 
a compelling and inspiring film. That might be because I, like most 
moviegoers, am a lot closer socially and economically to William 
Wilberforce than to Boukman and his comrades, or even to their 
descendants in Haiti today. I am willing to work hard for what I 
believe in, but I do not put my life on the line. At the end of a 
hard day's fight I sleep in a comfortable bed with a full stomach.

We all risk being closer morally to John Newton, the slave-ship 
captain turned preacher who wrote the hymn that gave Amazing Grace 
its title. Newton had a series of religious conversions that led him 
to abandon slave-trading and eventually become a prominent 
abolitionist. But he traces his original conversion to 1748, while he 
continued to work on slave ships until 1754. By some accounts, he 
continued to profit from investments in slave-trading companies for 
decades more.

Haiti has always challenged Americans by embodying conflicts between 
our espoused ideals and our limited willingness to implement them. In 
Douglass' youth, we had declared all men created equal, but we 
refused to recognize Haiti because it was governed by men with the 
wrong skin color. In 2004, our government proclaimed that democracy 
was worth establishing in Iraq by brutal force, but not protecting in 
Haiti. Our peace and human rights movements protested the Bush 
Administration's violations of international law in overthrowing 
Iraq's dictator, but silently accepted the same Administration's 
overthrow of Haiti's elected president. In 2007, we make and watch 
movies that celebrate the end of slavery, but we refuse to allow the 
slaves credit for their own liberation.

They say that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to 
repeat it. Americans cannot or will not accurately remember our own 
past, or Haiti's, but it is the Haitians who are condemned when we 
repeat the past. They pay the price for our coups d'etat, our 
development assistance embargos, and our occupations. We cannot take 
back the previous punishment we have inflicted on Haiti, but we can 
remember it, and thereby do our best to avoid repeating it.

Brian Concannon Jr. is a human rights lawyer and directs the 
Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, <http://www.ijdh.org/>www.ijdh.org




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