Statement on Haiti
Lil Joe and Aduku Addae
The crisis in Haiti has been covered in a mystical shroud of racism,
theatrical historicism and plain old superstition. The popular version has
this drama packaged as a battle between the black and white races, wrapped
up in the spirit of the epic struggle of the Black Jacobins, drawing
lavishly on the lure of Voodoo for maximum dramatic effect. It is a
wondrous tale from the crypt and the audience is just lapping it up.
But while the world is consumed by this tale from the twilight zone a
struggle of epic historical proportions is taking place. It is a struggle
between classes of people which is based in the temporal, material, economic
and social life of the Haitian people. Yes, the class struggle, defined in
its classic Marxian sense, is taking place in Haiti!
The latest episode of the struggle has Maxine Waters casting the
ex-soldiers, who have been universally credited as the agents of Aristide
s demise, as thugs and murderers who are prospective recipients of bribe
money. This is the manner in which she has disposed herself to discredit
the approximately 6000 strong former employees of the Haitian state who
have mounted a spirited and discipline struggle to force the representatives
of the Haitian State to pay ten years in back pay. Thus Ms Walters have set
the tone for another salvo in the ideological war.
We begin with a few basic propositions, as we must, in conducting these
sorts of discourses, if we hope to gain any clarity.
The Haitian population is divided into social classes. These classes are
determined by the divisions of labor which arises in the course of the
economic activities which these humans in Haiti undertake to produce and
reproduce their material being this being construed as their economic
life. The manner in which they produce their material existence, their
economic endeavors, and the divisions of labor thereby occasioned, are
determined by the tools in existence at a given period. Moreover, the manner
of appropriation is conditional upon the division of labor and on the
property relations so determined. So, the nature of classes and class
relations, then, is determined ultimately by the nature of the tools
available to the human community in Haiti. We posit, also, that contending
class interests is the motor of the class struggle and that unending class
struggles is the very essence of politics.
We posit these premises, derived from the most rigorous of scientific
investigation, as our point of departure. We dont want any confusion as we
go along.
The battle in Haiti is for the material wealth of that country. It has
brought into contention the US/France/Brazil/Group 184 conglomerate, on the
one hand and the impoverished workers of the numerous slums of Haiti
together with elements of the petty bourgeoisie, on the other hand. The
conglomeration of the US, France, Brazil and the Haitian Group 184 is the
very embodiment of the marauding global capital. The Haitian petty
bourgeoisie is comprised of a variegated collection of laborers who own
property and who generally are proprietors of their means of production.
What we see in Haiti, therefore, is an alignment of the global bourgeoisie,
the trans-national capitalist players, against the petty capitalist (mostly
of agrarian vintage) in combination with the utterly dispossessed hoards,
the proletarian masses, of the slum cities of Haiti, including Bel Air and
Cite Soleil. That is the basic manner in which the contending forces are
aligned against each other. The Haitian petty-bourgeoisie is in contention
with the global bourgeoisie.
The elements of the working-class engaged in this struggle is engaged as the
armed champions of one or either of the contending sides. The global
bourgeoisie has enlisted the service of the so-called ex-soldiers while the
hapless members of the street gangs from the slum cities have been forced
by default, due to their prior association with the party of the petty
bourgeoisie, Fanmi Lavalas, to become the arm bearers of the Haitian petty
bourgeoisie. From this vantage point we can see that the armed workers are
indisputably the decisive force, the very fulcrum on which the struggle
turns.
A cautionary note must be sounded here. Though they bear the arms
proletarian partisans have no over-riding class-conscious objective. This is
an unqualified detriment. As long as this remains the case they will be used
against each other and become decimated in the contest between the factions
of the bourgeoisie.
Bottom-line, the conflict in Haiti is being driven by a fractious dispute
between elements of the bourgeoisie about how production should be organized
in Haiti and about how surplus value will be appropriated. It is not yet a
dispute, strictly speaking, centered on class war and the very critical
question of the abolition of private property through the seizure of the
productive forces. By this I mean to say that the Haiti
