Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Video:
The night of the
French overseas territories
Photo: Colonel Reyel
On 8 October almost 17000 people were present at the big music festival at the 'Palais Omnisport' in Paris Bercy for the 'La nuit de l’outre-mer' (The night of the French overseas territories).
The rhythms of the four departments vibrated for five hours with French stars as Colonel Reyel, Fanny J, Admiral T and many other artists. See photos of the event here.
Fred Locks Presents
the Toppa Top 10
Marcus Garvey Songs
August 18, 20111 Comment
Words by DJ Gravy Photos and Video by Martei Korley
As we mentioned the other day, we–along with a lot of other folks–are celebrating the birthday of Marcus Garvey (August 17th) all week this week. Garvey is a key figure in the history of Jamaica, pan-African identity and the foundation of the Rastafari movement. His legacy is often misunderstood, but his mission was clear: to liberate African people at home and abroad by creating awareness and an international system of trade for the benefit of the diaspora. While scrutinized by bigots and haters, he was immortalized by others as one of the great leaders of all time.
In honor of his birthday, we have mashed our usual Toppa Top 10 Tuesdays, Webisode Wednesdays and Throwback Thursdays into a single massive post running true the top 10 Garvey tributes in reggae–and we got the legendary singer Fred Locks to curate our countdown! His tune “Black Starliner” references Garvey’s vision of repatriation from the motherland to the West Indies. Watch, enjoy and pass it on. Happy Birthday Marcus!
The Caribbean Writer, the University of the Virgin Islands’ international, refereed, literary journal with a Caribbean focus, announces a submission call for its 26th edition. Issues unique to the Caribbean should be central to work submitted, or the work should reflect a Caribbean heritage, experience or perspective. Besides the usual poetry, short fiction and personal essays, Volume 26 will be dedicated to the environment – nature and ecology.
As we move into the 21st century we have to be mindful of our environment, how we care for it, how we preserve and maintain its pristine beaches, lush mountains and diverse, extraordinary bird, insect and animal life. The Caribbean Writer seeks works that celebrate as well as explore our relationship to nature, how tourism impacts our environment, the role nature plays in our lives, and nature’s rich flora and fauna.
Volume 26 will also celebrate women writers. We welcome interviews, essays and personal narratives on Sylvia Wynter, Olive Senior, Paule Marshall, Claire Harris, Lorna Goodison, Nancy Morejon, Velma Pollard, Erna Bordber, Zee Edgell and any other prominent Caribbean women writers.
Individuals are encouraged to submit poems (five maximum), short stories, personal essays or one-act plays. Only previously unpublished work will be considered. (If self-published, give details.) Include brief biographical information and put all contact information, plus the title of the manuscript, on a separate page. Only the title should appear on the manuscript.
All submissions are eligible for these prizes: The Daily News Prize for best poetry ($300), The Canute A. Brodhurst Prize for best short fiction ($400), The David Hough Literary Prize to a Caribbean author ($500), The Marguerite Cobb McKay Prize to a Virgin Islands author ($200), and The Charlotte & Isidor Paiewonsky Prize for first-time publication ($250).
Send e-mail submissions to: submit@thecaribbeanwriter.org as attached Word or RTF files, or submit via our “Submissions” page at www.thecaribbeanwriter.org. Submissions may also be sent by postal mail to: The Caribbean Writer, University of the Virgin Islands, RR 1, Box 10,000, Kingshill St. Croix, VI 00850-9781. Submission deadline is Nov. 30, 2011.
For more information, visit www.TheCaribbeanWriter.org or call (340) 692-4152.
SINCLAIR POETRY PRIZE
$500 and publication by the Evening Street Press will be awarded for the best full-length manuscript of original poetry. The contest is open to poets who have already published book length collections as well as those for whom this is a first book. The winning poet will receive 25 copies from a press run of 250. Submissions accepted May 1, 2011 to December 1, 2011.
Manuscript Requirements
- ms. must contain between 48 and 84 pages of poetry (some of which may be previously published)
- ms. must be typed (double or single spaced)
- ms. pages must be numbered and a table of contents included
- include an acknowledgements page
- include one cover page that contains the title, your name, address, phone number, and e-mail address
- include a second cover page that contains the title only
- your name must not appear anywhere else on the ms.
- SASE for results--manuscripts will not be returned
Reading Fee
The $25 reading fee includes a one-issue subscription to the Evening Street Review. Make check or money order payable to Evening Street Press. We reserve the right not to name a winner.
Multiple & Simultaneous Submissions
You may submit more than one manuscript. Send multiple submissions in the same envelope, marked “Multiple.” Each manuscript must include a $25 reading fee. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but we must be informed immediately if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
Mail entries (no email submissions, please) to Evening Street Press, 7652 Sawmill Road #352, Dublin, OH 43016-9296.
Walt Whitman Award Guidelines
& Entry Form
NOTE: Contestants may submit online or by mail. Entries will be accepted only if postmarked or submitted electronically between September 15 and November 15, 2011. All manuscripts must be accompanied by a $25 entry fee. The judge for the 2012 will be Jane Hirshfield.
General Guidelines
- The Walt Whitman Award is given to honor a poet's first book. Contestants must be living citizens of the United States who have neither published, nor committed to publish, a volume of poetry 40 pages or more in length and in an edition of 500 or more copies, either in the U.S. or abroad. Books on a smaller scale, such as chapbooks and limited editions, will not disqualify a poet.
- Manuscripts must be of original poetry, in English, by one poet. There are no restrictions on the style of poetry or subject matter. Translations are not eligible.
- Contestants should send only one copy of each manuscript. Manuscripts must be between 50 and 100 pages, typed single-spaced. Multiple poems may not appear on a single page. The manuscript itself should not contain any information that would reveal the identity of its author. Illustrations are not accepted. Contestants who have published poems in magazines may include those in the manuscript submitted, along with acknowledgment notes. See Submission Guidelines
- Contestants may submit manuscripts elsewhere simultaneously, but must notify the Academy immediately if a manuscript becomes committed to another press. A manuscript committed to another press is not eligible for the Walt Whitman Award.
- Notification of contest results will be made by email. The Academy expects the judge's decision by May 2012. Louisiana State University Press will publish the winning manuscript in a paperback edition within one year of the judge's decision.
- The winner will receive $5,000 and a one-month residency at the Vermont Studio Center.
- The Academy of American Poets will purchase from the publisher copies of the winning book for distribution to its members. No royalties will be paid to the author on the copies distributed by the Academy. The standard contract of the publisher will govern production, distribution, and royalties for all other copies.
- The Academy of American Poets cannot consider manuscript revisions during the course of the contest. The winning poet will have an opportunity to revise before publication.
- All correspondence concerning the contest should be addressed to the Academy. Any correspondence addressed to the judge will be forwarded to the Academy unread.
- Poets are not eligible to apply if they are close friends or colleagues, were mentored by the judge, or have studied with the judge in full-time accredited courses within the last 5 years.
Guidelines for Submitting Electronically
- The decisions of The Academy of American Poets as to eligibility are final. The Academy reserves the right to withhold the Walt Whitman Award in any given year.
- Online submissions can be made by filling out the entry form at www.poets.org/submit.
- Contestants who have published poems in magazines may include acknowledgment notes in the "Comments" field of the submission form. Do not include an acknowledgements page in your manuscript file.
- Each submission requires the payment of an entry fee of $25.00 (requiring a PayPal login). To pay by check or money order, please submit by mail.
Guidelines for Submitting by Mail
- The Academy assumes no responsibility for manuscripts not received due to electronic error. Contest applicants can verify the status of their submission at any time by logging back in to the submission manager.
- Two title pages must be submitted with each manuscript. One title page should include the author's name and address; the other should bear the manuscript title alone. The author's name must not appear on any other page of the manuscript. Each manuscript should be fastened with a binder clip. Staples, report covers, and other bindings should not be used.
- Contestants who have published poems in magazines may include a separate acknowledgements page in the submitted manuscript.
- Each manuscript must be accompanied by a completed entry form and a submission fee of $25.00. Please make check or money order payable to "The Academy of American Poets (WW)." Do not send cash. Contestants who submit more than one manuscript must include an entry form and submission fee with each.
- Neither late nor early manuscripts will be accepted. Contestants are strongly advised to retain copies of their work as manuscripts will not be returned. The Academy assumes no responsibility for the loss of manuscripts.
- Contestants who wish the Academy to acknowledge receipt of their manuscripts should enclose a self-addressed, stamped postcard.
Walt Whitman Award Entry Form (for Mailed Submissions) The undersigned hereby submits and enters the attached manuscript of original poetry in the contest for the Walt Whitman Award, acknowledges reading the guidelines, and agrees to abide by them.
Please type all information or print legibly
PROPOSED BOOK TITLE_______________________________________
AUTHOR'S LEGAL NAME________________________________________
ADDRESS_____________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
CITY________________________STATE__________ ZIP____________
TELEPHONE__________________________________________________
E-MAIL ADDRESS_____________________________________________
AUTHOR'S SIGNATURE__________________________________________
Submission Checklist
Required:
O Manuscript: one copy with two title pages (see guidelines).
O Entry form: completed and signed.
O $25.00 fee: check payable to "The Academy of American Poets (WW)."
O Postmark entry between September 15 and November 15, 2011.Optional:
O Self-addressed, stamped postcard if you wish the Academy to acknowlege receipt of your entry.
All entrants will be notified of the results by email.
Manuscripts submitted without entry form or entry fee will not be considered, nor will they be returned.
Mailing Instructions
Please send all entry components at once, in the same envelope.
Mail complete entry to:
The Walt Whitman Award
The Academy of American Poets
75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901
New York, NY 10038For more information, please contact:
Alex Dimitrov
Awards Associate
TEL (212) 274-0343 ext. 15
awards@poets.org
“Video Girl”
Starring Meagan Good,
Ruby Dee On DVD and Blu Ray
This Week
Video Girl, written by Datari Turner and directed by Ty Hodges, has been released on DVD on Blu Ray this week. The film also premiered in BET last week on Tuesday, Oct 4th. The project, produced by lead actress Meagan Good, had been in the works for several years before coming into fruition and released in May of this year.
The film centers around a small town girl named Lori Walker (Good) who leaves home to pursue the entertainment business. After meeting a video director, she becomes a celebrated video model in the hip hop world, but becomes succumbed into the downside aspects to the lifestyle. The film also stars Ruby Dee and Good’s sister La’Myia Good.
I caught some of the film on BET when it aired. The concept is more original than it sounds; and although the film has that made-for-tv movie feel, it was fairly engaging. It showcased some surprisingly compelling acting from Good in a few challenging scenes; however, in other important ones, it felt rather flat. It’s worth giving it a look though, especially to watch the always wonderful Ruby Dee.
You need Nicholas Kristof
October 15, 2011
By Dan Moshenberg
O my friends, there is no friend! If you’re an African girl in trouble, there are only two things you can rely on. Your courage … and Nicholas Kristof. At least, that’s what Kristof would have us believe.
The story Kristof tells is the story he’s told before. This time he’s in Sierra Leone. A 15-year-old girl named Fulamatu is raped by her neighbor. This happens repeatedly, and Fulamatu remains in terrified and terrorized silence. She loses weight, becomes sick. Finally, when two girls report that the pastor had tried to rape them, Fulamatu’s parents put two and two together, and asked their daughter, who reports the whole series of events. They take her to the doctor, where she is found to have gonorrhea. Fulamatu lays charges against the pastor, who flees.
That’s where Kristof comes in.
Fulamatu has the idea of having Kristof arrange, by phone, to meet with the pastor. The pastor shows up. The police arrest him. But it doesn’t end there. The pastor’s family comes to Fulamatu’s parents and begs forgiveness. The father agrees. The mother agrees. Then the mother “offers” to send Fulamatu away, to a distant village, one without a school. Then the father kicks the daughter out, but `fortunately’ Fulamatu has Kristof’s cell phone. She calls him just before the parents take the phone away. Later, Fulamatu is let, begrudgingly, back into the house, but the situation remains `fluid.’
This story is framed as part of the crisis of sexual violence, and child rape in particular, in Sierra Leone, in a delicate post-conflict zone. The only problem is that, except for the presence of celebrity witnesses, this story takes place across the United States, across Canada, across Europe. Girls are raped by family friends and by family members … everywhere. More often than not, they stay silent, sometimes forever. If they do speak, they are regularly abandoned or betrayed by surrounding adults who should care, from adult family members to police to the courts to the community and neighborhood, and beyond.
More disturbing is Kristof’s solution. He argues for US Congressional passage for the International Violence Against Women Act, but his story suggests a more important line of action. The story says, if you’re Black and a girl, in `a place like Sierra Leone’, you better have the phone number of a prominent White American Male. You need Nicholas Kristof.
That solution conveniently ignores, or erases, Sierra Leonean history. Fulamatu is indeed a courageous girl, and she is part of a history, in Sierra Leone, of courageous, hard working, truth telling, peace making girls and women. Some are in public office, like Jariatu Kamara or Mary Musa. Some are in groups that monitor public processes and empower and education women into becoming and remaining office holders, such as the 50.50 Group, a partner of WIPSEN – Africa, founded and led by Leymah Gbowee. Some of them are young women in their own movements, like Elizabeth M. Katta, of Young Voices, an organization that pushed the Sierra Leone government, in 2009, to sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Some are advocates and attorneys, like Sabrina Mahtani, who work with women prisoners, to secure due process and, often, freedom. Some are businesswomen, like Admire Bio, pushing and shoving to close the gender gap … and then some. Some are village women, like Yatta Gambai, who journeyed to India to study how to bring solar energy back to the villages and now are doing just that.
Some are peacemakers, like the members of the Women’s Movement for Peace in Sierra Leone or the unnamed hundreds of Sierra Leonean women who journeyed to the Great Lakes region of the Democratic Republic of Congo to march for peace, to march for an end to violence against women. Some are women, like Hawa, struggling with a health care system that, on one hand, is free and, on the other, still doesn’t deliver, especially when it comes to pregnant women and girls. Some are women farmers, targeted by major land grabs, struggling to resist and do better than survive. Not one by one. In groups and movements.
Sierra Leone is a tough place for women and girls, maybe among the worst. But that does not mean that the courageous ones are alone, any more than anywhere else, or that they’re waiting for Nicholas Kristof’s phone number. Another narrative is possible.
4 Comments leave one →
Amazing Charts Show
How 90% Of The Country
Has Gotten Shafted
Over The Past 30 Years...
Henry Blodget is CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Business Insider.
Recent Posts
The Economic Policy Institute has put together an amazing interactive chart that shows the growth of incomes in the US over the past 90 years--broken down by who the gains went to.
(Thanks to Barry Ritholtz, for alerting us to this and for running some numbers himself.)
By adjusting the sliders on the chart, you can break down the period into different eras, which show startlingly different trends.
Over the entire period, the picture looks okay (okay--not great): Average U.S. incomes grew by $38,000, adjusted for inflation. About half of these gains went to the richest 10% of the country. The other half went to the other 90%.
Image: Economic Policy Institute
And now let's break down the last 90 years into different eras...
Over the first three-quarters of the period, from 1917-1981, the picture looks better: Average incomes rose by $26,000. The richest 10% captured 31% of that growth, and the other 90% captured 59%.
Image: Economic Policy Institute
But then we come to the last 30 years.
Over the past three decades, the picture changes--radically. From 1981-2008, average incomes grew by a healthy $12,000. But a shocking 96% of that growth went to the richest 10% of the country. Only 4% of it went to the other 90%.
Image: Economic Policy Institute
And then there's the last 10 years...
From 1997-2008, average incomes grew by $2,700. All of these gains went to the richest 10%. The incomes of the other 90% declined.
Image: Economic Policy Institute
That's worth saying again:
In the past 30 years, 96% of the growth of average incomes in this country have gone to the richest 10% of the country. And in the past 10 years, the incomes of the other 90% have declined.
You'd certainly have to be a member of the top 10% to think that the trend over the past 30 years is okay. You'd also have to be pretty short-sighted. Because if that trend continues, and if you're in the top 10% because you own or work for a company that serves the other 90%, demand for your products will soon be going down.
Grace Lee Boggs' messageto Occupy Wall Street - 10/9/11
__________________________
By MARK DUELL
Last updated at 10:34 PM on 14th October 2011
Violence erupted on Wall Street this morning with hundreds of protesters clashing with police as they marched in Manhattan - jumping over barriers, pushing over police scooters and blocking traffic.
Fifteen protesters have already been arrested in New York today after they got into fights with police officers after a planned ‘eviction’ was postponed following a last-minute standoff with authorities.
Park owners - backed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg - put off the scheduled clean-up and Occupy Wall Street demonstrators celebrated this morning as they marched down Broadway.
Scroll down for video
Fight: A man affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests tackles a police officer during a march towards Wall Street on Friday after the demonstrators were told they can stay at Zuccotti Park
Confrontation: A New York City police officer shoves a demonstrator affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests as they march through the streets in the Wall Street area on Friday
Happy: Demonstrators with the Occupy Wall Street protests confront New York City police officers
Pain: A New York City police officer runs over a National Lawyers Guild observer as Occupy Wall Street demonstrators march through the roads near Wall Street on Friday
Stop: Police officers try to clear people participating in the Occupy Wall Street protest from marching down the middle of a street in the financial district
Stocks scored their first back-to-back weekly gains since early July on Friday, on strong Google earnings and optimism towards a solution to the euro zone's debt crisis.
The gains put the Dow and the Nasdaq back into positive territory for the year, marking a dramatic reversal from two weeks ago, when the threat of a Greek default and sour U.S. data had buyers running from the market.
The Dow Jones was up 166 points, or 1.5 percent, at 11,644. The S&P 500 was up 21 points, or 1.7 per cent, at 1,225. The Nasdaq was up 48 points, or 1.8 per cent, at 2,668.
The dramatic move came just hours after demonstrators chanting 'Hell no! We won't go!' stormed a Wall Street restaurant last night to confront Mayor Bloomberg over a planned clean-up of their camp.
Protesters surrounded Cipriani restaurant in Manhattan as the Mayor was at dinner in an attempt to hand him a petition with 310,000 signatures supporting their right to remain in Zuccotti Park.
Their anger was triggered by the Mayor's endorsement of a clean-up of the 'unsanitary' Occupy Wall Street encampment - which was postponed by Brookfield Office Properties at the last minute.
Mayor Bloomberg said it was Brookfield rather than him that decided to postpone the clean-up, but added that the firm had come under pressure from city politicians, reported the New York Daily News.
Action shot: Occupy Wall Street protesters are arrested during a march in lower Manhattan, New York
Injured: Members of Occupy Wall clash with police during a celebration march on Friday morning in New York
Joy: Columbia University students Zoe Ridolfi-Starr, left, and Quitze Valenzuela-Stookey react with other Occupy Wall Street demonstrators as the announcement that they would not have to leave the park was made
Taking control: New York police officers arrest people participating in the Occupy Wall Street protest
'My understanding is that Brookfield got lots of calls from many elected officials, threatening them and saying: "If you don't stop this, we'll make your life more difficult",' Mayor Bloomberg said.
'If those elected officials would spend half as much time trying to promote (the) city and get jobs to come here, we'd go a long way to answering the concerns of the protests.'
New York City Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway made the announcement and protesters, who viewed the clean-up as an 'eviction notice', streamed into the plaza this morning.
'Late last night we received notice from Brookfield Properties that they're postponing their scheduled cleaning of Zuccotti Park,' a tweet by Mayor Bloomberg's office said this morning.
Orders: Police officers try to clear people participating in the Occupy Wall Street protest on Friday
On the ground: New York City police officers arrest an Occupy Wall Street demonstrator on Friday
Celebration: People participating in the Occupy Wall Street protest march down the middle of Broadway
Horseback: Mounted police officers prepare to defend Wall Street as hundreds of protesters march
Up and over: People participating in the Occupy Wall Street protest jump over a barricade while marching
The demand that protesters clear out had set up a potential turning point in a movement that began on September 17 with a small group of activists and has swelled to include several thousand people.
Occupy Wall Street has inspired similar demonstrations across the U.S. and become an issue in the Republican presidential race.
The protesters' demands are wide-ranging, but they are united in blaming Wall Street and corporate interests for the economic pain they say all but the wealthiest Americans have endured since the financial meltdown.
Protesters have had some run-ins with police, but mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge and an incident in which protesters were pepper-sprayed seemed to energise their movement.
The protest has led sympathetic groups in other cities to stage their own local rallies and demonstrations such as Occupy Boston, Occupy Los Angeles and Occupy Seattle.
There was a strong police presence and a showdown with protesters had been feared. Hours earlier, the Mayor had refused to leave his New York restaurant, instead making his exit out of a back door.
‘I'll believe it when we're able to stay here,’ protester Peter Hogness said. ‘One thing we have learned from this is that we need to rely on ourselves and not on promises from elected officials.’
But Nick Gulotta was jubilant. He had been holding up a sign saying: ‘Bloomberg Don't Evict Occupy Wall Street.’ People cheered as he scratched out the ‘don't’ and replaced it with ‘didn't.’
‘It shows when people work together, you really can make a difference and make justice happen,’ Mr Gulotta said.
Boisterous cheers floated up as the announcement of the postponement circulated, and protesters began polling each other on whether to make an immediate march to Wall Street nearby.
‘Late last night, we received notice from the owners of Zuccotti Park - Brookfield Properties - that they are postponing their scheduled cleaning of the park,’ Deputy Mayor Holloway said.
Jubilant: Occupy Wall Street protesters march down Broadway from Zuccotti Park in New York after the park's owners, Brookfield Properties, postponed plans that would have cleared it
Sign change: Members of Occupy Wall Street celebrate after learning that they can stay at Zuccotti Park
On the move: Police on scooters escort protesters as they march down Broadway from Zuccotti Park
Win: Police stand outside of Zuccotti Park as Occupy Wall Street protesters gather to maintain occupation
Victory: Occupy Wall Street protesters march down Broadway from Zuccotti Park in New York on Friday
On guard: Police stand outside of Zuccotti Park as Occupy Wall Street protesters celebrate
Treats: Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's, serves ice cream at Zuccotti Park for protesters
Ten people in an Occupy Seattle protest were arrested last night at a park, police said.
The demonstrators were detained after Westlake Park closed late on Thursday night.
Detective Mark Jamieson said the arrests came as police focused on protesters associated with a tent who did not comply with orders to leave.
Earlier, some protesters gathered outside a downtown hotel where Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney had a private fundraiser.
‘For the time being (they are) withdrawing their request from earlier in the week for police assistance during their cleaning operation.’
New York police said they would make arrests if Brookfield requested it and laws were broken.
Deputy Mayor Holloway said Brookfield believes it can work out an arrangement with the protesters that ‘will ensure the park remains clean, safe, available for public use,’ it said.
Brookfield had planned to power-wash the plaza section by section over 12 hours and allow the protesters back - but without much of the equipment they needed to sleep and camp there.
Closely-watched: Police on scooters escort Occupy Wall Street protesters as they march down Broadway
Rest: An Occupy Wall Street protester sleeps in New York's Zuccotti Park on Friday morning
Before they knew: An Occupy Wall Street protester scrapes paint that has dripped onto the concrete in New York's Zuccotti Park ahead of the planned eviction
Wash and tidy: Members of Occupy Wall Street clean Zuccotti Park near Wall Street in New York on Thursday
Big effort: The occupiers used sweeping and mopping equipment in an attempt to clean up the park
Makeshift bed: An Occupy Wall Street protester sleeps inside a plastic bin in New York's Zuccotti Park
The publicly-traded real estate firm called the conditions at the park unsanitary and unsafe.
'It shows when people work together, you really can make a difference and make justice happen'
Protester Nick Gulotta
The company's rules, which haven't been enforced, have been no tarps, no sleeping bags and no storing personal property on the ground.
The park is privately owned but is required to be open to the public 24 hours per day. In a last-ditch bid to stay, protesters had mopped and picked up garbage.
Many protesters said the only way they would leave is by force. Nicole Carty, a 23-year-old from Atlanta, had hoped the group's cleaning effort would stave off any confrontation.
Sign: A demonstrator stands in Zuccotti Park on Thursday night with a message to park owners
Defiant: On Thursday night, protesters confronted New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a gala dinner at Cipriani's on Wall Street chanting 'Hell No! We won't go!'
Divisive: Demonstrators had said they would not be going anywhere on Friday morning when Zuccotti Park is schedule to be cleaned, setting the stage for a showdown with police
No showdown: Mayor Michael Bloomberg did not come out of the restaurant to address protesters
Elsewhere: Protesters hold placards with slogans in front of the office of the American Chamber of Commerce in Makati on Friday as Philippine left-wing activists joined the global Occupy Wall Street movement
‘We tell them: “Hey the park is clean, there's no need for you to be here”,’ she said. ‘If they insist on coming in, we will continue to occupy the space.’
'I'll believe it when we're able to stay here. One thing we have learned from this is that we need to rely on ourselves and not on promises from elected officials'
Protester Peter Hogness
A spokesman for Bloomberg, whose girlfriend is a member of Brookfield's board of directors, had said on Thursday that Brookfield had requested the city's assistance in maintaining the park.
‘We will continue to defend and guarantee their free speech rights, but those rights do not include the ability to infringe on the rights of others,’ his spokesman Marc La Vorgna said.
Several protests are planned this weekend across the U.S. and Canada, and European activists are also organising their own demonstrations.
See video here
http://storyful.com/stories/1000009775
>via: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2049137/Occupy-Wall-Street-Violence-e...
__________________________
Rome protests turn violent
as thousands join city rally
From: videolinkiesta
Peaceful protests in Rome turned violent on Saturday amid reports that a breakaway group of militants set fire to cars, broke shop windows and clashed with police. The organised demonstration by #OccupyRome and “indignati” protesters appeared to have been hijacked by a minority of “black box” anarchists. The protests, which attracted thousands of people into the centre of Rome, came after the increasingly unpopular Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi narrowly survived a confidence vote in parliament on Friday. During Saturday’s protests, police fired tear gas and water cannon in an effort to disperse elements of the crowd. You can read about the global #occupy protests here on Storyful.
By Saturday night, there were reports that some 20 people were taken to hospital. Berlusconi said those responsible for the “unthinkable levels of violence" would be punished:
@tunastrawberrri
Deepa Babington#Berlusconi says rioters in rome must be punished#OccupyRome#indignati
Favorite Retweet Reply
From @tunastrawberrri
One man with a flag approached police lines:
From videolinkiesta
By Saturday evening, police appeared to have the situation under control:
courtneycwalshPolice have set up barricades around Pz San Giovanni, slowly pushing out the violent protesters onto surrounding streets. #Oct15#indignati
Favorite Retweet Reply
From @courtneycwalsh
The ‘occupy’ movement went global as protesters gathered in cities across 78 countries on October 15. What started off as a small sit down protest near Wall Street nearly a month ago has galvanized support on all six continents. Protests, which were largely organised through Facebook and Twitter under the hashtag #occupytheworld and #ocw kicked off in Australia, New Zealand and far east Asia on Saturday morning. The anti-capitalist rallies will be spreading west throughout the day stretching across Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America. You can follow all the latest developments from around the world here on Storyful:
occupySYDNEY RT@The99Percenters NYPD doing bogus busts on KIDS just to make their evil quotas http://t.co/79XSe5635 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
occupySYDNEY re some earlier tweets its Samsung that cant spell @chichtweets not me..5 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
OccupyCanada I hope everyone occupying their cities had a great night #occupycanada12 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
OccupyDameStr Photos by Dean Kelly of Occupy Dame Street and the 15-10-11 Marchhttp://t.co/inXto8dE17 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
occupySYDNEY RT @bedlamfury Malaysia’s middle class — The New Poor http://t.co/pnXOkJwy19 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
OccupyParis Merci Emmanuel pour ces photos du #15O à Paris! http://t.co/CqEeKrjHhttp://t.co/6Cgoykm127 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
OccupyInfo Any witnesses from the citibank arrests in manhattan? Get in touch asap. #ows29 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
anonops VIDEO: #OccupyWallStreet Yesterday 25 ARRESTS for closing their #Citibank accounts! >> http://t.co/Ku8ZfmmK37 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
anonops VIDEO: #OccupyItaly 200k #Rome, 50 arrests >> http://t.co/lPgIsCEb42 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
OccupyLSX To upload pictures and videos use wetransfer.com and send it to occupylondonupload@gmail.com! Cheers!43 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
OccupyNS Check out what Halifax Media Coop has to say about OccupyNS45 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
OccupyLSX If anyone has an old mac with FireWire (+ lead) and a copy of PhotoShop illustrator and final cut or any of above please donate to media!!47 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
anonops VIDEO: AIR VIEW #Spain 10/15 350K #BARCELONA / 500K #MADRID >>http://t.co/0HF2IJZb48 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
OccupyBrisbane -Ryan- David, love your work. Thank you. - On the media issue. They will take any mistake that you make, and... http://t.co/2shSwTEK51 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
anonops VIDEO: #OccupyWallStreet 10/15/11 #NYPD Arrest @ Times Sq >>http://t.co/jWnCmF1x53 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
occupyhongkong #occupyhongkong to continue till tomorrow 佔領中環行動擬持續至明日http://t.co/MvgqJXm253 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
OccupyCanada Joe Warmington is a typical Sun Media reporter, old and out of touch with reality.54 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite
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What is fast developing into a global movement, is being organised via a number of facebook pages, some of which are global and others which are dedicated to regions and countries.
@HirokoTabuchi
Hiroko TabuchiMore #occupytokyo slogans: "Down with the rich!" "No more American capitalism!" "Kick Noda out!" "Let's complain more!"http://t.co/BhwczR8T
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From @HirokoTabuchi
Some posters from the “Occupy Asia” movement also called for protests in China, though there is no confirmation so far that such rallies are being held.
In neighbouring Taiwan protesters occupied Taipei 101, the world’s second highest skyscraper and major financial hub.
Anonymous’ trademark mask also made an appearance in South Korea at another ‘occupy’ rally. The hacker community put its weight behind the protests in America during the summer and has released a number of promotional videos.
Many tweeted in anticipation of further protests as Saturday dawned around the world:
@MizzHolaki
SanifaDidn't realize the #Occupy movement was in nairobi, as well :D. The world stands in solidarity against unnecessary poverty. #OccupyTheWorld
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From @MizzHolaki
>via: http://storyful.com/stories/1000009775
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#OccupyWallStreet:
A protest and community
From: Alex Mallis
Storyful’s curators spend their day looking for stories and storytellers that reward us for paying attention. Every day, they stumble across images and video from the crowd that capture the moment or the mood. They rarely fit a neat category so we have created one for them. Welcome to Curator’s Choice.
You can send Storyful imagery you like on Twitter and Facebook.
>via: http://storyful.com/stories/1000009354
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Police arrest hundreds
of #occupychicago protesters
From: @exileinflyville
The Chicago police department arrested around 200 #occupychi protesters on Saturday night, while tearing down their camps at Grant Park. Some 2,000 protesters marched from the Federal Reserve to the park on Saturday evening, where they began pitching tents. The police reportedly stepped in to remove the tents and protesters after midnight on the basis of park closing times.
@OccupyChicago
Occupy Chicago200+ People Arrested.6 Police Transport Wagons and 2 CTA buses full of arrested protesters.#occupychi#occupychicago#ows#occupywallstreet
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From @OccupyChicago
Many expressed outrage that the police were granted permission by the city to use public buses to transport protesters to police stations. In New York police have also previously resorted to public transport to assist in the mass arrests, earning them heavy criticism from the Transport Workers Union.
This picture of a woman being arrested was taken by a photographer for the Chicago Tribune:
Some protesters sat outside the police station for the night to show their solidarity with those who had been detained.
As the night progressed police moved in and reportedly surrounded the camp with cars and horses.
The dividing line between police and protesters was keenly felt:
@pHinkasaurus
micaha CPD officer walked by and thanked us for his overtime. i thanked him for ignoring our rights. #occupychi
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From @pHinkasaurus
This picture was posted with the comment: “Cops around perimeter of camp as lawyers explain folks’ rights on bullhorn.” Several eyewitnesses reported that lawyers were giving short tutorials on protesters rights should police try to arrest them.
>via: http://storyful.com/stories/1000009805
José Antonio Aponte,
Cuba and Haiti
In 1812 occurred the Aponte rebellion, which began in Havana. Aponte was a free Negro whose motives were not apparent, though race hatred seems to have been the prime cause of the outbreak. He terrorized Havana for a time but was slain with many others.
E.P. Herrick, “Uprisings of Cuban Negroes,” The Southern Workman (1913)
One of these outbursts, that instigated by José Antonio Aponte in 1812, and directly traceable to the example and influence of Haiti, was repressed with relentless severity, the leader and eight accomplices meeting death by hanging.
Henry Cabot Lodge, “Conspiracies and Revolutions in Cuba, 1793-1896,” The History of Nations (1906)
In Cuba, José Antonio Aponte, a free man who organized an uprising in 1812, had promised his followers that help would come from Haiti, and he galvanized his troops with pictures of Toussaint L’Ouverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and Henri Christophe.
“The Impact of the Revolution,” New York Public Library
There is of course the famous case of José Antonio Aponte, who was executed in 1812 as the supposed leader of a slave uprising. In his possession they found a book of drawings and paintings, which was used as evidence against him in the trial. The book itself appears to be lost, but the trial records give us a description of the pictures, and these descriptions strongly suggest that Haiti was one of his main sources of inspiration.
Sibylle Fisher interviewed by Gina Ulysse, Bomb 90 (Winter 2005)
Image: Personnage des sociétés secrètes Bizango d’Haïti © musée du quai Branly, Paris, France.
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Sibylle Fischer
(Interview, Practice & Theory)
The Practice + Theory series is sponsored in part by the Frances Dittmer Family Foundation.
Sibylle Fischer, New York, 2004. Photo: Liam Murphy.
Haiti, more specifically the Haitian Revolution, is the reason that Sibylle Fischer and I were destined to meet. I first heard of her recent book on the Haitian Revolution from Caribbean philosopher Lewis Gordon in 2003. At the time she was at Duke University and I was at Wesleyan University. We emailed each other but did not meet. Then Berlin came calling. The House of World Cultures (Haus der Kulturen der Welt) was preparing a three-month long interdisciplinary series of events centering on the Black Atlantic curated by Paul Gilroy, Tina Campt and Fatima El-Tayed. Fischer and I were invited to the final conference, “Another Modernity: Counter Cultures, Racial Terror and Human Rights,” Sibylle to discuss her bookModernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Culture of Slavery at the Age of Revolution, published by Duke in August, and I to perform from my spoken word show called I Came of Age Colonized. Then BOMB pre-empted Berlin, offering us the opportunity to converse on this significant topic.
Modernity Disavowed has been called a “superior work” and “tour de force” by Alicia Rios and Lewis Gordon, respectively. It is a pathbreaking study that takes the Haitian Revolution from the margins, where it has been relegated, to place it at the center of the development of western modernity. Fischer conducted extensive historical and cultural research in archives in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. With her evidence, she makes a compelling and nuanced argument about the significance of race, national and political identities as a reflection of fear and trauma in the new world during revolutionary times.
Gina Ulysse As someone who is constantly reeducating and retooling herself because of my penchant for the interstitial and marginal, I hope that you would share with us how you began this project. The book is an in-depth study of the impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Caribbean, especially Latin America (Cuba and the Dominican Republic), and its significance for our understanding of modernity. In one of our phone conversations, you noted that the Haitian Revolution was a non-event that took 350 pages for you to discover. Would you explain that, particularly since it is exemplary of your broader thesis in Modernity Disavowed?
Sibylle Fischer I came to the topic almost by accident and in a scholarly way, though in the process of writing the book I definitely had to unlearn some of the academic habits you are supposed to acquire in graduate school. It’s actually a pretty funny story. I had written a long doctoral thesis on nineteenth-century Spanish Caribbean literatures and the emergence of national cultures. Haiti was really not within my purview. When it was all done and I had my title in hand, I took a break, and then another look at the materials. And then it suddenly dawned on me: I had missed the main event. How can you understand the origins of Creole cultures in the Caribbean without considering the impact of the only successful slave revolution in Western history? Well, you can’t. But the fact that I had managed to do so much reading and produce so much writing and still not realize that there was an event that would have been deeply traumatic for the Creole elites and must have had a profound impact on later cultural and political developments tells you something about the way the Haitian Revolution has been dealt with (or not dealt with) in scholarly literature. It also tells you something about how disciplines are organized—you can read the entire canon of nineteenth-century Caribbean literature and not find a single reference to the revolution. Literary critics do mention the event, of course (and it wasn’t as if I didn’t know about it), but it rarely goes beyond the simple comment that the elites were terrified of a repetition of Haiti. So I started all over again, and the result is Modernity Disavowed, in which I try to reconstruct the political and cultural landscape of the revolutionary age in a way that puts Haiti and the issue of slavery squarely in the middle.
GU It appears that you are in agreement with Susan Buck-Morss that Hegel knew about the Haitian Revolution. For Buck-Morss, the master-slave dialectic in The Phenomenology of Spirit wasn’t mere fantasy but based on actual events. What exactly did Hegel know, why is that significant to our understanding of modernity and how would you explain where you depart from Buck-Morss’s hypothesis?
SF Well, yes, I find Buck-Morss’s argument pretty compelling and it certainly shook up a lot of people who thought they knew exactly what to make of Hegel in relation to slavery and colonialism. Probably we’ll never be able to prove that Hegel was thinking of Haiti when he couched one of the central passages of the Phenomenology of Spirit in terms of bondage, or more specifically, as a violent conflict between a master and a slave, which moreover is won by the slave. But since we know what journals he was reading at the time and that those journals were reporting on the events in the Caribbean, it seems extravagant to think that he didn’t know. This in itself is significant since it goes directly against the kind of Eurocentric provincialism—philosophical and otherwise—that considers modernity something that took place in London, Paris and Berlin, as if the colonies and the slaves somehow belonged to another era and played no role in the shaping of modernity. That is just plain wrong.
But there is another question, and that one is more tricky: how does this change our understanding of Hegel? Even if Hegel is thinking about Saint Domingue, does he really narrate—even endorse—the slave revolution? Buck-Morss seems to think so. I am far more skeptical. There is a long-standing discussion among Hegel scholars about how to interpret the obscure ending of the master-slave dialectic. Somehow the master just vanishes, and the slave seems to come out on top, but how exactly that all works is harder to say. Certainly it’s not a victory won by force. Buck-Morss herself says that Hegel falls into silence and obscurity at the end of the master-slave dialectic. Well, that sounds an awful lot like what just about everybody else did when it came to the slave revolution in the Caribbean—they retreated into disavowal. Hegel knows, and at the same time behaves as if he did not. Does he believe both—that the slaves did, and did not, carry the victory over their masters? Or was it that he had to avert his eyes, as if in the face of a horrifying sight? What seems most plausible is that precisely because Hegel knew, in some sense of the word, he fell silent at the end of the master-slave dialectic.
Now, what does this mean for our understanding of modernity? Well, I suppose I’d say it shows that we can’t simply treat modernity as an “unfinished project” (as Habermas famously put it) and carry on as before. But it also means that there may be seeds for emancipatory thought (and practice) within modernity that need to be recovered and considered before we decide to ditch the whole idea. After all, the Haitian revolutionaries were as modern as the institution of racial slavery. Just take a look at the early revolutionary constitutions and the way they go about establishing racial equality. That’s something that belongs in the history of modernity.
Modernity Disavowed, Duke University Press, 2004. Cover: detail of a mural from a colonial dwelling in Old Havana. Photo: Pedro Abascal.
GU While perusing your book, I took the liberty of making broader associations between your work and black popular cultural commentary. I began to recall Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet particularly as I read your sections on Cuba where you offer several in-depth detailed readings of visual art and popular poetry, which you succinctly argue was perceived locally as a poetry of horror. Will you expound on that and how these instances (and there were many) relate to your argument concerning how fears of blackness truncated modernity?
SF Yes, this association with Public Enemy and Fear of a Black Planet is absolutely right. The greatest fear of the white elites in the slaveholding areas was a repetition of Haiti—of another black state. When you look at Caribbean archives it’s amazing to see what a rumor mill the Caribbean Sea was at the time. On the one hand, you have an officially ordained silence regarding all things relating to the events in Saint Domingue; on the other, an almost obsessive archival chatter—secret correspondence, spy reports, etc. etc.—about the events. Clearly, the elites could not control the rumor mill, but they tried to control access to more institutionalized means of cultural expression and communication. This strategy went much beyond the suppression of specific political messages. There is of course the famous case of José Antonio Aponte, who was executed in 1812 as the supposed leader of a slave uprising. In his possession they found a book of drawings and paintings, which was used as evidence against him in the trial. The book itself appears to be lost, but the trial records give us a description of the pictures, and these descriptions strongly suggest that Haiti was one of his main sources of inspiration. But “fear of a black planet” didn’t just manifest itself in the suppression of uprisings. Take a look at Cuba in the first decades of the nineteenth century: one of the big issues for the elites was that so many crafts people and artisans—painters, carpenters, musicians, dentists, etc.—were free people of color. When you look at the archival documents about the foundation of the first Cuban art academy, for instance, it becomes absolutely obvious that it was founded because of racial fears: the arts have fallen into the hands of people of color is the refrain that keeps coming back. And as the white (mostly Creole) elite tries to promote forms of high culture—academic painting and the novel, in particular—the cultural production of the people of color comes to signify barbarism. This is true of a tradition of wall painting that was popular in the early nineteenth century, but eventually disappears as people develop a more “civilized” taste that could only be satisfied by artists that were brought in from Europe. Another interesting example is the mulatto poet Plácido: despite his protestations of innocence, he was executed as the supposed leader of a slave conspiracy by the Spanish colonial authorities and became one of the “official” martyrs of the Cuban struggle for independence. But what could they say about his poetry, which was of a popular sort, precisely the kind of stuff the Creole elite wanted to eradicate from Cuban soil? The contradiction couldn’t really be solved. It turned him into a kind of ghost that keeps haunting Cuban culture in ever new debates, plays, films: as a martyr official culture needs him, but as a poet he doesn’t fit.
GU The section in your book on the Dominican Republic and Haiti is quite illuminating. You’ve mapped out the extended roots of anti-Haitianismo in the DR that has often been associated with Trujillo. Your analysis takes a psychoanalytical turn to explore what it is exactly that is repeatedly deeply buried in Dominican collective memory. It is so traumatic that it led to what Edwidge Danticat aptly referred to as the farming of bones, an image that one cannot easily remove once it has been implanted. You speak of a national state of trauma marred with guilt and betrayal. In addition, you argue that central to Dominican negation was the fact that Haitian occupation meant modern economic and political reforms. How did you come to these points?
SF For me the chapters on the DR were in many ways the most difficult ones to write. Dominican history is so full of reversals and repetitions, it’s like a postcolonial nightmare. If you have any historical sensibility you know that these things leave deep scars in the collective psyche. At the same time, there is the horrendous history of anti-Haitianism which came to its most brutal highpoint in the massacre of Haitian laborers in 1937, during the Trujillo dictatorship—the events that Danticat wrote her haunting novel The Farming of Bonesabout. But even today, anti-Haitian racism is endemic and the human rights situation of Haitian migrant workers on Dominican sugar plantations is appalling. So it is not the case that we can simply blame Trujillo and be done with it.
One of the reasons that I adopted a psychoanalytic approach (and I should say that I don’t think psychoanalysis is somehow a privileged mode of interpretation in general) is that that virulent racism of the sort we find in the DR, far from being an explanation, is what needs to be explained. There were so many contradictions in the cultural records, so many bizarre obsessions, so many features you don’t find anywhere else in Spanish America that I just felt that I needed a vocabulary to talk about the way in which history is experienced subjectively. To give just one example: after the DR gained independence for the third time in 1864, Dominican literature no longer mentions Haiti, but that of course did not mean that anti-Haitian racism had disappeared—in fact, the worst was still to come. Somehow the obsession went underground. So what you need is a language that helps you explain displacements and suppressed anxieties of that sort.
Now, what explains these contradictions? I think the traumatic nature of the Dominican historical experience has a lot to do with the fact that the revolutionary slaves who invaded the Spanish-speaking (and slave-holding) territory next door time and again actually arrived as modernizers (this is a point already made in the 1880s by the Dominican maverick writer and political theorist Pedro Bonó, but, of course, it has not found much airing since then): they rationalized the legal system, introduced modern property laws, etc. This was something the largely white elite could not accept; so history had to be re-invented. What you get is a mulatto nation that thinks of itself as somehow “Indian” and of its revolutionary neighbor as a monstrous barbarian.
GU You evoke Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s brilliant analysis of the roots of Duvalierism in his book Haiti State Against Nation. Given your own extensive knowledge of the fragments and attempts at restructuring that occurred in the aftermath of the Revolution, how would you explain Haiti’s present situation?
SF Well, I wish I had a good answer. The present situation is so disheartening, I really don’t know what to say about it. And I’m really not a specialist on Haitian contemporary politics. So let me just say a few things here. For Trouillot, Haitian history is characterized by a conflict that originates with the revolution: on the one hand, there were the slaves who just wanted to be free and work on their garden plot; on the other hand, there was the state, whose survival depended on the continuation of the plantation (or so the leaders thought, not without reason). Obviously, the two projects are incompatible, and the state, since the early days of the revolution, adopted extremely authoritarian measures, including forms of unfree labor, to keep the plantations going. As a theory of the origins of Haitian authoritarianism this goes a long way. But I don’t think we can explain the current situation without also talking about the isolation of Haiti in the Western hemisphere. To give just one of the more egregious examples: in his recent Clash of Civilizations Samuel Huntington argues that Haiti belongs to the category of countries that are not part of any of the world’s great civilizations; and I really have to quote this to you: “Haiti, ‘the neighbor nobody wants,’ is truly a kinless country.” And there are other factors that need to be considered to explain the current disaster, especially the history of U.S. interventions on the island, the half-hearted actions of the UN, and so on.
Gina Ulysse, eye remember, mixed media, 2004. From the multimedia project Illuminating the Past. Photo: Marc Yves Regis III. Courtesy of the artist.
GU I read your work as critical to the process of countering the disavowal that has socially, economically and politically incarcerated Haiti. I am curious about your thoughts on the broader political significance of your project. You provided an extremely important and useful reading . . . so how, if at all, do you see yourself in making this work more practical and available?
SF I agree with you about the need to counter the disavowal that so much characterizes international response to Haiti. I actually think your lamp project is a wonderful example of how this contestation can be made practical in the original sense of the Greek word praxis: in place of silence and equivocation we have something tangible, visually present as act, as object and as important fact. It’s such a great idea to use these little kerosene metal lamps from Haiti and inscribe them with an incidental fact, a name, a date, etc. When the grand narratives fail you, the incidental fragment becomes so important—that’s certainly the way it happened for me in the writing of Modernity Disavowed. But to my mind, the lamp installation also shows that the act of contestation is never simply “done.” Negotiating a complex labyrinth of thousands of lamps brings about an important recognition: what the inscriptions of the lamps say—the historical facts—can’t be separated from the way we come to know them. The beauty of the project really is its simplicity, in such stark contrast with the structures of disavowal, which are so indirect and evasive, caught up in bad faith. When I read some of your poetry and especially the description of your installation Illuminating the Past I was wondering—is it that there is something about the Haitian experience that escapes disciplinary discourse? I myself often felt that giving specificity and meaning to silence and disavowal really pushes the boundaries of what is possible within the accepted methods of any one scholarly discipline. Partly for that reason, I spent quite some time working on a documentary on the Haitian Revolution with the Haitian-American filmmaker Patricia Benoit. This collaboration was very important for me in the sense that it really forced me to confront questions of why this story matters and how it ought to be told. You can write many scholarly books without thinking too hard about these things. But film is such a difficult medium—so expensive and so entangled with the tastes and habits of the entertainment industry. I found it incredibly frustrating to work under those constraints. So to this day, there is no documentary on the revolution—not a single one.
GU To answer your question, I conjure Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic and say that it is not the Haitian experience per se, but colonization in general that goes beyond academic compartments. As a trained anthropologist, I would say that the social sciences have yet to come up with methods and forms that could enclose haunted screeches and pain of dehumanization and illegitimacy as well as Toni Morrison did with Beloved. For this reason, with Illuminating the Past, I exigently criss-cross disciplinary lines to make the exchange of knowledge an embodied and contemplative process. To me the Haitian dilemma is how to make the telling of the past visceral to inveigle a sort of awakening. It’s like being awake and everyone else is in a dream world. It is precisely because of that state of unawareness that January 2004 came and went, most newspaper articles questioned just what did Haiti have to celebrate given its 200 years of turmoil. What would you say to that?
SF You know, this is really interesting. In a way the newspapers have been saying the same thing that I heard over and over again as an objection to my work, ever since I began to give talks on my research. Even people on the left who consider themselves politically committed scholars would say things like “How can you say the revolution was successful? Look at Haitian history after 1804.” Or they would quibble with my choice of texts: why did I spent such efforts on the revolutionary constitutions since they were never implemented? Or they would say that the revolution simply created a new elite, turned against the people who fought the revolution, and thus founded a predatory state. Now, I think this last point is right, except for the “simply”—the political leaders in 1804 were faced with such an economic, demographic and environmental catastrophe that nothing was “simple.” French genocidal warfare had decimated the population, the plantations had been burned down, the towns were destroyed. Haiti declared independence in 1804, but the institution of slavery in the Atlantic emerged strengthened from the revolutionary era. The only post-slavery state in the hemisphere was cut off from the rest of the world. As the eminent Caribbean anthropologist Sidney Mintz said, the surprising thing is not that Haiti fared badly, but that it fared at all. Racial discrimination was officially banned, but in reality differences of color played a crucial role in politics and the distribution of wealth. Dictatorships alternated with regimes that were liberal republics only by name. Still, I strongly feel that we shouldn’t let Haiti’s turbulent history after 1804 become this straight-jacket that prevents us from even raising the possibility that we might learn something about core issues of modernity from the events of the revolutionary era. The point is not that we should return to epic celebrations of the revolutionary feats that Trouillot rightly attacked inSilencing the Past. But we cannot allow the overdetermined catastrophe of post-revolutionary Haiti to block our access to one of the most radical attempts to put racial equality and freedom from slavery on the agenda of modernity.
GU I am in agreement with you on that point and I am glad that you brought up Trouillot’s book on the power of history. Indeed, Haiti’s present must be understood within the context of the past. The revolution, which Trouillot describes as unthinkable to the West and that you read as disavowed gave black people freedom, which came with a very high price tag that Charles X took all the way to the bank. France refused to accept Haiti’s sovereignty and only agreed to do so after issuing the Ordinance of 1825, which required Haiti to pay the sum of 150 million francs as compensation for the loss of property. Haiti paid a total of 90 million gold francs with high-interest loans borrowed from French institutions. In addition, Haiti was diplomatically ostracized for several decades by the global community. There were indeed undisclosed costs to fighting for and then gaining one’s freedom rather than receiving it from white colonizers. In many ways, Haiti is still paying for causing a (dis)order of things. When I think of what’s next for Haiti, I first consider what it would mean and signify to the entire black world. What are your thoughts on Haiti in/and the world?
SF I think you are pointing to a really important fact here. There has been so much talk about silence and silencing in recent years, and for good reasons. As you know, I myself usedisavowal — a form of denial or negation — to call attention to the gaps in the historical narratives. But we must not lose sight of the fact that Haiti also played an incredibly important role in the history of the African diaspora. At a recent symposium at Northwestern University about the Haitian Revolution the Senegalese philosopher Souleymane Bachir Diagne gave a wonderful talk about the significance of Haiti in Africa. The title of his talk was borrowed from Aimé Césaire, one of the founding figures of the Négritude movement: “Africa, . . . I mean Haiti.” Haiti, despite its troubled history (and perhaps also because of it), has so much symbolized the struggles and aspirations of the black diaspora, so many writers of the diaspora, from C. L. R. James and Ntozake Shange to Walcott and Glissant, have written important works that were inspired by the Haitian Revolution, that any analysis of the silences in the Western record needs to be balanced against the fact that Haiti also occupies a central position in the cultures of the Black Atlantic. It has been like that ever since the days of the revolution: officially ordained silence against the backdrop of rumors that spread from island to island, pictures that were circulating in Caribbean harbor towns, songs that could be heard wherever there were plantations and slaves. The Black Atlantic has always been a contestatory culture and within that culture, the memory of Haiti never vanished, whatever the official policy was.
Wow. I find your take on Fulamatu’s story startlingly unfair — to Kristof, but more importantly to Fulamatu and to other victims of sexual violence in Sierra Leone and around the world.
You write, “More disturbing is Kristof’s solution,” then go on to say he supports passage of the International Violence Against Women Act. Do you oppose the Act and its passage?
Or are you talking about this vague other solution that YOU say his column “suggests”?
Fulamatu’s story reveals her courage, and I don’t think the fact that Kristof is the one telling her story undermines that. She is betrayed by her own family, but takes action to save herself.
Also, I think this story IS probably pretty unusual in the context of the US, which has a huge problem of sexual violence, but also has a powerful body of laws protecting children and a system that enforces them — not always perfectly, but does that make those laws meaningless? What does that say about the courageous women and girls in the US who demanded those laws, who stood up against the stigma of rape and child sexual abuse at great personal cost?
Take a deep breath. Kristof doesn’t seem like a guy who’d be fun to have to dinner, exactly, but don’t minimize the reality of sexual violence against women and girls, ignore the lack of laws and enforcement systems to protect girl children in Africa from forced marriage, rape, and other forms of abuse, just to score points in your feud with the guy. He’s not that important, and you are better than that. I hope.
I actually find Kristof’s essay quite unfair. Apparently the only people who can intervene in cases of rape in Sierra Leone are himself and the International Rescue Committee. Dan’s list of women and women’s organizations in Sierra Leone show that Kristof could have taken a completely different route with this story, and that if he was the initial intervenor in this situation, he could have connected Fulamatu with those more local groups, written about them in his column, and perhaps done some minor intervention in the “deepest darkest Africa” as “White Man’s Burden” narrative that is the driver of the story he does tell.
If he had included information about rape in the United States — the low rate of reporting, the low rate of arrest, the low rate of prosecution, and the low rate of conviction — he would then have opened up the possibility of solidarity among women in the United States and those of Sierra Leone, rather than the implied narrative that everything’s fine here and a basket case there. He might have noticed that having laws on the books isn’t enough — and that in no way disrespects the women and girls who courageously fought for those laws; it means that there is much, much more to be done.
Given the passage of the “no public funding for abortion and hospitals have the right to deny women abortions” bill this week, and the repeal of domestic violence laws in Topeka, I hardly think the women of Sierra Leone should be holding their breath for feminist solidarity from the US Congress. So, yes, I think the law mentioned in the article is at best a P.R. move and pretty meaningless for women here or there. From what I can see, it’s an unfunded mandate, and a piece of the national security apparatus that claims the protection of women, i.e. in Afghanistan, as part of the rationale for US intervention. I understand that Amnesty and some international women’s groups do support it; that doesn’t make it the most effective thing we can do to combat violence against women, including rape, in the US and Sierra Leone. It might have been interesting to hear what Fulamatu and her classmates think should be done.
My take – Nicholas Kristoff is a hero hands down. Anyone who read the comments from his essay/article could see how moved many people were and their plans to take some type of action. He is being chastized for being Caucasian and American (he has no control over either). He does not come across as some superior being. Just a man who wants the world to be reminded of the horrors of sexual abuse (most of it against humans who are female). Yes it occurs all over the world. Many people are unaware and shielded from these acts.
Would you two (Mr. Mosenburg and delioness) be happier if Nicholas was an oil barron or made millions selling cigarettes? He’s telling heart-wrenching stories in the widely read NYT that bring awareness to subjects that are not pleasant to talk about. There are great and evil people everywhere in the world – and among all genders, races/ethnicities age groups, social classes, etc. He is not demonizing Africa. He is letting people know about these acts. Those who don’t want to read about huge problems such as this can avoid his columns.
Yes, he could have gone to the existing aid groups in Sierra Leone – apparently they haven’t been able to stop these brutal attacks either. They may end up using his column to further their cause as it will likely make its way to them. Sexual violence occurs in the Congo, the US, Asia, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, nearly all war zones, you name it.
My hat is off to Mr. Kristoff. No matter what, someone will criticize him. Glad he gives a damn and is a male talking about this. Men can do more to change sexual violence and gender inequality than women alone can. It will not stop without the involvement of men and women, but especially men!
I don’t actually think your take on this is entirely fair. Because of the history of colonialism, etc, the people tend to believe that the intervention of a white person can be more helpful than that of the authorities in place. In this case it seems to be true. Sadly it often is.
I also believe that had Fulamatu herself managed to convince the pastor to meet with her parents herself the outcome could have been worse. Let’s not forget that this is a so called ‘pastor’ These are people who have managed to convince their community that they have a special relationship with God and the sort of people who can convince their followers that a person is posessed and in need of a what is usually a sadistic and violent exorcism. Which church gives him his authority as a pastor?
What’s more significant for me is that this is the story of a religious leader taking advantage of his position and relying on the fact that because of this, he is more likely to be believed than his victim. Yes this is a story that happens around the world, children (not just girls) and women being raped and sexually assaulted by men (usually) who use their position as religious leaders as a cover for their crimes. Let’s not forget that Catholicism is increasing more in Africa than in any other part of the world and we have a body of evidence that demonstrates that religion’s concern (or lack of it) for the welfare of women and children who have been raped and sexually assaulted and that this attitude goes right to the top
The blog writer points out that there are many local organisations that could have helped her but given where she lived, her age and so on, would she have known about them?`
I hope that Fulamatu is able to rebuild her life and get an education. At least she had the opportunity to get help.
I also hope that Krystof and or Mendes was able to put Fulamatu in touch with some of the local organisations and individuals mentioned in your post so that she will continue to have the help and support first given by Krystof and Mendes.