How the Blazers Got Their Chequers – and other stories

Posted on Jul 16, 2018Feb 9, 2019 Posted in SportTagged Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Blazers, Brazil, Colombia, Coq Gallois, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, England, FA, football, France, Furia roja, Germany, Haiti, History, Iceland, Iran, Japan, Joe Gaetjens, Lions of Teranga, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Red devils, Russia, Russia 2018, Senegal, Serbia, Socceroos, South Korea, Spain, Sport, super eagles, Sweden, Switzerand, three lions, Tunisia, Uruguay, USA, World CupLeave a comment

Why do the men’s world cup teams of 2018 look the way they do? Where do their nicknames come from?

I’ll start with England. England wear a red change kit because of a Haitian called Joe Gaetjens.

(Yes I know it’s from the cross of St George, go with me on this).

Until the 1950s England wore blue jerseys when faced with a lilywhite opposition. England traditionally wear white and blue as these were the colours of the FA. Aside from the occasional red sock for a bit of variety, white and blue were the order of the day until one famous afternoon in Belo Horizonte.

The 1950 world cup, England v the USA. The Americans wore white, so the Three Lions put on their familiar blue. The English, in their first world cup and one of the favourites, were widely expected to demolish the team of semi-pros and Sunday leaguers, who drafted in a Scot, a Belgian and the Haitian “Ti-Jo” Gaetjens to strengthen the team.

Gaetjens, from an elite Port-au-Prince family, came to the US in 1947 to study accounting at Columbia, and caught the attention of the US selectors playing for Brookhatten, who took him with them to Brazil. 37 minutes in, and Ti-Jo dived in to deflect a Walter Behr shot into the back of the net. That was enough to defeat England. Oh Spenser St John, Graham Greene, Hesketh-Hesketh Prichard – your boys took a hell of a beating!

After this embarrassment, the accursed blue kit was binned. The next time a change kit was needed, England appeared in their now-fabled lucky red outfit. Of course, England got worse afterwards, and things did not change until The Magical Magyars of Hungary disintegrated England’s defence twice in a row (6-3, 7-1). Fortunately, England were wearing white on those days, so the red shirt was spared the dustbin of history.

Gaetjens returned to Haiti soon afterwards. In 1964, he was arrested on (tenuous) suspicion of anti-Duvalierist activity, and sent to the infamous Fort Dimanche torture camp. It was there he died.

kazu2 — Kazu of Japan, now in blue, 1994

England aren’t the only ones who changed their look for superstitious reasons. Japan used to wear red and white in mimicry of their national flag, like most other countries do. Things went so wrong during the early 90s, that the Japanese went blue. Things got better, and now blue is here to stay, celebrated by their current nickname, the Blue Samurai.

Three Leopards on the Shirt…

England also got their nickname from the FA. The Three Lions adorn the traditional English crest first adopted by the association after its boozy founding in the Freemasons Tavern pub in 1863. The “leopard” as it was known was first used by Henry I, but trebled by Richard the Leopardticker a few decades later, because he had a thing for big cats.

England’s latest nemeses, the Belgians, themselves are the first lot to be known as the Red Devils. Before Salford, and before Man Utd. After a brief dabble with white uniforms, they stuck with red, and after Pierre Walckiers gifted them their luciferian moniker in 1906, the name and the kit were set in stone.

Not to be outdone, the Spanish are known as the “Red Fury” – La furia roja. This is as much a reflection on their traditional style of play as it is their jerseys – a lesson lost on their class of 2018 who suffocated themselves and half of their audience with their centre-passes-to-right-passes-to-centre play. Completing this furious tricolour are yellow and blue. Red and yellow are the Aragonian colours that comprise the flag. I’m not certain where the blue comes from, perhaps from the Castillian shield. But it has to be blue.

Not purple.

Definitely not purple.

Whereas in Britain that colour is associated with royalty, in Spain it has distinct republican connotations, and the Spanish performance was treasonous enough without accusations of wishing to abolish the monarchy.

In contrast to Spain’s rigid rules, their conquerers, the Russians, cannot quite decide what suits them best. They are currently on a red, flag-themed number, after dabbling with whites and blues as well as a recent flirtation with the traditional colours of maroon and gold. It’s probably why they keep the nickname simple – “Sbornaya” – or “team”. It’s similar in that way to Die Mannshaft of Germany, or the Melli of Iran. Go team.

Some go even simpler than that – Costa Rica are dubbed Los Ticos, or, “The Costa Ricans,” whereas Iceland go with the loving “our boys,” appropriate for a team that brought 10% of the country with them. Others nickname their teams after their colours. Sweden are known as Blågult or “blue-yellows,” Peru and Poland? They’re both known as the “white and reds.” Argentina? La albiceleste, the blue and whites.

Flag Bearers

Many nicknames and kits reflect or extend the team’s role in nation-building and patriotic excitement. Portugal are the “team of the five” (Seleção das Quinas) reflecting the five shields on the national crest. Serbia’s “White Eagles” follow the lead of the double-headed eagle that came to Serbia from the Byzantine days.

Some teams are less traditional, and are instead monikered as if run by the Tourist Board. Egypt are the Pharaohs – no brains strained on that one. Morocco are the Atlas Lions, adopting that now-regionally extinct creature. Tunisia hark back to Hannibal as the finely-named Eagles of Carthage, and the Koreans represent as the Warriors of Taegeuk, the harmonious symbol that adorns the South Korean flag. Best/Worst in Show would belong to Australia’s Socceroos, were it not for the Canal Men of Panama.

The most obvious way in which football teams are conscripted to fly the flag is by dressing as a flag, further undermining the ridiculous notion that international football has nothing to do with politics. Brazil, The Canaries, they used to wear white too. Once again, their change of outfit was forged in defeat. After the soul withering defeat in the 1950 world cup final to Uruguay at the Maracanã, the plain white-T was deemed insufficiently patriotic, and so a competition was held to design a new kit based on the colours of the flag. The winning entry debuted four years later.

Brazil’s iconic blue change strip came as an accident. In 1958, against Sweden in the final, yellow met yellow, and Brazil had no alternative. The Canaries rushed to the shops and bought a set of blue jerseys, in which they won the cup. In the 1950s, as the world cup and international football rose up within a post-war era of redefining nationalisms, many teams moved towards a more patriotic model. For example, at this time Mexico abandoned their old maroon and blue combo to be dressed as a tricolour.

Brazil 1970 — Brazil, at their finest, 1970 – Source: The Guardian

The Green and Gold of the Association Football Kangaroos, to use their full name, was first adopted in 1924 but later ascribed meaning – gold for the beaches, green for the land. In fact, the tradition comes from the decision by Aussie cricketers to wear baggy green caps on tour to England one year.

Some kits are not only an outward expression of nation, but a memory of a moment in time. Uruguay where sky blue in celebration of River Plate FC’s famous victory over the legendary Argentinian side Alumni. In Uruguay, that was a seriously big deal, as the first time a Uruguayan side had conquered the pride of Argentina. In tribute, the national team wore sky blue shirts that mimicked River Plate’s change kit that day.

Colombia, the “coffee growers,” before finally turning patriotic, have often flattered the great teams of their age with mimicry. In 1938 they donned sky blue in honour of Uruguay and Argentina. In the 70s, the went Dutch Orange.

Peru’s adored red sash is a piece of cultural history. It is said to be inspired by Peruvian schoolboy football, where so many teams once wore white that the away team would wear sashes over their kits to identify each other.

Despite the unimaginative nature of a great many team nicknames, some bring joy. Denmark became known as the Danish Dynamite in honour of their spine-tingling ’80s vintage, whilst Switzerland exude cool arrogance with their moniker, the A-Team. Nigeria, once the Green Eagles, renamed themselves the Super Eagles after a painful defeat to Cameroon in the 1988 Africa Cup of Nations Final, to give the team that extra edge.

By far my favourite nickname belongs to Senegal, the Lions of Teranga. It’s a title that stretches beyond simple nationalism into culture and the collective spirit that marks the best of international football. Teranga, a Wolof word, reflects hospitality, giving, caring and looking out for one another. Cisse’s lions accordingly look after one another, and reflect grace in victory and in defeat.

I’ll end, then, with the two finalists. France’s blue kit originates from the old days when they were another walking flag, and their name, Les Blues, naturally comes from that. Adorning their crest is the Coq Gallois, that roosting symbol of French sport. It is an ancient French symbol, restored during the revolution, to mark the daily triumph of light over dark. This was, of course, absolutely, 1000% the inspiration behind Griezmann’s celebration as he put France 2-1 up.

The Croatian Blazers also come tricoloured, but with a twist. I’ve no idea why they are called the Blazers, but their infamous chequerboard design originates from the crest on the flag. Upon its advent as an independent nation, the new Croatian football team eskewed traditional kit design and brought the šahovnica, the chessboard, to the fore, so they could stand out as different. And although the Croatians fell short in their first world cup final today, they have certainly stood out.

After the Windrush

Posted on Jun 18, 2018Feb 9, 2019 Posted in Britain, Past in the PresentTagged 1807, 1948, Brexit, Britain, Caribbean, Colonial, Cricket, Dessalines, Haiti, History, Jamaica, James Peters, London 2012, Louisa Calderon, Post-colonial, Thomas Picton, Walter Tull, Windrush, Windrush ScandalLeave a comment

Let’s start somewhere in the middle.

Why is it the “Windrush scandal?” We’ll get to the scandal part in a bit.

First Windrush.

The boat that brought the black people.

They reckon there weren’t any before then. For sure, these boats carried black people in their crowded hundreds, but they were largely deposited at the slave auctions in the New World, if dysentery, mutiny or cruelty did not lead to their weighting and drowning. The boats themselves, they returned to England full of something much more valuable. Cotton, tobacco, indigo, sugar.

That’s where the story ends, the final page in the old school textbook. Back when I was there it was mandatory to turn and study all of those pages, but its only optional now. It’s now only national lore that gives black people their place on this island. And that starts with Windrush.

But there were some black people on those early boats too. They came with the goods, some came as goods, and these people were keystones in the building of Liverpool, Cardiff, Bristol – cities constructed with the capital extracted and extorted out of the muscles and bones of their friends, families, enemies and rivals. The differences didn’t matter anymore, they were now just one category, whilst the sugar came in a thousand shades of grey.

We’re still a commodity, something to be weighed, measured, and calculated.

I’m one-quarter sugar,

one-quarter tea.

The rest had its own local hardships, but they can be rubbed out.

The malaise of national erasure does the first part of the job nicely. You weren’t even here, how could you possibly be British? The longer your family has worked, shopped and bred here, the further away you are.

Shhhh! Even if you are one of the good ones.

Know about James Peters? He was the first black England international, in 1906. Rugby union of all sports. Never heard of him? He was better known as “Darkie” Peters. Unfortunately he was forced out (and eventually banned), as England sought to save face against the Springboks. Peters was forgotten everywhere outside of Barrow and Saint Helens. Gone.

Never mind them, they’re now with the ages. Their descendants are now sunk into descended from Windrush, who are descended from slaves, from far away colonies.

It’s these old Caribbeans who are being depatriated now.

And the onlookers shout –

You can’t deport them they are already citizens!

How do you mean, citizens?

What was the Caribbean to the Empire?

It was no extension of British soil. The French claimed their possessions were part of France, they still do, but ils portent des oeillieres. The British rarely held such pretensions. The islands were at best off-shore assets for absentees. For those who went west, they were sandboxes of sadism for sweetness and rum. Thomas Picton could do what he wanted to Louisa Calderon – he was British in a land held to no such standard, she had rights only when it suited the Pictons of the world.

Meanwhile…Enoch Powell needs “rescuing” from the dust of the past, so his Rivers of Blood will flow in full on the radio for the first time since it was spoken. They think it needs resurfacing to understand the present day, to understand Brexit. Such things came as a shock to those who viewed Britain as “past” all of those things – or worse, as a completely different entity nowadays, a different nation entirely.

This is the different Britain that announced itself to the world stage in the 2012 Olympics, a gleeful and moving retelling of Britain from below, a celebration of the unsung heroes in the making of the modern nation, and at the heart of it all, were the Windrush Generation. Boyle’s ceremony told an important story, and stirred the hearts of a nation about to embrace the greatest sporting festival there is, but it was a story told in a sparkling, ridiculously priced stadium, surrounded by luxury flats and mighty shopping centres, amidst a London neighbourhood wrenched by poverty. It is a story that played into the myth of modern liberal Britain, the same place where I would be told, repeatedly, that there’s a sea change in racial attitudes because a British prince has married a mixed-race American woman. AFTER Windrush.

Within the history of this myth there is no space for those with black blood between 1807 and 1948.

There is no room for the fate of Louisa Calderon, she no longer exists. Picton’s abuse subsumed her twice, first in person, and then in the redactions of history. There are no longer black soldiers in the Great War. It is too late, perhaps, to remind everyone of Walter Tull, for his feats in war already seem fantastical in the minds of too many.

Why must black Britain always leap between these historical boundaries? Why do we stop at 1807, when an Act of Parliament stopped the (legal) trafficking? What is the first name that comes into your head when you think of that moment?

Wilberforce perhaps?

We were once taught at school (when it was required learning) that the slave trade was ceased [redacted] after a crescendo of activism in British political circles. And then the lessons stopped.

Why opinion changed at that moment in time has very much more to with events in the Caribbean than in the corridors of power. Haiti’s triumph over all the armies of Europe had chilled the sugar barons to their very core, and changed the hearts of their metropolitan financiers. The will to persevere with the trade was wounded.

Meanwhile, slavery continued.

SLAVERY CONTINUED.

The trade continued, just not under the British flag. The USA already had a reproducing population of slaves (the utter misery of those words), and, in any case, British attention now looked to the sunrise, beyond which lay new lands and people to mine and pillage. France largely withdrew from the Americas, flogging the lands west of the Mississippi to Jefferson, whose faith and indulgence in the peculiar institution still flourished. The Spanish rushed in to fill the Haiti-shaped hole in the sugar market, and Cuba boomed as the human cargo clogged the market.

The British finally ended slavery in the colonies in 1837, as the issues and rebels set in motion by Haiti continued to chip away at the shackles. On the islands, as elsewhere, emancipation did not mean freedom. Slavery was ended pre-emptively on the terms of the landowners, piece by piece, grounding many to the lands that had bound them, and ensuring there was little opportunity for the pursuit of a different life.

For more than a century, the black Caribbean, although no longer a slave, could still not call as their own the island they stood on, the island that their ancestors had been removed to, their home. Except in Haiti. There, Dessalines had returned to the island its old name, to claim by right that land as a place of black freedom, earned through their avenging of the Americas (although some things, dare we romanticise too blindly, are easier said that done).

Within this history, with all of its denial, erasure and contradiction, any freedom to reside as anything close to equal has always been conditional – as a gift, or a concession – never a right. The love bestowed to the Windrush Generation by the Danny Boyles of the world was earned by the “contribution” made to post-war British life (as if nothing had been given before). The freedom from shackles was a hollowed hulk of a concession, granted only by the Empire as one half of a deal, wherein the slave-owners were paid handsomely for each slave they “lost” in the mass manumission. Freedom was a commodity, just part of a quid pro quo.

The Hostile Environment recognises this, as it strips our grandparents of their legal identity to reside as British, as it tears Britain away from any complicity or guilt toward its colonial past. The national blank spot as to the existence of black British people before 1948 legitimates the expulsion as “immigration policy”. for enacting this policy.

And it’s boosted more by the policing of cultural identity, for when you are descended from Empire, its very tricky to be accepted as British without variation. Gruesome Tebbit tests ignore how cricket was/is a beautiful vestige of self-discovery for Indians, Windians and Pakistanis, and instead places all the onus on “failure to integrate” on generations and generations of imperial descendants as if, like in the Opening Ceremony, we were always welcomed with open arms. Please, brown kids, support our (significantly South African) national side, or else we send your granddad back to Jamaica.

That’s the crux of it, the message it sends – it’s cultural blackmail. Legal identity now confirms what cultural identity has decreed, as those who know way more about it than us have explained. You’d better be #British as hell, make all your phone calls from red telephone boxes, watch every second of the royal wedding, and slather the union flag all over your Last Night of the Proms party, or we’ll make you feel even less welcome. You were born here, after all, start acting like it. It’s another reminder that citizenship is not consistent, and nor is it permanent. Those who cry “citizenship!” in defence of The Expelled cannot know what’s really going on.

There ain’t no asylum here.

I have on occasion been asked about “blending in” – whether I should use my lighter-skinned privilege to pretend I’m Spanish or a dark Celt who’s just returned from chilling in the desert for a while, or something like that.

Truth is, for the most part, the idea I have a choice in the matter is a fiction. If somebody assumes I am One of the Good Ones for whatever reason (usually my false-posh accent), then challenging that (and I always do) does little to change their feeling toward me. If somebody assumes I am [pick your prejudice] the same pattern plays out. WE fits with me because, as much as my passport, my name, my accent, and my lighter skin make my path through British life easier, I have been made to feel this way – I did not choose it. Conditioned to feel different, uncanny, misshapen, a burr on a smooth. It makes me part of the immigrant struggle even if I cannot relate to it in any way in the present, because it is part of my past.

And this is why I am not in any way surprised that, in spite of all the bluster and outrage, nobody really cares about the Windrush scandal. I am deflated, but unsurprised that it did not even cause a flutter in the government’s approval ratings. The same way that I am deflated, but unsurprised that nobody really cared about Oxfam’s sex extortion in Haiti, in the long run. The same way I am deflated, but unsurprised, that the outrage over Grenfell has petered out. The same way I am deflated, but unsurprised about the outspoken xenophobia of the age. It’s nothing new, but has recently rediscovered its wolf’s clothing.

It’s that which makes me feel trapped between those that believe in a Britain that never was, and those that believe in a Britain that will never come to pass.

The Bird Cannot Build Her Nest

Posted on Jan 25, 2016Mar 7, 2018 Posted in HaitiTagged Aristide, Cédras, Democracy, Duvalier, Elections, Haiti, Haiti Elections, Haitian history, History, Jovenel Moise, Lavalas, Martelly, Politics, UN, USALeave a comment

DEMOCRACY IN HAITI: PAST AND PRESENT

Yesterday there were supposed to be a run-off election in Haiti, to decide the country’s next president. The problem is, there was only one candidate.

That’s Jovenel Moïse. He’s known as the “banana man,” for his role as head of Agritrans SA, a company growing bananas set up exclusively for export, destroying the lives of numerous peasant farmers in the process.

He’s also the handpicked successor of the current president, Michel Martelly. The Export Zone where Moise makes his fortune is one of the president’s pet projects. Sweet Micky is head of the PHTK- the Parti Haïtien Tèt Kale – which means “bald head.” It’s a nod to Micky’s shiny dome, but Tèt Kale holds another meaning; to be bareheaded means to go “all the way,” to be pure of heart and thorough in head. When Martelly cried “Tèt Kale!” in 2011 he was calling for a sea change in Haitian politics, an end to the corruption and immobilisation of the past.

Martelly has been no tèt kale, by this measure. He declared Haiti “open for business,” to beaming smiles from the US State Dept., the Clintons, and the myriad of American capital that has looked with desire upon Haiti for over a hundred years. With the international kingmakers satisfied, Martelly has taken a neo-Duvalierist taste for power, cancelling a series of elections to the point that in 2015 there were just 11 elected figures in national politics. There are meant to be 130.

Essentially ruling-by-decree, Martelly welcomes tourists to Haiti’s private beaches and empty hotels, and gets his photo taken with Obama and Kerry whilst surrounded with rumours of corruption, intimidation and violence.

1987 –With ‘dechoukaj’ – the uprooting of Duvalierism – in full swing, the State Dept. decreed that it was time for democracy in Haiti. Reagan sent money in “military aid” to help the process. The guns were turned on Makout and uprooter alike. November would see a president chosen, but the Makouts were not willing to relinquish power yet. By the time the polls were open, two candidates were already dead, slain along with hundreds of demonstrators in a bloody summer. As Haitians lined up to vote, the Makouts and soldiers were waiting, and opened fire. Onlookers struggled to describe the horror. But elections must be held. Two months later, they restarted. The historian Leslie Manigat was the victor, in a poll where the wise stayed indoors. Some things are worth more than casting a vote. (See Michel-Rolph Trouillot – Haiti: State Against Nation)

Sunday became the latest poll to fall foul of Micky’s machete, but this one is a bit different. In November’s 1^st round, Jovenel Moise won the day, predictably. The only surprise considering the electoral manipulation, ripped straight out of Dictatorship 101, is that he didn’t get more votes. In second was the centrist Jude Celestin, who recently confirmed he did not want his name on the 2-man run-off ballot. Why would he? The way his elections have gone before, he’d probably finish fourth.

The weeks prior to Sunday saw protests growing, bubbling in the capital, angry at the opaque process, at the lack of representation, at the limpet president clinging to power. There is outrage too at the meddling hands of the “international community. Haitians are mobilising on the streets of Port-au-Prince in support of democracy, and against the sham elections.

Protests now passing through Delmas 2 in #Haiti. pic.twitter.com/dPaI69td1N

— HaitiInfoProject 📡 (@HaitiInfoProj) January 24, 2016

They want to restart the process, under a transitional government, without interference and with Martelly put out to pasture. Yesterday, veve of defiance were drawn, and songs of protest sung as Port-au-Prince took to the streets. Some bore the banner of Famni Lavalas, and spoke of finishing the work of Aristide.

Drawing the vevé 4 message "We will not obey!" as assembly begins 4 protests in #Haiti today. pic.twitter.com/EPztmaT16Q

— HaitiInfoProject 📡 (@HaitiInfoProj) January 24, 2016

1991 – After the drought, comes the flood. Lavalas swept the elections, bringing Liberation Theologist Jean-Bertrande Aristide to power. He was intent on disrupting Haiti’s cavernous inequality gap. But after the dance, the drum was heavy. The elites and the army were not to be disturbed so easily. They tolerated him for seven months, before General Raoul Cédras plucked him from power. If you took a blank piece of paper and drew an authoritarian General it would resemble Cédras. Cue three more years of repression. Whilst Aristide sat on the White House steps, placard in hand, Cédras collected CIA paycheques. (See Robert Fatton, The Roots of Haitian Despotism)

The USA, once again blinded by the belief that elections and democracy might be the same thing, have struggled to comprehend how pro-democracy protests could embrace a cancelled election. The State Dept vaguely urge Martelly to stick to the timetable, thinking an election with one candidate is surely more democratic than an election with none. Last week Ban Ki-Moon too decided to take a stand, and call for the elections to be completed, as he deleted kolera accusations from his @UN inbox.

raoul cedras — This is Raoul Cédras. See what I mean? Source: AP

In the meantime, the Banana Man waits silently for his coronation. East of his plantation lies the near-abandoned industrial park of Caracol, the brainchild of Bill and Hillary Clinton. They are busy up north on their own plans for coronation. Martin O’Malley decided to bring up Haiti in his campaign. He’s currently polling >1%.

1994 – It was called Operation Uphold Democracy. President Clinton had decided to bring Aristide back. He could ignore him no longer. The President’s economic embargos had only made things worse. He could no longer turn a blind eye to the hunger strikes at his door and the Boat People who continued to drift into Key West, dead and alive. The old ally Cédras would be removed, but it was ok, he’d be taken care of. Aristide was brought back to Port-au-Prince, triumphant, accompanied by the drone of Black Hawks and American army boots. Aristide addressed his supporters, declaring the return of democracy from inside a see-thru bulletproof box. A perfect display of powerlessness.

The protests bring back familiar words of the “resistance” and “resilience” of the Haitian people that have bounced around liberal commentaries since the douz janvye earthquake. Y’ap boule. But the image of demonstrations and burning tires are simultaneously deployed by those who wish to preserve the pseudo-democratic status quo. The Organisation of American States, influential in Martelly’s rise, condemned the “acts of violence,” urging a swift end to the crisis. That means swift elections. CEPR observer Jake Johnston wryly notes that here, “the past is prologue.”

“Remember: Martelly became president through riots,” warns Jonathan Katz. He’s seen it all before. Was Haiti ready for an election, less than a year after the devastation of the goudougoudou that ripped Port-au-Prince apart? No matter, President Preval’s time was up, elections must be held. Sweet Micky finished third in the first-round of elections, behind law professor Mirlande Manigat and Jude Celestin. (Famni Lavalas were banned from participating).

The OAS cried foul – insisting Celestin, an ally of Préval, had stitched up the election, and argued Martelly be parachuted into the runoff in his place. Micky sensed an opportunity, and his supporters took to the streets, promising to set the wounded city on fire if there will be not heeded. Who knows what chicanery had taken place in the backrooms, but it seemed the OAS was fed up of Préval’s unwillingness to play ball. Washington agreed. Hillary Clinton came to town to negotiate with Préval. Celestin’s name disappeared from the ballot. Martlly went on to win the runoff and the presidency. Haiti was now “open for business.”

(See Jonathan Katz – The Big Truck That Went By)

Yesterday, a familiar face returned, to announce that he was “ready for war,” against the “anarchists” on the streets. This man was Guy Philippe, a drug lord and soldier instrumental in the coup that felled Aristide a second time in 2004. Aristide had this time grown distant from the dreams of 1991, instead towing the neoliberal line and holding power increasingly through intimidation. The second coup saw the intervention of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). They’re still there, and along with “stability” one can credit them with the achievements of brutal repression of the slums and the introduction Cholera into the country in 2010. Over 1 million have been infected. 10 000 are dead.

It’s hard to see the way out of this storm of competing interests in Haiti. There is a quest for power involving the traditional elites, the US State Dept., the OAS and the rest of the “international community,” elements of the diaspora and remnants of the army that Tèt Kale were beginning to restore. The old Duvalierists are far from finished. The recent protests are yet another reminder that large swathes of the Haitian population would like to partake in the democratic process. After all, that’s what democracy is supposed to look like, right?.

Robert Fatton calls this “the unending democratic transition.” He continues to be right about that. The bird cannot build her nest.

February 1986 – “Those two weeks interim, when there was no infallible authority on Earth, were the happiest of my life.” David Nicholls resurrected these old words after the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier. The protests, led by the ti legliz movement and moving to the sound of Radio Soleil, put the rotund dictator on shaky ground. Reagan decided to pull the plug, and Baby Doc was placed on a plane bound for exile. The monkey’s tail had snapped. Crowds flocked to the airport as old friends returned home after years away. They say that Christopher Columbus himself was uprooted in the flood and cast out to sea.

“Where is he from, this King of Haiti?” Admiral Caperton Invades Haiti, 28th July 1915

Posted on Jul 28, 2015Mar 7, 2018 Posted in HaitiTagged Beech, Caperton, Haiti, History, Rosalvo Bobo, US Navy, US Occupation of Haiti, USALeave a comment

Admiral William B. Caperton and Dr. Rosalvo Bobo

(This is not strictly a historical account. It is partially dramatized, fictionalized (if you prefer that word). See below)

The USA “has no design upon the political and territorial integrity of Haiti,” said Secretary Lansing. That was two weeks after they’d gone in. Two weeks after Williams Banks Caperton sent his men in to occupy Port-au-Prince. He’d been peering at Haiti from his boat, the U.S.S. Washington, for months. It was one week before Admiral Caperton enacted the order to take control of the customs houses, and open a bank account for Haiti’s funds in his own name, “in trust for the people of the Haitian republic.”

It was the 28^th July when it happened, as it’s told. The day when the tyranny of Vilbrun Guillame Sam could hold no longer, when his massacre of opponents in the National Penitentiary sparked an insurrection within the Port-au-Prince. The president took cover in the French Legation, but diplomatic protocol bore no barrier to the anger of those who’d lost their friends and family under Sam’s bullets. He was pulled out onto the streets, and publicly assassinated.

“I could see that parade through my glasses,” and I knew I had to act. For months I had sat on the Washington, stifled by the heat, stuck on my boat, watching Haiti as a theatre from different vantage points. I moved my boat from Cap-Haitien, to Gonaïves, to the capital and back again, keeping an eye on events in that “volcanic republic” as I had been instructed to do. The French took great exception to the invasion of their sovereign territory. They had sent a gunboat, of the name Descartes, to demand satisfaction. “I landed before them. I had to.”

But the bluejackets were already on Haitian shores. Commander Olmstead has been sent to Cap-Haitïen months before, to stand between the town (and its customs house) and the revolution of the North. The USA already had the bank, the railway, and the Dominican Republic, and the desire in American eyes for the deep waters of the Mole St Nicholas was no secret. Caperton chose Captain van Orden to lead the assault; he had been to Haiti before, he shared the Admiral’s view that Haiti could, with American guidance, be restored. Had the Descartes merely forced his hand early?

I was nervous that night. I had few men, and over a century of Haitian history in my head. I knew the stories of Dessalines and Soulouque, I believed them to be barbarians, and the events of that day were added to this library in my mind, joined by St. John’s tales of voodoo and cannibals that lurked in the Haytian night. “Hayti, or the Black Republic” was a mate on the Washington, its pages were turned by all the important men, it was a necessary lesson in dealing with this “turbulent republic.”

But it was “a quick night in Port-au-Prince.” Van Orden landed and marched through the streets, waiting for the counter attack. There was little of it when it came. Two men fell, Gompers and Whitehurst, the first victims of the mission. Six of theirs fell, with two wounded.

Eight Haitian casualties, names unknown. Established on Haitian soil, the landing party fled from malaria. They needed shelter, so the medical officer chose a school on the hills near Pacot. They evicted its children, whitewashed the walls, sprayed it with disinfectant, and dug latrines. The mosquitos followed them, and soon it was abandoned for higher ground. The health of the troops was fantastic, considering the tropical surroundings.

No problems, “except venereal.”

Tales of the 28^th July filtered into the USA, where they would be magnified by the yellow presses, excited by lucrative tales of black barbarity and brave white Americans stepping into the breach, to aid. But their voices would not dominate the tale, so spoke Dr. Rosalvo Bobo, the revolutionary leader of the North, in his open letter to the President of the United States.

“Order was re-established [in the town], then the American Forces landed. All those in the streets who saw this outlandish procession, believed it was some American Governor imported from New York. Where is he from, this king of Haiti? What is his wishes? Would it be, as they say, the control of the customs houses and our finances with the right of raising their flag on the Mole St Nicolas? What is the matter between you and us? By what contract are we binded? Why do you wish so much to humiliate and put us down?”

The American papers were more interested in Bobo himself, calling him Doctor, but never using his first name. Did they ever know it? Or did “Bobo” sound more exotic without the Rosalvo, did his doctorate sound less authentic? Caperton too became obsessed with the Doctor, another enemy on a multi-fronted battle.

There is much still to do to establish control. I need more men, but I need financial support more than anything else. The misery I have seen on the streets is more than I can comprehend. There is great danger of famine, which must be dealt with immediately lest the people once more descend into anarchy. I requested aid from the Red Cross, to which they have been very generous as they too believe that “given good clothes, regular meals, regular pay and a good standard of behaviour set before them, they may become good public servants.” They sent me $20 000 to spend as I see fit.

But their money and ours is insufficient to solve the instability of the Black Republic. The money trickles in from the customs houses, but as Waller says “from the president down” each one takes their share. “Knowing Haiti as I do,” I would say that “these are the most deceitful, unreliable graft seekers on earth” and we must tackle this issue if we are to save Haitians from themselves. We “have occupied the country for its own good,” after all. The Caco guerrillas are the biggest infestation upon this land. We have been nothing but “most considerate, yet conciliatory in our duty with them,” and still they persist. Sterner measures will be required.

Thus were the wishes of this so-called King of Haiti, the first white man to be attributed such a role. He would not be the last. But what is a ruler without his Chief of Staff? On the ground was Captain Edward Beech, aka Dan Quin of the Navy, who embedded himself in Haitian politics to perform his king’s bidding.

“The fault is with Haiti,” I might add, in our efforts to attain peace and a lasting treaty between our two nations that will forever entrench our cooperation. But “unless they cooperate there will be no progress in Haiti.” I know everyone here from Dartineguave to Borno, and I know how things work. Port-au-Prince is the center of government, “it starts from there and ends there,” and so it will remain. And it is there where the “Golden Flood” of American money will have to flow, should this country progress. “Being properly guided,” Haiti will work. Are you listening? “Dan Quin is speaking to you.”

And so the order came to take the customs houses. To set up a police force, or is it an army? They would be led by Smedley Butler, the best in the business, to be taught to handle guns, to shoot at the Olympic Games, and at the Cacos. Cleanliness, health, discipline; those were the standards drilled into the Gendarmerie. They were built to be the finest of Haitians, in American eyes, in contrast to the politicians, the Cacos, the Vodouizan, and the vagabonds that fill the streets with the disfigurations of yaws. Their enemy would only ever be Haitian.

To set up a health service, public works, prisons. To root out corruption, customs house by customs house, senator by senator, Caco by Caco. Cure malaria, cure the army, teach technical skills, profit, production. The customs houses are just the start.

They use too much of their fields for their own foods. They should grow cash crops, sugar…

So would grow HASCO, the Haitian-American Sugar Company, where zombies allegedly cut the cane. The zombie rumours were exported too. Open for Business, everything’s for sale.

Bobo was next, said by his fans in the press to be “the only Haytian known to carry his opposition to the United States to the extreme of reducing his own income.” He was in for special treatment. He was invited on board the Washington, and walked through the boat slowly, seeing the faces of old allies and new enemies as he approached the door to the Admiral’s office. He was there to be chewed out.

“I will not mince words” with these Haitians. They require “the firm hand and the watchful eye” of their big brothers. Bobo was no different, except that he was a madman, delusional. I informed him in no uncertain terms that he would not be president of this republic, and he was “strongly instructed” to stand down and “go onshore as a private citizen…he capitulated.”

Caperton left Haiti in 1916, having successfully germinated the seeds of a nineteen-year occupation of Haiti. He and his “big stick” were then sent to the Dominican Republic. Dominicans, for the Admiral, were similarly challenging, as “their rascality, grafting and total unreliability is beyond all conception.” There was a lasting legacy to establish there, too.

One hundred years on, another American man they call Le Gouverneur is a Special Envoy to Haiti. He’s not the only one hanging around. I’ve been there too, walking through the streets of Port-au-Prince, where people are right to ask of him and of me, “who is this man? What are his wishes?”

(This is a partially fictionalised and dramatized account of the opening acts of what would become the United States Occupation of Haiti. Anything in quotation marks are the actual words, written or spoken, of Caperton, Beech, Bobo and the American press. The rest is me, but written not to sensationalise (as was the style at the time) but to emphasise the fears, the desires and the politics of this period. It’s by me, my opinions, mine alone. Don’t sue anybody else. This piece was mostly inspired by my work with the William B. Caperton Collection at the Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress, Washington D.C. Kenbe fèm)

Tending the Backyard: US Foreign Policy in Cuba and Haiti, 1898-2014

Posted on Dec 18, 2014Mar 30, 2016 Posted in Haiti, Past in the PresentTagged Batista, Castro, Cuba, Diaspora, Duvalier, Embargo, Guantanamo Bay, Haiti, History, Migration, USA1 Comment

President Obama yesterday announced that the time had come for the USA to “cut loose the shackles of the past” and re-establish full diplomatic relations with Cuba. This move would return US-Cuba ties to the state they existed prior to the severance of 1961.

Or would it? The Guardian yesterday wrote that this move presents an “opportunity for the US and Cuba to engage on genuinely equal terms for the first time in their long and troubled history,” the gist of the article being that since 1809 (when Jefferson tried to buy Cuba from the Spanish) Cuba has been on the unfortunate end of an unequal relationship.

In that sense Cuba is no different to many other Caribbean and Latin American countries. There is a unique dynamic and a unique history between Cuba and the United States, but it is a relationship best understood within the context of wider US policy in its own “backyard”. Haiti, Cuba’s neighbour (and my primary area of study) shares many similar past experiences with the USA, including tourism, migration and the potential establishment of a naval base. The outcomes, however, have been dramatically different.

GUANTANAMO BAY, or the MÔLE ST. NICOLAS?

Guantanamo Bay, back in the day

Guantanamo Bay is an infamous symbol of 21^st Century US foreign policy, as an internment and torture camp. It became a US Naval Base after the USA invaded Cuba in 1898, as the Cubans neared victory in their struggle for independence against a crumbling Spanish army.

The invasion came as the American press, screaming for benevolent intervention, reached its peak. Manifest destiny broke from the mainland, into the Caribbean, spurred on by the paternalist desire to help America’s neighbours in their supposed hour of need (even though the war was nearing its end). Strategic concerns were never far away; Mariola Espinosa has written that a desire to control Yellow Fever was central to US policy in Cuba, and in addition to that there is Guantanamo.

The Platt Amendment gave Cuba its “independence” (so long as it behaved itself and stayed clear of Yellow Fever), but kept Guantanamo Bay for the USA; its deep, peaceful waters a clue to growing US intentions in the Caribbean. The Navy had desired a deep harbour in the Caribbean for decades, but their first choice had been the Môle St Nicolas in northwest Haiti (where Columbus landed in 1492).

In 1891, the USS Philadelphia anchored off the coast of the Môle with orders to acquire it through aggressive negotiation; only through the skill and integrity of Haitian Foreign Minister Anténor Firmin and US Ambassador to Haiti Frederick Douglass was the gunboat diplomacy of the US Navy deterred. Douglass made the case to Washington that there was “no one point (in Haiti)…more sensitive than the cession of any part of their territory to any foreign power”, having fought so hard to win independence and keep it during the Haitian Revolution. This move cost Douglass his job. (see Carolyn Fleur-Lobban, Introduction to “The Equality of Human Races” by Anténor Firmin, 2000, p. xlv)

As the decade wore on and US paternalism acquired a “big stick”, the USA would soon invade Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, occupy the Panama Canal Zone, and extend control in Puerto Rico. Haiti was invaded in 1915, after the assassination of President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam. The new occupiers discussed annexing the Môle, but eventually decided that it was not worth the risk to occupied Haiti’s stability, when they already had one deep harbour in Cuba.

The opportunity to capture Guantanamo was less risky in newly-independent Cuba, and came much sooner, than the chance to take the Môle. And with it, a permanent seat of US military power nestled itself in a Cuban harbour, and not a Haitian one.

WHAT HAPPENS IN CUBA…

Cuba under Batista is famous for being the USA’s “playground”. A place where the rich and glamorous of early-twentieth century America could enjoy the banned vices of home, in casinos and brothels nestled in a tropical paradise. Christine Skiwot’s Purposes of Paradise finds similarities in Cuba’s experience in tourism with Hawaii, at this time not yet a state. Military intervention became cultural, as the US tourist industry cultivated a class of loyal elite (and paler-skinned) Cubans and Hawaiians who grew rich from the hedonistic trade.

What is less-known is that the Haiti of President Paul Magloire, described by David Nicholls as a “playboy” president, underwent similar changes, although this began in Haiti much later; as the Black Republic was previously seen as too exotic a place for rich white American tourists, but the situation changed and resorts grew alongside a newfound Vodou-tourist experience that offered a profane, tourist-friendly version of serving the spirits.

Whilst Hawaii moved to American statehood in 1959, Cuba and Haiti took radically different routes. Fidel Castro overthrew Batista and installed a socialist government; and Haiti became ruled by the authoritarian François Duvalier. US attempts to kill Castro are well-known, but Kennedy also wanted Duvalier dead, and Duvalier was famously hostile towards foreigners in Haiti. However Duvalier’s pragmatic anti-communism (usually directed at his political opponents) kept American relations above-freezing, and in his final years, he became a good friend of Richard Nixon. Castro’s government survived CIA plots, Kennedy’s disastrous attempt to direct a Cuban exile invasion at the Bay of Pigs, and the Cuban Missile Crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. The US embargo on Cuba survived with it, and Americans were banned from visiting Cuba.

François Duvalier died in 1971, and his son and successor Jean-Claude was unabashedly pro-American. Much of the vice that flowed into Havana was now redirected towards Port-au-Prince, especially sex tourism. Through this, HIV was introduced into Haiti in the late-1970s and, as rumours (incorrectly) flew in the USA that HIV-AIDS originated in Haiti, the tourist industry was destroyed, plunging Haiti into further economic difficulty.

Paul Farmer, in his book on AIDS in Haiti, wryly notes that had the epidemic started when Havana was the “tropical playground of the Caribbean”, before Castro and the embargo, HIV may have found its way to Cuba, not Haiti.

WET FEET, DRY FEET, BOAT PEOPLE, BOEING PEOPLE

Elian Gonzalez captured in Florida by Federal Agents, 2000

Castro and Duvalier’s regimes both resulted in a massive movement of people from Cuba and Haiti to the United States, and this exodus followed the same pattern. The first to move were the elites, who joined small but already-established communities in the USA, especially Miami. In Cuba this elite faction was already decidedly pro-American, having benefited from the Batista regime and targeted by Castro’s property reclamation (a fine example being the Bacardi family). Light-skinned and educated, they were often able to adapt quickly to American society. The Cuban-exile community became a loud, critical bloc in Miami politics; one that has helped to uphold the embargo on Cuba until this very week.

Haiti’s elite were mostly chased out by the elder Duvalier’s repressive policies; the brain-drain that followed has given birth to a well-known tale that there are more Haitian doctors in Montreal than in Haiti.

In the 1970’s both economies were suffering; Cuba’s isolation in the Americas was proving difficult for economic prosperity, and Jean-Claude Duvalier’s neoliberal kleptocracy kept wages and opportunities down, as repression and terror remained. The impoverished people of the Caribbean followed their elite forebears to Florida, often in flimsy boats at the mercy of the sea, or worse.

The hypocrisy of US foreign policy was laid bare by the movement of these “boat people”; Under the Cuban Adjustment Act, Cubans were given the right to claim asylum as political refugees, although the political situation in Cuba had somewhat calmed in the 1970s. Haitians, whatever their motives for leaving, were classed as economic migrants and granted no such privilege. This, of course, depended upon whether they made it at all; the “Wet foot, dry foot” immigration policy with regards to Cuba meant that migrants had to reach south Florida to be given asylum. If they failed to make it ashore, they were turned back. For Haitian political refugees, being turned back would leave them at the mercy of Duvalier’s paramilitary force, the tontons macoutes.

Access for the poorer, darker-skinned migrants did not mean asylum in the same sense as the early migrants. The newer arrivals found it difficult to integrate into the traditionally-elite Cuban exile community of south Florida. Haitian migrants were ostracised by much of the community, especially after the outbreak of HIV-AIDS. Despite the Cuban Adjustment Act, new Cuban migrants to the United States can still be in an uncertain and precarious position, as highlighted by the Elian Gonzalez case of 1999-2000. Yet whilst the boat people struggled, Haitian elites continued to migrate to the USA on flights; known as the “Boeing People”, their feet never got wet, and found it easier to gain more secure terms of residence.

END OF THE EMBARGO

Watch: Is the US-Cuban cold war coming to an end? – @mattfrei reports http://t.co/vXEgEYw3oE #c4news #USCuba pic.twitter.com/I80TvEJtLM

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) December 17, 2014

Channel 4 struggling to get the hang of the Unequal Relationship

Since the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier, Haiti has been invaded twice more by the USA on grounds of benevolence, and its economic and political situation is dependent on Washington. Cuba’s isolation in the Americas had ended long-before yesterday, and has been an active participant in recent Latin American affairs, as well as providing healthcare workers to aid Ebola treatment in West Africa. Migrants continue to come to the USA from both countries, in their thousands.

The end to the embargo would allow the Cuban diaspora to once again connect with family on the island through regular travel and improved telecommunications, as Haitian-American communities have been able to do. Cuba would benefit in global relations, as the USA would no longer treat it as a pariah state.

There has been a lot of concern on the effects of American neoliberalism entering Cuba. Haiti has felt the full force of American business exploitation over the past forty years; wages are still low, and free trade has caused irreparable damage to Haitian agriculture on more than one occasion. If it is truly an opportunity for true equality between the USA and Cuba, then the USA will have to break its traditional habit of viewing Caribbean countries as economic and cultural playthings that exist in its backyard.

Yet the point of this blogpost has been to suggest that historically-speaking, the impact of US foreign policy in the Caribbean cannot be easily predicted, and is at the mercy of a variety of factors. The benefits and drawbacks of this decision on the Cuban communities of the Americas cannot be foreseen, and there is still a long way to go.

Then again, to read this in Ishaan Tharoor’s piece in the Washington Post yesterday…

It’s a strange irony that some of Washington’s biggest proponents of free trade don’t want to see the United States enable such liberalizing changes in Cuba. Closer ties to Cuba, including trade links, will ideally lead to a deepening of Cuba’s own curtailed civil society. That, at least, is the current message of the Obama administration. The more open Cuba gets, the more access its people may have to the Internet and to outside channels of information. That, the hope goes, may speed political reform in Havana.

Critics may point to countries like China and Vietnam, where decades of economic development and free enterprise have yet to yield any real liberal, democratic dividend. But Cuba is fundamentally different; it exists in the U.S.’s shadow and its links to the American mainland, including some 1.5 million Cuban Americans, mean that even the most dogged authoritarian leader will struggle to inoculate the regime from American influence — that is, once Washington finally chooses to engage with Cuba.

Morality, free trade, “back-yard” politics.

Nothing changes.

(Title picture: McDonald’s at Guantanamo Bay)