While he was absent, Pierre-Charles was responsible for turning the Lavalas movement into an organised and disciplined political party, Organisation Politique Lavalas (OPL). That was as close to holding public office as Pierre-Charles ever came. Aristide returned to Haiti in 1994, after the military regime was removed by a United Nations force headed by the United States, and served out the remainder of his term of office. But Pierre-Charles soon fell out with him, and the OPL split: Pierre-Charles kept the initials but renamed his party Organisation du Peuple en Lutte (Struggling People's Organisation), while Aristide formed a movement fiercely loyal to him, known (in Creole) as Fanmi Lavalas, or the Lavalas Family. As Aristide became increasingly reliant on armed thugs to underpin his regime, and his re-election in 2000 was surrounded by allegations of fraud, Pierre-Charles became one of his most implacable critics. He accused the former priest of betraying his democratic ideals and becoming both a dictator. Aristide's supporters responded by burning down Pierre-Charles' house, research centre and party offices.
But Pierre-Charles soon fell out with him, and the OPL split: Pierre-Charles kept the initials but renamed his party Organisation du Peuple en Lutte (Struggling People's Organisation), while Aristide formed a movement fiercely loyal to him, known (in Creole) as Fanmi Lavalas, or the Lavalas Family.
As Aristide became increasingly reliant on armed thugs to underpin his regime, and his re-election in 2000 was surrounded by allegations of fraud, Pierre-Charles became one of his most implacable critics. He accused the former priest of betraying his democratic ideals and becoming both a dictator. Aristide's supporters responded by burning down Pierre-Charles' house, research centre and party offices.
. . . his restoration in 1994 on condition he impose neoliberalist "plan of death" on Haiti, a brutal U.S. economic embargo and Aristide's eventual ouster in 2004 -- featuring U.S.-backed death squads that still roam free today -- because he was not neoliberal enough . . .
Notice I am not dismissing what you way; there is just more to it than you have indicated. For example, I think this is a good depiction:
Whatever the political differences between the Lavalas factions, Fatton writes, they were largely overshadowed by personal rivalries driven by what he terms la politique du ventre (the politics of the belly)--the struggle for the acquisition of personal wealth through the conquest and plundering of state offices. Fatton sees the FL-OPL split as the predictable consequence of the Haitian government's inability, in the face of an aid embargo and a stagnant economy, to continue supporting the growing class of new political claimants. By the winter of 1997, corruption in the Préval administration had become so blatant that at carnival in Port-au-Prince, the crowds, weary of partisan squabbling and disdainful of Haiti's politicians of all stripes, devoted much of the festivities to lampooning Lavalas bigwigs as grands mangeurs, or "big eaters," so named because of their propensity for lining up at the public trough. The struggle for money and a foothold in the Haitian bourgeoisie is unquestionably one of the principal forces shaping Haiti's authoritarian politics. Moreover, as Fatton says, in the absence of economic growth, this pattern will replicate itself indefinitely. However, to maintain that in this instance the politique du ventre was the determining factor in the FL- OPL split would be to fail to reckon with Jean-Bertrand Aristide himself.
The struggle for money and a foothold in the Haitian bourgeoisie is unquestionably one of the principal forces shaping Haiti's authoritarian politics. Moreover, as Fatton says, in the absence of economic growth, this pattern will replicate itself indefinitely. However, to maintain that in this instance the politique du ventre was the determining factor in the FL- OPL split would be to fail to reckon with Jean-Bertrand Aristide himself.
I don't think we disagree in general, just on the use of Aristideism. I defined it very clearly for this diary's purposes, but it nonetheless and reasonably carries connotations I didn't intend. fairleft
painting Aristide as some sort of panacea
I see:
then a brief 1980s Aristide spring, and then back to continuing U.S. neocolonialism -- Aristide's U.S.-backed ouster in 1991, his restoration in 1994 on condition he impose neoliberalist "plan of death" on Haiti, a brutal U.S. economic embargo and Aristide's eventual ouster in 2004 -- featuring U.S.-backed death squads that still roam free today -- because he was not neoliberal enough
... the claim that Aristide was not neoliberal enough to be allowed by the US to continue as President seems to be far from a claim "sainthood" to me.
Are the sainthood claims perhaps encoded into the pictures and I just do not have the special decoder glasses? I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
It is, indeed, absurd to think that the ability to express more or less what ought to be done automatically comes with either the ability to bring it about, or with the characteristics of sainthood - and normally, the ability to bring it about and the characteristics of sainthood are mutually exclusive. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
But there is another issue here with Aristide as as a political leader which calls into question his credentials to represent anything like the "Aristidism" invoked by the author. There are just too many leftist Haitians -- people at known hangouts for the world's progressive diasporas, such as New York's New School for Social Research, that actively opposed Aristide and did more to bring about his overthrow in 2004 than the US did by not intervening on his behalf. It could be, as you seem to suggest, that there are progressive ideals which go beyond the person himself. But it could just as easily be true that those ideals were fictions of political propaganda in the first place, given the poor outcomes when Aristide was given a chance.
Remember, not intervening on behalf of someone is not the same kind of imperialism as intervening directly to remove someone. The former requires that the subject fail on his own first, and Aristide's projects appear to have failed largely on their own merits before any blame can be leveled at the US for not intervening a second time to keep him in power.
The fact of a set of people opposing a person remaining in power is certainly not necessarily a rejection of the program - especially after such a troubled and controversial Presidency as Aristide had - since it can as easily be a rejection of the person as a competent executive. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
Haiti today is the clearest possible example of the end-point of the policies of predation with which the region has had to cope. There but through- what? an accident of inattention?- goes the rest.
Aristide "became unpopular" (do we really know what local opinion really was--or is? How? From whom?) because almost from the first day, he was thwarted and sabotaged by the regional predator. Like the Sandinistas or the Bolivarians, his every policy attempt, every nascent success was a threat to the world view those who still think of Haitians as quasi-human, or as cheap labor, in need of some stern paternal discipline.
And lest you think I speak from a comfortably safe haven of academic debate, I lived on the island of Hispaniola for a significant part of my 13 years in the area, in Puerto Plata, Gonaves, and Santo Domingo. I did reforestation research at Cabo Roho, built fishing boats at Puerto plata, and taught composites technology in Santiago.
Thanks for this, Fairleft. But Haiti is a story so heartbreakingly cruel I can almost not bear to discuss it. Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
