Haitian writer, blogger, and performance artists Ezili Danto just posted a lengthy meditation on the figure of that most maligned of Haitian Revolution leaders, Jean Jacques Dessalines. Dessalines is, to me, by far the most fascinating of the revolutionary leaders, so I urge you to take a look and Danto’s take on him and the women who surrounded him. He just had a birthday (September 20) and plans are ongoing to commemoratethe anniversary of his assassination on October 17. Here’s an excerpt. The link to the complete piece is below:

September 20th is the birthday of Haiti’s founding father, Jean Jacques Dessalines, born a slave under European ideology and put in chains to serve France and the European nations in worldwide power. He lived to change the course of humanity. He did what Spartacus couldn’t and much more.

. . .

Haitians are asked to copy and paste what whites and their overseers see as their reality, their experience, and their history. But Jean Jacques Dessalines, in creating the nation of Haiti, broke from that modus operandi. He did not copy and paste what white minds saw as civilization, justice and democracy. Jean Jacques Dessalines looked at his own world and day to day experiences, took in what he could see with his own two eyes, what he could hear with his own ears, what he could envision with his own precious heart, his own unbowed soul and created a nation, a Haiti, that reflected that reality, that vision and the future that would best serve his people. His legacy has yet to be herald. His great ideals still remain obscure, his humane vision of humanity and for peaceful and self-affirming co-existence still denied.

In fact, after the mulatto sons of France assassinated Dessalines, during both the administration of the mulatto generals, Petion and Boyer, Dessalines’ name was forbidden to be spoken in Haiti under threat of imprisonment. Dessalines’ assassination, two years after the creation of Haiti, was the first foreign-influenced coup d’etat in Haiti. The 2004 bi-centennial coup d’etat of Bush the son, was the 33rd coup d’etat to try to eradicate the influence of the Haitian revolution, which legally abolished slavery, forced assimilation, direct colonialism and the Triangular Trade in Haiti.

At Ezili’s HLLN we recapture Dessalines’ three major ideals, his law, his name for Haiti, its meaning, history, revelations and explain why Dessalines was so ahead of his time and so threatening to the white nations. In the Ezili’s Free Haiti Movement, we set out October 17th, the day of Dessalines’ assassination to discuss Dessalines’ life, vision, ideals and what he represents to Haiti and the world. Our history was so destroyed that it is only fairly recently that Haitians actually had a date for Dessalines’ birthday. Before, all we were taught was the date of his death. But Haitian scholars have done more work and now in Haiti, we have this day to celebrate. It is so very important this recapturing of our history, our people, what they witnessed to, how they reacted, what they created. We still have so little information. Still must rebuild. Still must put flesh, bone, blood and soul to those who were so destroyed, so corralled into ships and sold as property.

For the complete article go to http://www.opednews.com/articles/Haiti-s-founding-father–by-Ezili-Danto-090924-218.html