Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Haiti Needs Freedom, Not Tears
Mireille Fanon Mendes France
16 Aug 2023
🖨️ Print Article
Haiti Needs Freedom, Not Tears
Banner reads, We are people we have to live like people." (Photo: Marvens Compere for The Haitian Times)

The people of Haiti are once again facing attack, now with the use of Black nations as a cover for an impending invasion and occupation. Haitians are still resolute in fighting for their freedom.

Originally published in Fondation Frantz Fanon.

Is it enough to meet the Haitian people, to affirm a political solidarity far, far removed from compassion and morality, to forget the obligation to live the luminous beauty of their suspended lives in the rendered-ugly streets of Port-au-Prince?

The torrential rains carry the detritus abandoned by the privileged inhabitants of the heights to the port and the dreaded CitĂ© Soleil. If structural racism is indeed present, it is expressed in the metaphor of compartmentalized garbage management.

Beyond the near-impossible management of household waste, there remains the refused arrival of a multinational force led by Kenya. The West delegating its dirty work to the African brothers of the Haitians who, in their time, had inspired their brothers in chains to free themselves from the horrors of the oppressor. Their only quest was DIGNITY.

Stunned and alienated by the idea of progress brought about by the white hegemony, the African brothers refused to understand that what they were going to impose on their brothers in blackness would be applied to them the very next day. In so doing, they are writing INDIGNITY in blood.

The Haitians who bear in their flesh the struggle of their heroes announce, with pride and courage, their refusal of this violent servitude.

Never a knee to the ground!

Never bow your head!

Resist, prepare to fight, fight, fight for the emancipation of peoples, for the right to self-determination and sovereignty of black people.

Haiti stands firm in the face of plans to systematically plunder its land.

But Haiti stands alone, ignored by its Caribbean neighbours, their backs to the wall, thinking they can avoid imperialist fury.

We have to understand: today Haiti, tomorrow one of the CARICOM states that has agreed to armed intervention will be next on the list of the financial system that feasts on the remains of murdered states.

The Haitian people, against their bankrupt leaders, against the long teeth of the WB and IMF, are preparing to resist.

The Haitian people are on their feet.

Will we leave them alone?

Will we warn our eyes from a foretold massacre?

Will we assume solidarity by simply weeping over the fate of Haiti?

Will we continue to praise Haiti's poets and art when we've contributed to its extinction?

What is the beauty of the freedom offered by the Haitian people worth if today we participate in re-chaining them?

With the Haitian people, let's save our Dignity.

Haiti needs Freedom, not tears.



Mireille Fanon Mendes-France is founder and co-chair of the Frantz Fanon Foundation. She served as former United Nations expert chair of the Working group on People of African Descent. Mireille works on issues of International law and has worked as professor at different levels of the National Education, at Unesco and as legal adviser at French National Assembly. Mireille Fanon Mendès-France is the daughter of the world renowned revolutionary, psychiatrist and political author, Frantz Fanon.

Haiti
Haiti Occupation

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • Black Agenda Radio for Week of June 26, 2017
    28 Jun 2017
    Anti-War Conference Welcomes Black Alliance for Peace The United National Anti-War Coalition’s recent conference in Richmond, Virginia, featured the most Black participation and speakers in UNAC’s…
  • Highlights of the 2017 United National Antiwar Coalition conference, part 1 of 2
    28 Jun 2017
    Part One: Speakers at the UNAC Conference in Richmond, Virginia Charo Mina-Rojas, Black Communities Process; Colombian Commission for Peace Ana Edwards, Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice and…
  • Highlights of the 2017 United National Antiwar Coalition conference, part 2 of 2
    28 Jun 2017
    Part Two: Speakers at the UNAC Conference in Richmond, Virginia Ralph Poynter, New Abolitionist Movement; husband of the late political prisoner and people’s lawyer, Lynne Stewart Ajamu Baraka, co-…
  • Philly School Holds 3-Day Focus on James Baldwin
    28 Jun 2017
    The Saturday Free School, a center of community organizing and transformative political thought and study, will celebrate the life of James Baldwin on July 7, 8 and 9, at Philadelphia’s historic…
  • Gerald A. Perreira
    CARICOM Deals a Blow to US Plans for Regime Change in Venezuela
    28 Jun 2017
    by Gerald A. Perreira The US uses the Organization of American States to recruit Latin American allies for its campaign to overthrow the government of Venezuela. However, the Caribbean Community of…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us