Demonstrator at an SDP-sponsored demonstration against President Jovenel MoĂŻse in 2019. Photo: R. Blackwell/AP
Responsibility for Haiti's deteriorating conditions does not rest on the Haitian masses. A population does not rise up spontaneously but depends on political movements and organizations to build it.
Originally published in Haiti Liberte.
Some people are so dissatisfied with Haiti’s deteriorating situation that they have reached a point where their frustration leads them to blame the Haitian people. They hold the population responsible for the worsening situation, wondering why it doesn’t rise up against the transitional government. They almost imply that it’s because the people approve of or support the regime. Isn’t this a patently unfair and simplistic way of framing the problem?
In reality, it is not the people who should be blamed, because a people never spontaneously rises up on its own. It is always a political movement or an organization that mobilizes in service of a cause, hoping that the people will embrace it and see it as the champion of their interests and demands.
Very often, the population relies on these leaders who guide them, but who, in the end, it can lead to total chaos. Let’s take the example of the series of mobilizations against Jovenel Moïse’s government. It wasn’t the people who rose up against this power. It was political actors who acted, mostly by manipulating the population. The pretext was well-known: to defend their own interests rather than those of the people. They made them believe in a project whose outcome revealed it to be a pure lie. The population deeply resents the actions of the so-called Democratic and Popular Sector (SDP) party of André Michel, which lied to the people and fueled instability and insecurity, to such an extent that when it was in power after Jovenel’s assassination, it took no concrete measures address the people’s demands.
Such a deception will not be forgotten anytime soon, making it difficult to restore trust in politicians. This betrayal will not encourage the population as a whole to act collectively or to develop a shared vision. The population feels used by these actors who have never had any other project than to replace governments while continuing down the same path. The masses have finally discovered that Haitian political leaders are imposters, traitors. There was this deceitful scheme called “Plan Bolivia,” aimed at supporting and financing, both in the press and within various movements, actions designed to bring the country to its knees. This is where we are. How can we expect the people to continue entrusting their destiny to these political leaders who maintain an oligarchic system through a corrupt and incompetent “political and economic elite”?
Lawyer André Michel, the leader of the Democratic and Popular Sector party, at a 2013 demonstration in Port-au-Prince. Photo: Kim Ives/Haïti Liberté
If many opportunists are frustrated today, it’s because they want to seize power to perpetuate their usual practices, mistakenly believing that a few speeches or radio appearances will be enough to bring people into the streets, after which they would claim the credit for themselves. They are frustrated to see the people remain impassive. As the Kreyòl proverb says, the one who gives the blow forgets, but the one who bears the scars remembers.
Moreover, no people wake up one fine morning and take to the streets without some organization or form of mobilization, however modest, having been put in place beforehand. The true culprits behind this popular passivity are precisely those who claim to be on the “left.” For a long time, they have been making empty speeches without engaging in concrete actions. They are individuals resistant to any organization, lone wolves, who don’t even believe in the ideas they promote.
You’ve reached a political crossroads; you no longer know which side is on the right or the left, so similar are the rhetoric and actions; which ultimately breeds confusion and general indifference.
What we have in our country is a left wing loyal to capitalism. The facts are difficult to refute. Every day brings its share of testimonies and pieces of evidence, and angry denials can change nothing. It’s not without reason that it tags along behind the bourgeoisie and its right-wing lackeys.
A disunited left wing that seems to mobilize only to follow in the footsteps of the reactionary, pro-imperialist right. It has never, not even once, defended the fundamental rights of workers, nor fought to end job insecurity or even the gradual dismantling of social services.
Recently, we saw them en masse within the “Montana Accord” Coalition, the very coalition that, in concert with U.S. imperialism, gave birth to the Transitional Presidential Council (CPT). This is how we found numerous self-proclaimed left-wing activists entrenched within the machinery of the state, not to carry out political work, but to defend their own interests—a government position.
This type of behavior, far from serving a cause, destroys popular enthusiasm for change. The people have finally understood that what these politicians are seeking is not a profound, radical, and lasting transformation, but rather the gratification of their egos or landing a job within the corrupt state apparatus they so vehemently denounce.
Total chaos reigns in the country. Since then, some have remained loyal to the perverse policies embodied by de facto Prime Minister Alix-Didier Fils-Aimé’s regime, while other opportunists have opted for a peaceful opposition, devoid of substantive discourse or positions, hoping to see the people rise up so they can then manipulate them to their advantage. Many of those who once advocated a leftist discourse have switched sides and even succeeded without the people, thus ceasing to be part of the popular camp. However, the working masses, striving to improve their living conditions, continue to fight relentlessly against the exploitation of workers by a privileged class and the increasingly entrenched imperialist domination.
Today, one can ask where the “Haitian left” stands: where is it? What is it doing? What are its prospects? This movement remains silent! Because of its compromises, even its complicity, it unfortunately finds itself overtaken by events that have led it into an inexorable decline. This unconvincing left doesn’t even have an official position on the current situation; hence the need for a genuine left-wing organization that will neither lead the people to their slaughter nor provoke their destruction. It is not without reason that Lenin, in his pamphlet “What Is to Be Done,” asserted: “Without revolutionary organization, there can be no revolutionary policy; and without revolutionary policy, there can be no revolution.”
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