Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:00:17]:

Hi. Patrick here. The following 12 close to 12 minutes you’re about to hear is the conversation I had with, Robert Faton doctor Robert Faton, and I asked him permission to include it because it occurred after the formal interview. And I think it’s an extremely, extremely important, piece that I’ve I’ve flipped and put it in the front of this episode In order to give the context to the book, for my non Haitian Creole speaking audience, Please, if you don’t have a Haitian friend, make one because it’s conducted primarily in Creole in French and a little bit of English mixed in. It’s it’s a very important segment. It puts The rest of the episode in context, and it’s one of those gems where, you know, the gods are down and, Robert, the man, the Haitian, is talking about Haiti, and, And it’s a it’s a very instructive. I learned a lot from it, and I think you will as well.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:06:10]:

Absolutely dehumanizing. Yeah. You know, it destroys, you know, what it is that human beings should be. You know? You said there is. You know? Minimum things. It’s not even you’re asking for minimum thing that people people have enough to eat. No.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:06:59]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:07:40]:

You don’t know where we are going. It’s so you know? I need to border piece and piece You know? As I said, you know, We can’t resign then ourselves. Yeah. You know, I’m outside of the of the country. I’m living in the United States. I have a comfortable life, etcetera. So I always feel up to that extent to that, conflicted because who am I to To say certain things. But on the other hand, you know, as an intellectual, you have to do so even to, well, You are not suffering the same way that people in Haiti are suffering, let alone people, who are already at the bottom of the social structure.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:08:33]:

I can’t understand their Potential experiences. I’m too far removed, but but I sympathize. I I want to believe that, You know, you can give to people at the bottom a certain degree of humanity that anyone of, With a certain amount of consciousness, would want to see for all, human beings. This is Why we are human beings is not to inflict punishment on people and see them in conditions that are totally, As you said, dehumanizing. So we need to confront those those realities in order to change them. Otherwise, by saying, well, they Exploiting visor. They belong well too.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:09:28]:

Yeah. It is happening.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:09:30]:

Anyone who goes to Haiti, you see it. You go to the airport. You you see the poverty. You see that something is deeply wrong with the country. You don’t need to go very far. It’s it’s it’s it’s very painful. You know?

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:09:48]:

So so to what extent, professor, brain drain happen during the idea. To what extent I get to sense sometimes Go go sense the guilt.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:10:04]:

Well, it sounds like we are received, you know, Excuse my condition to tell my They con they’re condition on that election. I this company, Doug. You see? Dog dragon. I think dragon. I can’t. You know, I’m an intellectual. I am not to some extent, I I don’t I don’t understand people, of my own social class. I don’t understand how they can leave a country in those conditions.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:11:04]:

I don’t understand how they live there and See it. It’s that also is revolting. You know? So to some extent, No. Makes it, rupee. The shock for a month game. The I forgot what the NID would would debut solely. What the heck is going on there? Mhmm. How people can continue to believe it under those conditions? So So hope.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:11:55]:

The question is whether they’re going to be swallowed by the system. And once you’re swallowed by that system, it’s difficult Mhmm. To to To have my hope. You know, I I have plenty of friends who went back to Haiti after Duvalier. I almost went back after Duvalier. And, you know, many of those guys some of them left again, But many of those guys stayed, and, frankly, without naming names, they become also, Part of what some nations have called. So Wow. So that’s sad too.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:12:34]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I have a friend who said, no. It’s a moon. Where did you came up? I have no response, but it’s it’s a very sad thing, because In order to get that kind of money, you need to be part of. So, You know? But I’m here in the United States. Good salary, all of that stuff, living comfortably.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:13:17]:

So it’s difficult to give lessons of morality when you are living in a very different kind of environment, which is to be very privileged, especially when you compare it to Haiti. Yeah. So

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:13:50]:

The book we are going to discuss today, this is kind of part 2, is the guys of Exceptionalism unmasking the national narratives of Haiti and the United States. Mhmm. So you write you write it, being Haitian and American frees you to be, Quote, ruthlessly, unquote, critical of Haiti and America. Yeah. Why why do you think you have to be ruthless about it?

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:14:27]:

Well, she won’t be allowed need to We need to see reality as it is and not continuously embellish it. And this is not just for Haitians. It’s for Americans. Anyone who’s living in a nation state as a form of exceptionalism. And it starts from very early when you are in primary school. The history that you learn about your country, it’s not necessarily false or fake, but it is so embellished That it literally erases the critical parts. And the critical parts are fundamental to understand the problems that the country is facing Right now. Because we can’t go for it.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:15:27]:

For instance, in the case of Haiti, you can’t go back continuously to 1804. This is obviously a glorious revolution, A major event in world history, but there were problems with the revolutions. There were problems With the leaders of the revolutions as it were the founding fathers. Mhmm. You know, you you take system. You take system problem the class. And those 2 problems have continuously besieged Haiti. And in addition to that, you need to look at the international system.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:16:14]:

And Haiti was the 1st and only Black nation of slaves to emancipate themselves through a revolution. And when that happened, The white supremacist order that was dominant at the time really could not cope with that reality. So we were essentially banished. We were relegated to a nation with sanctions. And then, as you know, the huge problem created by the French so called indemnity, under president Boire. So all of those things have to be taken into consideration and how they crystallize at the time. And when we look at that story, we see the glorious aspects, but we have to see the problematic aspects of the revolution and its consequences. The

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:17:17]:

American ex exceptionalism and and the Haitian one.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:17:21]:

Yeah. Well, as I say in the book, exceptionalism is really a very, embellished Narrative of one’s national history. In other words, what you’re doing, you’re emphasizing a narrative That is deeply rooted in the glorious, emancipatory aspects of that national narrative. And you are essentially ignoring the critical parts, the problematic parts, etcetera. So if you look, for instance, At American exceptionalism, you have the declaration of independence, which is Fundamentally, an emancipatory kind of document. You have, the constitution, Etcetera. And all of those documents present the founding of the United States as the ultimate achievement of, mankind. In other words, this is the republic that is free, that is Egalitarian where you have, the city on the hill.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:18:31]:

God is essentially Manifesting, himself through the creation of the republic. But at the same time, you ignore all of the other Critical elements, the problematic elements. You know, the United States was a slave society, was a white supremacist society. Even within the white population, it was deeply divided along class lines. Women were excluded totally from, the political system. So you had a reality at the beginning, which was really one where you had, For all practical purposes, the plutocracy. In other words, all of the leaders of the republic of the early republic were white men, and, many of them were slave owners. And if you look at George Washington when he became the leader, the president of the United States.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:19:26]:

He was the wealthiest man in the United States. So there’s a deep divide between The narrative as a republic where everyone is equal, etcetera, and the ugly realities of white supremacy, Slavery, class divided, gender divided. So it’s a history, therefore, that emphasizes The beauty of particular aspects of the founding, but ignores totally the realities of that founding. On the other side of it, if you look at Haiti, we have similar problems. I mean, 18/04 is a glorious revolution. It’s, as I’ve said, It’s an emancipatory event in human history. It, for the first time, denies race As a marker for inferiority, for slavery, etcetera. So it’s really a major revolution, but You have to look also at the divisions within the Asian society between the military leadership of the revolution and the rest of the population.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:20:35]:

When the revolution occurs, you have a deeply divided society along class lines And along racial lines, essentially, the as we say in 18, like, Those 2 things are fundamental In the early beginning of the republic, we have a very deep authoritarian, manifestation In the constitution that we’ve had, you’re talking about an emperor. You’re talking about someone, if you look at the Celine, Was the right to essentially decide whatever he wants to decide? So you have serious problems in terms of Democratic aspects of the early days of the republic. You have the business of the division between The upper military echelon of the revolutionary forces and the vast majority of Haitians who essentially were peasants. And the problem for the leaders, you know, of the Haitian revolution was how do you recover from a bloody, revolution. I mean, you know, 140,000 people died in the revolution. The economy was destroyed, And the economy, as we know, at the time, was based on the plantation system. Now the plantation system was basically a system where you exploited labor, Where you had slaves doing the labor, and you were extracting from the slaves the profits that, We’re rooted in the export of sugar, a fundamental element in the world economy. When with the revolution, The sugar economy, the plantation system is destroyed, not surprisingly, because the slaves hated the plantation.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:22:25]:

It was the home of atrocities. It was the home of exploitation. But the leaders wanted to Revive the economy. So what did they do? They essentially sought to, create again the plantation. And not surprisingly, The only way you could do that was by authoritarian measures. So you have, you know, what what what something something really look called le Code rurale. All of the, leaders of Haiti, the Dessalines, Pétion, Christophe, Boyer, the early leaders to say, obviously, They all wanted to reimpose the plantation economy. Now if you reimpose the plantation economy, You may not you may not need slaves, but you need course labor, forced labor.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:23:11]:

The peasantry would not take that. You know, you fight for the revolution, And then they tell you you’re going to go back to essentially the same conditions. So the the the vast majority of the Haitians said, hell no. We are not going to take that. So what happens therefore is that you have the peasantry that withdraws essentially from, the economy and creates its own, space where it can function. So you have the emergence of that peasant economy separated from the state and pays and to look at the state As an exploitative, institution that only wants to cause them, extract resources from them, Tax them, want them to work for free, etcetera. So you have that reality. And, therefore, it’s a very different history when you look At the authoritarianism, the productive system, which essentially wanted to be again, anchored in the exploitation of the vast majority of Haitians who had just been liberated.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:24:18]:

And as you know, you know, the the the the slaves Prior to the, prior to independence in 1804 were themselves divided. You had the so called Bossales, And the Bosales were those slaves brought from Africa who were not born in Haiti, and they represented the majority of Haitians. Then you had the other slaves who had been born in Haiti, and those represented to some extent, you can say privilege, but, You know, they are they are certain rights that the others didn’t have, and that deeply divided They both south of what was called the. Then you had the. You know, the the were mostly, they were obviously, black, non Bossales People involved in that. I mean, one of the pragmatic example of that is obviously Toussaint Louverture sell, Who, as you know, was a slave then was free. They be then he became a slave owner, Then he abandoned slavery altogether and fought against slavery. So you have all of those divisions, and you have the divisions of the 17 nineties between, You know, people like Dessalines and Petion and Christophe.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:25:44]:

There was a a war, between the forces of Toussaint, and, and Dessalines and Petur against the forces of the Afroasi, essentially light skinned Haitians related to, led by Rigaud and by. Dessalines won that battle. And what is interesting is obviously that Once Napoleon came to power, he wanted to reestablish slavery, and you had diffusion of, old enemies, and Dessalines. And one of the reasons I have that, picture on my book, this is where you see, Petiot and Desalines, to some extent, reconciled in order to fight for, independence and establish, the Haitian Republic.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:26:40]:

Who are organic intellectuals?

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:26:45]:

Well, organic intellectual is a term that is used by very famous, Italian, Marxist by the name of Gramsci. And what he argues is that every ruling class has organic intellectuals. And what he meant by that Is that they were the one elaborating the narratives that would serve the interest of that ruling class. So from his perspective, if you want to, destroy as it were the hegemony of the ruling class, the hegemony of The official narrative, people from below, whether they be slaves, whether they be the working class, in in other words, subordinate, people, they need to invent their own narratives. They need their own organic intellectuals. And this is an extremely Difficult process because the educational system to a large degree is bent on Recreating the narrative that serve the purposes of, that ruling class. So organic intellectuals are, to a large degree, allies of, the dominant groups in society. They create, the ideology that to a logic degree legitimate, the existing order.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:28:09]:

That’s what is meant by organic intellectuals. And any group that aspires to become dominant needs its own organic intellectuals because you need to create a narrative that can ultimately be perceived as The narrative of the whole community that you’re trying to rule. So it’s a complicated process. And, obviously, not all intellectuals Actually, organic intellect I mean, not all organic intellectuals are allied of the ruling class because you have counter, narratives counter hegemonic forces in society. But, basically, the organic intellectual is the intellectual which is attached, either willingly or unconsciously to the dominant narrative of the ruling class.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:29:00]:

Okay. So, so in Haiti, who would you throughout our history, who would are there any consistencies and who Who the organic intellectuals are?

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:29:12]:

Well, we have some organic intellectuals, but to a large degree, when I look at Haiti, because of the dominant role of the political class, I essentially look Are the leaders and the constitutions that were promulgated by those leaders. There are great intellectuals in Haiti. You know, you have, Genevieve, for instance. You you you have Bryce Mars, and some of them are counter, hegemonic intellectuals, some of the literary figures that we have, for instance, is a counter, a Germanic intellectual is not an organic intellectual, but all of those people are tend to be in a minority. Then you have if you look at the the movements that eventually led to, the ascendancy of Duvalier, You had Duvalier as an organic intellectual with, what’s his name again? And they promulgated an ideology That was very much based on race and on the primacy of the black race. And those things Form to, to some extent, what has been called, the movement which was seeking to legitimize the rule of the black middle class in Haiti, which was fighting against the traditional. And then that its own intellectuals and your you know you know, that slogan of the which is In other words, they don’t really allude to to, to race or to color, But in their mind, they are the because they are essentially light skinned. So so you have Those ideologies that are formed to serve the interest of those who are running the show.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:31:10]:

And you have moments like that, for instance, on the list. Everything that was, attached, to, Africa or to subordinate groups like Vodou. Those things were literally perceived as enemies of the nation. You needed to destroy And you needed to create as it were an ideology that was much closer to white, Western society with the supremacy of Christianity, etcetera. So you have different, elements, depending on who’s in power. But what I’m arguing for Haiti is that whether you had the mutilator groups in power or The black groups in power, it was basically the same story that they control the state for their own Particular advantages. They use the state as a means to, illicitly accumulate wealth and to protect their particular interest. This is the story of Duvalier.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:32:14]:

This is the story of Lisco. This is the story of. No earlier on. So it’s a story that repeats itself irrespective of those who are really in power.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:32:27]:

You, you use a few German words to describe America. One of them is a democracy. Can you give us an explanation? And, also, I actually looked at one of your footnotes, you you gave. You say since, Yeah. America’s inception up to pre 19 sixties, its existence. That to me, that comes up to about 80% of US history, As a Herringvault democracy, can you give us a definition of that?

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:32:57]:

It’s essentially the idea that the whites are in power. There are divisions within the white group, but, it’s the moral community of the nation is basically white people. The and racism is very functional in that system Because what racism does is to prevent any possible alliance between, poor whites And, you know, the black population. And the other element that is important in that system Is that the poorest white, they feel superior, to any blacks. So there is a divide that is very functional for those who run the show because it divides and rule. And this is a system that Many ruling classes have accepted. In other words, all of the rights were essentially rights given to the white population and not to All whites. It was a very gradual process.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:34:06]:

The franchise is gradually given to whites and then eventually, to white woman, but it’s only in the, you know, in the 19 sixties with the civil right movement That you truly have the capacity to see black people get getting the minimal kind of voice in the political system, which is to vote. So the, system is a white supremacist system Where whites are given privileges by v o two of their color. This is something that you had also, obviously, in countries like South Africa, Under apartheid. And to a large degree, the the US was, especially in the south, To a lesser degree, was an apartheid society based on race as a dominant divide, but also As a system that allowed for white people, the ruling class to, lord, it all were poor whites. And what is interesting if you look at the history, of the south in particular, Prior today, real consolidation of the white supremacy system, you know, black and white, poor poor whites and blacks were very much, mixing. There were marriages, And it’s only when racism asserted itself as an ideological system that, there is a prohibition, of marriage across racial lines. This is an interesting phenomenon. It is that prohibition comes as a result of the fact That prior to the prohibition, it existed.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:35:55]:

So you want to crystallize the division legally, and all of the legal mechanisms Up till the civil war, literally enforce that kind of racism. The civil war for a very short period tries to destroy race, but it can’t. And Jim Crow is, instituted, and it’s not slavery, but it’s a system of racial domination, particularly in the southern part of the United States.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:36:28]:

So another German word, you use you attached to United States, to describe its expansionist tendencies is, Quote, America’s Lebenstrom. People don’t have pronunciation. I have I have those words known

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:36:44]:

and term. It comes from German. What’s that? I I don’t speak German, but I know the term is a Germanic, term. Yeah. It’s essentially the idea that you need territorial expansion, and, this is the story of the United States. And it’s a story which is Very much connected to the history of Haiti, and and the, paradigmatic example of that Phenomenon of of Lebensrom is, the, it’s the the, purchase of Louisiana by the United States. Louisiana the purchase of Louisiana that was, Materialized under Thomas Jefferson, was the result of the Haitian revolution because, And most Americans don’t know that. But it’s a fact that Napoleon said his his Army, some 50,000 people with the conviction that he would go to Haiti, reestablish very quickly slavery, and then All of those troops would march into, the the part that is now the western Part of the United States, the Louisiana purchase.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:38:03]:

But the defeat of Napoleon or compelled Napoleon to sell At a very cheap price, the whole western part of the United States, it doubled, You know, the, total territorial entity of the US at that time, and it’s a result of the Haitian Revolution. And what is paradoxical about it is that one of the fundamental achievement of Jefferson, who was a white supremacist, And we impose all kinds of nasty, embargoes on Haiti. Well, it’s the result of the the successful The American Republic. Because when the settlers arrive, they essentially say, well, those lands are unoccupied, Which is clearly a fascinating thing to say when, you know, the indigenous population was there, but they considered it Unoccupied. So you could take it, grab it. And if there was opposition, well, you would essentially, destroy that opposition. You would basically commit genocide, and that’s exactly what happened, with, the indigenous, American population, the so called Indians, they were wiped out and then sent into reservations. So this is the history Of a country that needs expansion.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:39:38]:

I mean, very much, in the words of Jefferson, he calls it The empire of liberty. Well, the empire of liberty is essentially the empire of the ruling groups in the United States who just happen to be, You know, white slave owners at the time.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:40:14]:

You write that Haitian exceptionalism has become nothing more than a Symbolic invocation of the revolutionary passed hiding the country’s dependence on foreign actors. The the dependence on foreign actors part is what I’d like for you to kinda expand on a little bit.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:40:33]:

Yeah. Well, if you look in particular in the, in the last 50 years or so, there is a very strong nationalistic, discourse, which is completely, and there’s no other word to use it, obliterated by The realities of the political economy of Haiti. All of the governments, and that starts, I mean, very early On are dependent on external forces for the maintenance of their rule. You look at Duvalier in spite of the fact that he had problems with the United States. Duvalier would never have been, in power, and his son for, you know, from 1957 to 1986 if it weren’t for the support of the US, sometimes covered, sometimes very open. And what I mean by that, first of all, Duvalier, was kept in power by the US government, by the Johnson administration, the Kennedy administration, the Nixon administration, Reagan, etcetera, Because this was the cold war they needed. They needed, you know, a a government that would be right wing and that That would be opposed to communism. It’s not that the US particularly liked the, Haitian government.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:42:00]:

It’s not necessarily a fact that like the United States, but there was a fusion of interest. 1, to keep the area, safe so called for for democracy and the other to keep power. So the US, you know, Found the, information about the insurrectionary groups at the time in the sixties, Duvalier Armed the Duvalier under Jean Claude, they created the neo power. They consolidated the, the army. So there is a fusion of interest. It’s an opportunistic Fusion of interest. The most pragmatic case of that dependence comes obviously, with, Jean comes to power. He’s elected.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:42:48]:

He’s obviously the most popular figure in modern Haitian history. But then when he’s overthrown, is compelled to exit the country, and all of his anti imperialist, vision and narrative Literally disappears. You have someone who was continuously critical of the American empire, and then He is compelled to accept 25,000 marines as the means to get back to power. He’s condemned to sign agreements with the World Bank and the IMF, which were contrary to his visions. So there is a dependence On external forces, there is a dependence on those forces to keep power or to get back to power. And that dependence It emasculates whatever nationalistic project you may have. So you can use, you know, a rhetoric of nationalism. You can, talk about but the reality is that you’re back in power because you have 25,000 American marines who say, okay.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:43:55]:

Now it’s fine for you to get Back to power. And this is one one of the paradoxes. You look at the most recent history of the Of the country, when you have the assassination of Jovinal Moiz, you have in the first instance, what’s his name? Who became prime minister, the former prime minister Of, as Rubenel know, he’s, I forget his name, Claude Joseph, who’s announced on a tweet By the international community as the leader of Haiti. And then 4 days afterwards, they said, no. No. No. No. We don’t like you.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:44:37]:

We want we want Ariel, in power. So what what happens then, You know, Claude Joseph is compelled to exit the prime minister position, and Ariel becomes the prime minister. Those are things that are Very clearly illustrative of the underdependence of the country for, of the country, for the ruling class To stay in power. So those are very clear examples. The fact that the country was, to a large degree, occupied by Pied by minister is another manifestation of that. So we are a very dependent nation, And the nationalistic rhetoric that our leaders are continuously invoking, well, that that rhetoric doesn’t match The reality of Haiti. And the current government, for instance, would not be in power if it weren’t because, the international community has said That is a legitimate government of Haiti. So we have that sad reality that nationalism Is to a large degree a rhetorical kind of manifestation of powerlessness.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:45:52]:

We did

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:45:53]:

the Duvalier pair use the same thing, especially during, you know, communism, the fight When when the the Western world was fighting against communism, how did he use that? Well, behind the scenes, he was being propped by,

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:46:08]:

Well, he was clearly being brought by the United States. I mean, they were several at taps, for instance, to overthrow, Francois Duvalier. And most of them were actually, attempts that that were foiled to a large degree of the United States supported Duvalier. And United States fed Duvalier with the information that those groups were coming. And the US armed, Francois Duvalier and sig significantly more on, Jean Claude Duvalier, baby doc. So there is a clear relationship. I mean, you have the the one of the, most, famous example. That’s when the US and Organization of American States, decided to, expel Cuba from, the organization of American States.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:47:00]:

And Duvalier wanted money. He wanted to build, you know, the airport. So He essentially sold his vote for $1,000,000, and that led to the construction of what is now, But that’s part of the story. So Duvalier used the United States, but the United States obviously was Much more powerful actor in in that relationship, and the United States protected Duvalier because of the cold war. As as Americans as American policymakers like to say, we may not like the guy, but he’s our own bastard. Mhmm. And that’s the reality. You know, they are continuously talking about our backyard.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:47:49]:

You know? In a funny way, Biden changed the term. I don’t know if you heard that a few weeks ago. He said it’s not the backyard. It’s the front yard. So I I assume that we’ve been promoted. I don’t know if that’s what that entails, but it’s basically the same idea. With the Monroe doctrine, You know, that’s in America and the Caribbean are basically under American, influence. This is this fear, of, domination of the United States.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:48:19]:

So whatever happens there is of significance with the United States. And if United States doesn’t like it. It’s not going to happen.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:48:29]:

You’re right that the the phenomenon of maroonage occupies is a privileged pay place and Haitian exceptionalism in history, but it has a complicated relationship to freedom, resistance, And accommodation to regime regimes of subjugation. How so? How can be both, and I quote from your book, a form of resistance And the type of accommodation to the existing system of predations. And you also write that the use of are multiple and contradictory. So Yeah. You got a lot a lot going on there.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:49:04]:

Yeah. Well, as you know, it started, on under the slave system. And what the did, they wanted to escape, slavery, so they created, as it were, communities of freedom Outside of the plantation. Now in order to survive, you needed to accommodate at the same time, yourself To the realities of the, of the plantations. You would leave the plantation alone so that the plantation would not the plantation owners would not, in or no. Fight against you. So you had that kind of reality. You escape not because it’s the ideal situation, because But simply because it’s the it’s the most convenient possibility if you want to have some freedom.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:49:58]:

But at the same time, you’re not completely free because you can’t do much to help the people who are under, the slave regime. So there is the accommodation between slave owners and. They exist, in some form of confrontation, but at the same time, they exist In some form of accommodation, so the don’t continuously attack the plantation, and the plantation don’t, condition owners are not going to attack Is, de Maro. So there is that coexistence, but there are agreements, as to the limits of emancipation And the limits of the plantation owners to destroy, the Maron. So you have that bizarre, tension between slave who escape, they become the and the slave owners. Now This becomes the history to a large degree of Haiti. The fact that Haitians, they are always trying to escape The predation of the state. After independence, as I’ve said, peasants are not going to put up, with the system of the plantation.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:51:19]:

So what do they do? They retrench into their private plots, small plots, And but they don’t like the state, because the state is perceived as a predatory state and for very good reasons. So you have people who are exiting the system, but they are not fully free because the state is still there. And the state is continuously waging Some sort of warfare against the interests of the people who exited, you know, this is the state itself. This is the relationship of Haitians with the state. You need some protection, but on the other hand, the state has never been, your friend, it’s always especially especially if you are poor. You are taxed, you know, under the you, to a large degree, beaten up. So you you have a system where there is a tension between escaping the system in order to preserve some degree of, of emancipation, some degree of freedom, but it’s not ideal. It’s the way you exit.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:52:27]:

Mhmm. And has taken all Kinds of all the forms, for instance, when Haitians, deal with, foreign powers. They say one thing, but they want another. They say one thing to the population, but they say another. So you are in a constant state of. You are behaving in contradictory ways In order to preserve whatever you have at that moment, and it’s it’s an interesting phenomenon, and I think it’s a phenomenon That is deeply embedded in the Haitian culture and from the very beginning of, the creation Of the slave economy, even before, obviously, independence because it starts with, And it takes that, very political cultural, character in, the political, system of the republic.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:53:27]:

You also said that, the the elites also have their own form of.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:53:34]:

Oh, yeah.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:53:35]:

That took me by surprise, actually.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:53:37]:

No. Because they do contradictory things. I mean, Sometimes they have a nationalistic, you know, narrative, but then they don’t they don’t do anything that Correspond to that narrative. You have also the phenomenon of exit. I mean, if you look now at The Asian elite in particular since, the nineties, those are people who are in a No. They are kind of in transit in Haiti. What I mean they are in transit in Haiti is that they place their money elsewhere In, you know, in the United States, in France, in Switzerland, they have houses in Miami. They have houses in the Dominican Republic.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:54:21]:

So whenever, there is a problem, they can always exit. They they are they are they are, and what they say today, the United States is very different, than what, they really think at the same time. There’s a very peculiar relationship Because even the elite, they don’t like, you know, the because the is treating them as, you know, expendable commodities Even if you are part of the of the Haitian elite, and that dates back in particular to the American occupation from 1915 to 1934, Where even if you’re an elite, you are not really tolerated by the American occupiers. And and that becomes something that is deeply Anchored in the mentality of Haitians and of the Haitian elite. They have to deal with the powers that be, United States, different from the Canadian, etcetera, but they don’t like them. There is kind of a bizarre, Love hate relationship with them. They need their support, but they don’t particularly like it. But they have to accept it in order To remain in power.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:55:33]:

You see that, for instance, right now, in the negotiations between the international community, The the the the government of our and all of the other opposition parties, whether it be the Montana group or the, Penn group, All of those people are saying we don’t want the blow. But when the blow arrived, they all sit around him. Mhmm. So there is that tension, and they say, well, we don’t want your involvement. But then it says, okay. You you can’t recognize that party. You have to recognize us. So it’s a Complicated story.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:56:07]:

It’s a contradictory, history, and I was deeply involved in that, You know, from being an entire imperialist and coming back to power, on the back literally of 25,000 marines And then being overthrown the 2nd time by the very forces that had put him back to power, the US, and the French And, obviously, the internal Asian opposition. So you have those contradictions are part of, The history of Haiti. If you look at the indemnity, the so called indemnity, you know, it’s always represented as A complete imposition on the part of the French so that the government would pay, you know, that indemnity. There is a truth to that Because, you know, the boats, the war machine of France was in the Bay of, and knew That if he didn’t sign that, that agreement, well, he was in deep trouble. But what wanted too is recognition on the part of the French power, And he wanted that recognition so that his own property and the property of the elite in Haiti would be recognized as being illegal. So once you pay the indemnity, you accept that you literally, confirm the fact that you own that property. So you pay an indemnity, and it’s not the elite really with the indemnity. The indemnity was paid To a large degree by tuition to taxation and by more and more debts, and the elite benefited from that because it was legally And, it was legally protected by the international community once it paid that indemnity.

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:58:02]:

So you have the interest of the Haitian elite and, obviously, the interest of the imperial power. And they tend to coincide in a very opportunistic way.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:58:15]:

You are I I correct me if I’m wrong. I could have sworn I read somewhere. That kind of blew me away. I read so much stuff On that you said there is no cause and effect between and the Haitian revolution. Am I am I reading did I did I

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:58:33]:

read that right? Well, could have existed without leading to the revolution. I mean, existed Said in Jamaica, you never had the same revolution.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [00:58:42]:

Yeah. So yeah. So so can you talk about because I I somehow, I keep reading other who somehow tried to make the connection between and Haiti, The whole system that that, you know, preceded our revolution as somehow, you know, if by implication leading to the revolution. Do you think, You know?

Dr. Robert Fatton [00:59:05]:

I think, yeah, I think this is a form of Haitian exceptionalism Yes. In the sense that Haitians like to think that way. But when you look at, you know, if it’s cause and effect, there is a problem with that narrative because other slave, communities Never achieved the revolution. There were revolts, but they never achieved the revolution. Now, led to communities of liberties, if you wish, and those had an impact On how they conceive the larger society. And the fact that they were met That they could not and they would not put up with slavery. But from that fact to lead to a revolution It’s not, you know, a linear progression. Haiti is the only country that achieved that.

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:00:04]:

So Haitian intellectuals and historians have tended to put that kind of link. I think, There is a link, but it is not a unilateral link. Otherwise, all of the Caribbean societies and even Brazil Would have had a revolution and a successful revolution. It’s a very complicated business. Now one of the realities, though, of Haiti is that If Haiti achieved, its independence, it also created an example that The white supremacist states at that time would not tolerate. So there is fear that the Haitian revolution is going to spread. So that meant that white supremacists and slave owners, whether they be in Jamaica, whether they be in the south of the United States, would be extremely careful about destroying those communities and containing them. So in other words, the success of Haiti was, a precedent that white supremacist forces We’re not willing to tolerate and to see, expand.

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:01:24]:

And you see that in the southern part of the United States. You see that in Jamaica. And there is historians who have looked at, the Haitian revolution say that one of the paradoxical effects of the revolution is that you have a sec a second slavery. What they mean by that is that slavery becomes more vicious in Cuba, becomes more vicious in the southern part of the United States Because you do not want to see the Haitian example, spread. Mhmm. It’s it’s seen by white supremacists as Something that is an existential threat. You read the documents of of of the time. Haiti is really dangerous.

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:02:07]:

Mhmm. And you want to suppress it?

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [01:02:11]:

About, Carlos Silas, who wrote that the assassination and mutilation Of, was, quote, a true right of desecration, unquote. And then you write that, this desecration Symbolize also the extremely frail basis on which Haiti’s exceptionalism rested. Can you expand on that A little bit? What you meant by that?

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:02:36]:

Yeah. When when I talk about exceptionalism and when when when you have a very strong exceptionalism, You need to have what what many, theories have called the hegemony of the ruling class. And what is meant by the of the ruling class is that they are more or less in agreement Over everything. There there might be divisions, but but their very interest, and their very narrative Leads to hegemony. In Haiti, we didn’t have that, and it dates back from the revolution. You you had the division between, you know, you go on the one hand and to say, this Aline and Christophe alluded to that. And not surprisingly, those divisions, Which were to a larger degree, ignored during the revolution itself that have led to 1804 and the Fear that Napoleon was going to reestablish slavery. All of those guys get back together again.

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:03:47]:

But once you have The, you know, the republic established. Once you Haiti is established, the divisions reappear, And you can see that, with the assassination of Diceline. The assassination of Diceline, is truly That moment where you have the destruction of that hegemony. You as the assassination of leads to the Partition of Haiti. Yeah. We have the south and the north. So you have, you know, in French, So the the so that kind of division, was embedded in the at the very moment of independence, and no one could contain it because there were different forces, different interests, and different visions of what, Haiti should be, and more importantly, from the perspective of the leaders, what the ruling class, should become. And there was no agreement.

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:04:54]:

And there was no agreement, not only because there were political divisions and, like, Christian de Colleur was part of that, But also because of the fragility of the economy. You could not reestablish the plantation. The economy Was to a large degree, very, very, very weak. And you can’t have a ruling class Literally, presiding over a nation if the economy is so fragile. It leads to the fragmentation of the elite. It leads to internal divisions, internal, warfare because you have, the economic surplus is very small, And you want to fight for it. And that’s the problem that has plagued Haiti since 1804 that, you know, even said that, you know, you could diplomat, the the the chicken the chicken, but you shouldn’t do it do it too much. In other words, you could steal a lot from the government, but not too much because That would lead to a crisis.

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:06:06]:

The problem is that there was so little, and this is the constant problem of Haiti that Everyone is fighting to control the state in order to accumulate wealth. The state is the primordial way Through which not only you ruled society, but through which you can appropriate resources, maintain those resources, and coercively. So there is a fight within the ruling groups for control of the state. The fight that leads to those kinds of, You know, assassinations, those kinds of divisions, etcetera, etcetera. And that’s part of the Haitian history from the beginning up till now. I mean, you know, Haitians if you look for instance at more, at recent history, I remember the carnival, I think it was of 1990 9. It was called, and was essentially the phenomenon that politicians want to control the government in order to steal. And is a phenomenon that has been part of our history way before, That carnival and continues to inform practices now.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [01:07:24]:

I, my final question to you is, I Think, it’s a I think, yeah, it’s beautifully written, and I wanted to to sort of make sure I quote at length, to ask you sort of this final question. You’re right. Quote, the constant and hollow invocation of exceptionalism Leads to its other and ultimately to its incapacity to mobilize and convince. The invention of reality that rulers deploy from exaggerated claims of exceptionalism becomes so grotesque that they can no longer recreate history by extending its reach and imagining events. In such circumstances, exceptionalism drops its mask. The emperor has no clothes and stands naked, unprotected. Those in power lose their legitimacy, and an overwhelming cynicism Overruns society, unquote. How do you keep yourself, doctor Vaton, from being cynical? Is and is the answer in your final dedication in this book to your 1st grandchild, Frey? You included him in that last paragraph was, some might surprising to me because, Fato, You know, accept exceptionalism’s hanging judge seemed to disappear for a little bit and replaced by a more hopeful grandfather.

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:08:57]:

Yeah. Because, you know, when you look at

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [01:09:02]:

Oh, you’re hopeful. I guess it’s despite all this This I like to my view.

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:09:08]:

I I am, cautiously pessimistic. That’s the best I could I could say. You see, we’ve had events in Haiti when you thought that history was to Was going to change and change utterly. I mean, when Duvalier fell, this was a moment of great Hope. A moment where you thought that people could imagine a different society, And we know that that didn’t happen. Then you had another moment with the election of Aristide in, 1990 and became, Officially present in 91 where you have again a moment where you think this is going to change and it’s going to change dramatically. And we see what happens. There is a coup, and it destroys

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [01:10:05]:

hope,

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:10:05]:

and it leads to, You know, murders in the slums of Haiti where the popular sector is really suffering Untold, violence. Then you have the return of Aristide, and that becomes Both hope and, problematic. Hope because he comes back, but problematic because it it Because of the way he comes back. It’s difficult to have a new narrative. It’s difficult to establish a new system When you come back because of 25,000 marines. Now maybe there was no other option, But the fact is that that’s the way he came back. That immediately, undermines whatever emancipatory project you may have. Then you have his 2nd election, which leads to a disaster.

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:11:04]:

Occupation, minister, etcetera. Then we have another moment of tragedy and a moment of potential hope. It and that’s the earthquake of 2010. Horrific, event. As you know, something like 200 to 300,000 people died in a matter of A few, seconds. And the country faces a disaster of Great magnitude. And for a while, there is a feeling that, well, this is the time To rebuild the nation, this is the time to heal. This is the time of reconciliation between different sectors of society.

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:11:52]:

And I think that for about 2 or 3 months, I was extremely hopeful. I thought this is really going to change because when you see what happened, you see What has to be done in order to reconstruct a nation that has been destroyed, not only by political, factors not only by human beings literally so totally, Interested in defending their corporate interest. Well, destroyed by a natural catastrophe That maybe people are going to start thinking that maybe there is going to be a moment of national unity. Nothing fundamentally revolutionary, But progressive. And we see that that very quickly disappears. It disappears With, the type of reconstruction that is suggested by the international community. And to some extent, the international community hijacked Whatever national project there might have been. The type of foreign assistance that we got, Which was a foreign assistant that really privileged nongovernmental, associations and organizations, which were dominated by foreigners, and very little went to the government to reconstruct the functioning state.

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:13:15]:

So, ultimately, when you see those events where hope was a was a possibility, then, that became, very problematic. So I think that when I sit down cautiously pessimistic is because I don’t want to give To to give up hope, I want to think that Haitians may in fact be capable of imagining A new, type of beginning. The very current crisis that we have now, I think, is fundamentally A a crisis in the sense that it opens up a a possibility for emancipation, but it also is a moment of danger Where we might indeed fall again into old practices that are very authoritarian and democratic, etcetera. So, I have a certain amount of hope, but it’s very limited. On the other hand, I know that history Is in fact, something that is full of surprises and sometimes very good surprises, and sometimes they it It leads to moments of catastrophe, so I’m hesitant. But I don’t want to give up hope entirely because there’s always something That can surprise us. And, in the case of Haiti, the very fact that, that slaves could produce a revolution, Whatever may have been its limitations is a factor also of of hope. Mhmm.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [01:14:46]:

Would you say the Post occupation, period was also, you saw some glimmer of hope?

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:14:56]:

To some extent, yes or no. I mean, because, occupation, to a larger we created the The centralization of power in progress, and that meant that the state became increasingly, predatory, and had more power to do so. Previous to that, we are regional power. So there was a limitation to decentralization of Power. But the reaction, the nationalistic reaction, was to some extent something that could have led to, they, to some sort of hope, but it was very quickly eclipsed with, military regimes and with the Duvalier’s regime. So, hope is always limited because of the constraints, the material constraints that the country faces And also the political constraints that are part of being, in the global system Where major powers are continuously interfering in our own affairs and not for the interest of Haiti, but for their particular strategic or economic interest. Well,

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [01:16:09]:

it’s another another great segment, professor.

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:16:14]:

Well, thank you so much. I enjoyed it. So, hopefully, we’ll have another occasion to talk to you.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [01:16:21]:

So, this has been very as usual with you, I I walk away with, you know, 50 things I didn’t know before. You know? That’s it. Okay. So I’m looking forward,

Dr. Robert Fatton [01:16:33]:

And, can be be contact. Okay, brother. Bye bye.

Patrick Jean-Baptiste [01:16:38]:

Bye bye. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Please follow us On Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at podcast.