Election Malaise

People all throughout this city are just waiting for something to change. However, its not the elections they are waiting for. On a small scale, some communities can address their own needs: clear a field of garbage to lay a garden, organize sports camps and schools. But on a fundamental and structural level this place is stagnating, and at this distance (both subjective and temporal) it doesn't seem like the November elections give anyone reason to get excited. Politics leave people pretty apathetic. That's a fairly natural reaction considering the assassinations, shootings, and disappearances that seemed to accompany the political activity of any kind from the 1950's till the early 2000s. Speaking out, organizing, attending a radical church, or even voting in national elections has historically led to massacres (usually at the hands or sanctioned by the Army or the secret militia of Tonton Macoute). So unless there is a reason to get excited, like Wyclef for example, its not really worth getting involved. Safer not to know and not to care.

Another part of the problem is that both sides of the great struggle of the recent era -Duvalierism and Aristide- are rather of washed out. Although you can't run as either as either of those groups officially (the first is in bad taste and the second is illegal), the political players on the scene now have roots in one or the other or both. The language that defined this struggle is still the language of politics today, although now it seems hollow, signifying nothing. Duvalierism is right-wing dictatorship, state control, order, noirism. A lot of people have been looking fondly upon the Duvalier years, which ended in 87, since the earthquake. You see lots of 'Bon Retour Jean Francois Duvalier' graffettied around town. The logic under a dictatorship at least shit would get Ladone. Aristides party, Lavalas, is the party of "the people", purporting to challenge American economic imperialism and make the amelioration of material conditions for the poor a top priority. Aristide made a name for himself as a supporter of liberation theology and daring and outspoke critic of oppression and violence during the junta that followed the Duvaliers. Through his preachings, considered radical by church and state, he gained a massive popular following that only grew the more times they tried to assassinate him. Though not a skilled politician, he was president for seven months in before being removed in a CIA backed coup in 1991. He was reinstated in 1994 with strict conditions, including the enforcement of neo-liberal political measures. He was president until 1996, then reelected again in 2001, but removed in another CIA backed coup (under Bill Clinton, who is now practically the Resident-General of Haiti), and has been in exile ever since. He party Lavalas was banned from elections, but many of the present day politicians cut their teeth in Lavalas (for example, the current president Preval served as Aristides prime minister).

All the major candidates in the current elections made their careers through involvement or accordance with one or another of these 'parties', or both. The fact that Alexis was a former prime minister, or Manigat was a first lady, none of these are actually endorsements. The fact that Manigat's husband worked for Duvalier and came into office in a discredited election and then was promptly duped out of the office and into exile, that's not really a glowing recommendation, is it? The fact that Preval was formerly involved in Lavalas means nothing about his contemporary political agenda. He's certainly not particularly worried about ameliorating the material conditions of the poor. The idea and the network of Lavalas might have meant something once, but it doesn't anymore.

The point is that the ideas that motivated both Duvalierism and Lavalas rouse little enthusiasm today, but another political language has yet to develop to take their place. People are still fighting the same old battles, thinking in the same old diachomy, and yet the realities of the world have moved on. I'm not saying that violent dictatorship is a thing of the past, or that addressing social inequality directly is passe, but rather the Haitian people aren't animated by the same ideas anymore, and politics has yet to catch up. The celebration of Aristides birthday, which has in the past brought out thousands of people, saw a demonstration of three hundred or so this year. Its possible that people too preoccupied with meeting their most basic necessities to get involved, but I don't think that's all of it. There's no lack of political conversation or engagement in Haiti, its just that people don't see themselves or a future they want reflected in anyone running. They just see more of the same old shit. The miserably low voting turn outs don't reflect only a lack of interest. They also reflect the deliberate rejection of a system that most people recognize as a charade. What Duvalierism and Aristides movement have in common is the charismatic leader. At the center of each is a magnetic personality that is able to mobilize thousands. They each came into power bring the promise of something new. The personalities in the up-coming elections are viewed as stale and compromised. That was the appeal of Wyclef: he was an outsider (less compromised), already filthy rich (less inclined to steal), and he mobilized people. Granted, his political platform was a over hashed pile of cliches, but the idea of him got people, especially young people, to want to get involved. The presidential debates this weekend were a joke. But this country doesn't seem to run on political platforms, it runs on political personalities, both of which are absent.