Redefining Chutzpah
by
Reynold Ducasse, MD
Chutzpah, as taught in Jewish Sunday
schools, is someone who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for the
mercy of the court because he was an orphan. But if the AMHE leadership,
prodded by some of its most vocal members, were to use next year`s Annual
Convention in Punta Cana as an opportunity to openly chastise the
Dominican Republic for its historically cruel and bigoted treatment of the
Haitian migrant community, then, surely, new meaning would have been
conferred to chutzpah.
Why do we, Haitians, become so intensely
emotional on the mere mention of the Dominican Republic? What is the point
of our collective anger if it is misplaced and counterproductive? There is
no denying that the Dominican Republic is an eminently racist society.
Indeed, soon after securing their independence against Spain in 1865, the
country`s élite began an ideological campaign against their most hated
neighbor, the Republic of Haiti, which they perceived as a perpetual
threat to their national existence and aspirations. The principal tenets
of this ideology, dubbed "antihatianismo," are the superiority of the
Dominicans viewed as white, Catholic, and Hispanic, and the inferiority of
the Haitians portrayed as black Voodoo sorcerers, the sons and daughters
of African savages. Antihaitianismo, in order words, teaches hatred of and
intolerance toward Haitians seen as black, primitive and unworthy. It is
an official, state-sponsored ideology taught to successive generations of
schoolchildren with the main goal of promoting national cohesion and
dominance. It culminated in 1937 with the wholesale massacre of Haitians
ordered by then-President Raphael Trujillo in an effort to cleanse the
national territory of all Haitians, and to secure disputed borders.
Many well-known political figures, most
notoriously ex- President Joachim Balaguer and historian Manuel A. Peña
Battle, have expressed the national sentiment in very plain,
straightforward rhetoric. In his 1984 bestseller "La Isla al Revés" (The
Upside Down Island) Balaguer wrote:
…"The Negro, abandoned to his instincts,
and without the restraint on reproduction that a relatively high level of
living imposes on all countries, multiplies himself with the speed similar
to that of vegetable species."
In "La Realidad Dominicana," (The
Dominican Reality) in which, in 1954, he provided a justification and a
defense for antihaitianismo, Balaguer forcefully stated:
…"There is no reason of justice or of
humanity that can prevail over the right of the Dominican people to
subsist as a Spanish nation and a Christian community. The problem of race
is, by consequence, the principal problem of the Dominican Republic."
Peña Battle, a no less influential
political figure of his time, echoed the same view in a notorious 1954
speech titled "El Sentido de una Politica" (The Meaning of a Policy) in
which he said:
"There is no feeling of humanity, nor
political reason, nor any circumstantial convenience that can force us to
look indifferently at the Haitian penetration (referring to the typical
Haitian migrant, or bracero). That type is frankly undesirable. Of pure
African race, he cannot represent for us any ethnic incentive. Not well
nourished and worse dressed, he is weak, though very prolific due to his
low living conditions. For that same reason, the Haitian that enters our
country lives afflicted by numerous and capital vices and is necessarily
affected by diseases and physiological deficiencies which are endemic at
the lowest levels of that society."
There you have it, laid out in the crudest, most inhumane choice of words:
an unmistakably racist ideology, presumably in the pursuit of national and
political aims. Because of their race and skin color, it stipulates,
Haitians are unworthy of humanitarian consideration. They are, for all
practical concern, despicable low life forms, undeserving of the
protection of the state. They shall have no recognized human rights.
All told, Balaguer and Peña justify a
permanent state of war against the Haitian population, including the 1937
genocide of the Trujillo era, as a necessary preemptive measure for the
defense and security of their nation. It is, they say, their God- given
right.
Why then, you must be wondering, do people
as proud and dignified as Haitians are reputed to be, continue to migrate
to so unwelcoming a place. Why would they seek sanctuary in a country
where, by all accounts, life for the Haitian migrant is nothing but
slavery revisited: hopeless, full of misery, humiliation and degradation.
The answer, sadly enough, is to be found
on the other side of the island, in the oppressive, narrow-minded egotism
of the Haitian élite here defined in the broadest possible sense to
include all tacit members of the country`s traditional oligarchy, namely,
the intellectuals, the professionals, members of the clergy, the business
community, all those who, since 1804, have served in the military command
structure, and in government either as elected, or appointed public
servants.
Collectively, this constituted minority,
representing some 15% of the population, bears the immediate
responsibility and the blame for creating a culture of contempt for the
common man, his day- to-day hardships and overall wretched condition.
Indeed, from as far as one can remember, none of the country`s
institutions, from successive national governments to independent
political, social, religious and private organizations, none has ever
shown a genuine sense of concern for the welfare of the people, having
been used, instead, as stepping stones for the building of personal
wealth. Some have even flaunted the institutional contempt for the
citizenry without the least bit of shame as one sitting Chief of State,
responding to a journalist`s question regarding the country`s high infant
mortality, the highest in the Western Hemisphere, callously and cynically
remarked that such is Mother Nature`s necessary check on overpopulation.
So, left to its own devices, and with Malthusianism declared official
State philosophy, if not a de facto public policy, the majority, mostly
destitute segment of the population, had nowhere to turn but to the
outside world for any glimmer of hope.
To be sure, since the beginning of the
Republic, demagogues of all stripes have always sanctimoniously proclaimed
their faith in the noble democratic ethos of liberté, égalité, fraternité,
but no amount of grandiose and righteous rhetoric could ever varnish the
awful truth that ours is a ruthless, Nietzschean society, the type of
which Marie Antoinette would surely revel in. The weak, the poor, the
politically unconnected is not welcome. "Let them eat cake" has always
been the élite`s cold response to the desperate cry of the people longing
for a seat at the national table. Allez au diable, damn it! Ne dérangez
pas, reads the permanent inscription at the door; and au diable,
inescapably, they went.
The Dominican people and their leaders
know it all too well: Haiti, despite the deafening rhetoric about égalité,
fraternité, is no less cruel toward its very own humble masses. The
message is utterly clear: the Haitian migrants, the braceros, are truly
undesirables; people whose rights, if they ever had any, can be violated
with impunity. It is, in fact, an open secret that many of these Haitians
were brought in to work on the Dominican sugar plantations, literally as
indentured slave-laborers, under contract with unscrupulous Haitian
politicians and businessmen who later abandoned them to their miserable
fate. That such a scandalous injustice has not been the object of a
reflective national debate and soul searching speaks volumes about our
society`s attitude toward the poor. What else can we say in contrition if
not mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
As painful it might be for us to
acknowledge, Haiti, a long time ago, forfeited the moral authority to
criticize the Dominican Republic, or, for that matter, any other country,
for violating the collective rights of its citizens. Our patriotic anger,
to be constructive, must give rise to introspection, not recrimination. To
lecture others on the sanctity of human rights, on the value of
neighborliness, human compassion and charity while we shamelessly trample
on these very same principles at home would be the height of cynicism and
hypocrisy. Surely, that would be the epitome of chutzpah.
Reynold Ducasse, MD
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