James' Account of the Haitian Revolution and the Broadening of Decolonization - Essay Example

?C.L.R James, The Haitian Revolution and the Broadening of Decolonization [ID When people discuss post-colonialism, they almost always discuss from the perspective of the post-World War II period: Even Betts' seminal Decolonization begins with the interwar years between 1917 and 1945 (Betts, 2004, 5-20). Yet a closer look shows that decolonization has a much longer pedigree. The Philippines had a major uprising, the Boxers in China fought against colonization, and then there was perhaps the greatest and earliest liberation from colonization: The Haitian Revolution in the 19th century (James, 1938). James' account broadens our understanding of postcolonial politics in the modern age a few ways: First of all, by broadening our perceived history of postcolonialism; second, by introducing the mixture of internal class antagonisms which helps to complicate the matter of solidarity; third, by complicating the subject of colonialism; fourth, by noting the complexity of relationships to Western ideologies on the part of colonized peoples. When people think of decolonization, anti-colonialism and post-colonialism, they tend to think of the waves of post-colonialism that happened in the 1960s. Yet aside from Haiti, the Boxers and the Philippines, there are many obvious correctives to this model. One is the United States itself. It resisted colonization and became a new power, but itself transcended to a colonial power. Another is the fact that the natives of the invaded countries never stopped various forms of resistance and fought back in the first place: Is that not decolonization or anti-colonialism in a sense as well? Haiti is an excellent model because its liberation occurred in the 19th century and yet is far more of a decolonizing event than in America. America's decolonization is structurally that of some Europeans freeing themselves from other Europeans, which explains the speed with which the United States leapt to begin conquering the world itself: Betts points out that “American intervention in Mexico in 1914 and Haiti in 1915”, alongside examples like the Philippines, demonstrates America's colonial power even before its ascendancy to hegemony after World War II (2004, 28-29). Though America certainly had slaves and some Native American communities within the auspices of the British borders, it was nonetheless an internal liberation. Haiti is interesting because it was a liberation of oppressed people, of slaves. Yet there is a rub that must be understood, which is why Haiti is such a perfect place to understand these difficulties. The black Haitians who resisted the French were not the indigenous people (James, 1938). The indigenous people of Haiti had been largely slaughtered. This complicates matters extensively. In South America, Native Americans still exist and are also heavily interbred with a populace with a mix of white, black and indigenous people. In Africa and Asia, the native population is established. Yet the Haiti example demonstrates that the conquerors can bring chattel or subjects that themselves become subjects or objects of the liberatory struggle. Is India after colonization the same as before? Is it possible to characterize India's liberation from Britain as the return of Indian sovereignty, or instead the emergence of a new people who syncretically mix British and Indian culture? Would India or any other decolonized country look the same, or even close to the same, without the colonial impact? The example of Haiti allows us to understand that the identity of the colonized is distorted to some extent by the very history of colonization. Haiti's movement for liberation was, as most movements are, characterized by sharp differences in class, education and resources (James, 1938, 280-295). “Toussaint, like Robespierre, destroyed his own Left-wing, and with it sealed his doom. The tragedy was that there was no need for it. Robespierre struck at the masses because he was bourgeois and they were communist... But between Toussaint and his people there were no fundamental differences of outlook of aim” (James, 1938, 286-287). James makes clear that Toussaint, while not bourgeois, had certainly become different from the other workers. James outlines clearly that there were many economic and social fracture points and divides that the race issue had covered up: Toussaint tried to deal with the issue purely politically and socially, and had failed because he had thereby alienated the workers (James, 1938, 286-287). It is true that Haiti remained nominally free: Then again, as Betts makes clear, it did not take long for America to begin to sharply control the island. Toussaint's “failure was the failure of enlightenment, not of darkness”: He was too educated, too tied to French ideology, too colonized. Toussaint's failures show classic problems that people in solidarity with decolonizing movements have to bear in mind. In India, the decolonizing movement was heavily bourgeois: Gandhi had spent time in South Africa and was highly educated, as were Nehru and Patel among the other members of the Congress (Betts, 2004, p. 26-40). Evicting the colonizers and returning self-determination to the indigenous population (or, in Haiti's case, the slave population that had been smuggled onto the island) is an essential first step, yet no decolonizing movement can end merely by smashing the status quo and pushing out the colonizers. A new government and a new civil society has to be erected. Yet the people with the money, power, education, and ability to organize are often those who were the best off under the colonial regime, who had the most influence. They can create systems that tend to monopolize their power and exclude the weaker workers and uneducated masses. People in solidarity with anti-colonial resisters have to bear in mind that, while they need to support and give moral and physical aid whenever possible, that they also cannot as allies turn a blind eye to the development of class, social and political antagonism nor to the emergence of an elite that can threaten the gains of the revolution for a vast majority of the populace. Tied in with this is the complex interrelationship, ideologically, between the colonized and the colonizers. There is a lot that is attractive about the Western vision of the world: Freedom, reason, political change and reform, prosperity. Yet the problem is that the colonized often end up absorbing this ideology whole-heartedly, believing erroneously that it'd apply to them, and have to come to terms with expanding the room the ideology gives while not undermining it and allowing destructive forces like tyranny, dictatorship, ethnic cleansing, etc. to emerge. “Toussaint could not believe that the French ruling class would be so depraved... as to try to restore slavery... [H]e could not admit to himself and to his people that it was easier to find decency, gratitude, justice, and humanity in a cage of starving tigers than in the councils of imperialism” (James, 282). It is a bitter pill to swallow that the same people capable of truly inspiring, high-flying rhetoric about the freedom and equality of man can also be the base aggressors who justify, condone and order slavery, genocide and bitter repression. Finally, there is the difficulty of reconciliation, the difficulty that Mandela faced in South Africa. “For those slave-owners, those who burnt a little powder in the arse of a Negro... who, as soon as they got the chance, began their old cruelties again; for these there is no need to waste one tear” (James, 227). James identifies that those whites who stayed in Haiti ended up re-emerging as a powerful class, their wealth not threatened by the massacre, and tried to recreate the traditional imperial norm on the ground. Decolonizers cannot be too brutal, both as a practical matter since it tends to lead to them being viewed as a pariah state and reconfirming racist thoughts of their superiority; but they cannot be too forgiving either. The case of Haiti makes quite clear that decolonizing movements have a very long pedigree, and have been dealing with problems of the same sort for centuries. Those in solidarity with them have a tough road ahead: Balancing support with criticism. Works Cited Betts, Raymond F. Decolonization. Psychology Press. 2004. James, C.L.R. The Black Jacobins. 1938. Read More