Unrest in Caribbean has roots in slavery past

AP via Yahoo ^ | 02/22/09 | JONATHAN M. KATZ and DANICA COTO

[Abathar]

POINTE-A-PITRE, Guadeloupe – Protests that have nearly shut down the French Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique are not just about demands for lower prices and higher wages: For demonstrators they are no less than a battle against the vestiges of slavery.

Afro-Caribbean islanders — most of whose forbears toiled in the sugarcane fields under the yoke of slavery more than 160 years ago — not only resent France's handling of the global economic crisis, they have long resented that slaveholders' descendants control the economy on both islands.

They also suspect that businesses earn too high a profit on goods, most of which are imported.

This resentment against slaveholder descendants, known as bekes (bay-KAY) has lent an especially sharp edge to weeks of demonstrations that at times have erupted in gunfire, arson, looting, and the death of one activist in Guadeloupe.

"They've got the money, they've got the power, they've got Guadeloupe," snapped protester Lollia Naily. "This is not a race thing. It is a money thing and it is a power thing."

Protesters in Martinique also have rejected the bekes, with frequent chants of "Martinique is ours, not theirs!" Bekes own most industries in Martinique — but represent only about 1 percent of the island's 401,000 residents.

Deep economic and social disparities divide France from its overseas possessions: Unemployment in Guadeloupe is about 23 percent, compared with 8 percent on mainland France, and 12 percent of islanders live in poverty, compared with 6 percent of mainlanders, according to the most recent statistics.

[dinasour]

> Haitians that I know are among the most hard working folks of a “category” that I have ever encountered. Also among the brightest.

Thanks. I agree wholeheartedly. My wife is Haitian and I’ve met a lot more Haitians than most people. I’ll be making my fourth trip to Haiti this summer.

Just like everywhere, there are some losers, but I’d wager that most of the losers are the ones who grew up here.

[HeartlandOfAmerica]

10,600 AD: Unrest in Caribbean has roots in slavery past

[Cheetahcat]

Sure just show a African run country that doing OK. Or a city for that matter.

[ApplegateRanch]

There is more to this than meets the eye.

In French-speaking countries, such as Guadeloupe, Guyana Françoise, Haiti, and Martinique, the Muslim community is mainly composed of African Muslim immigrants from West Africa. Martinique is also home to a very wealthy immigrant Palestinian Muslim community supported by Saudi Arabia. Islam Awareness

Britons flee French island of Guadeloupe as rioters turn on white families

Most shops, banks, schools and government offices are now shut in Guadeloupe and the neighbouring French tourist island of Martinique - where protests are also mounting.

Guadeloupe's socialist opposition leader Malikh Boutih said: 'It is shocking to watch a police force which is almost 100 per cent white confront a population which is 100 per cent black.

'All the same elements of the riots on mainland France in 2005 are present here.

'We don't have the same concrete buildings, there are palm trees instead, but it's the same dead-end, the same "no future" for young people, with joblessness and a feeling of isolation.'

Remember the Auto dDu Fe, of 1,000's of cars & businesses burned by "Paris youths" who were "felt isolated"? A lot of pictures with the linked Daily Mail story.

[wardaddy]

my experience had been the harder working haitians were the ones who struggled to get here....that is dated to be honest.

i ran ships to Haiti from 87 till the murdering priest took over

had offices in Petionville and Miragoane and Gonaives and San Marc and Petit Goave...did some business in Jeremy and Jacmel

food staples mostly and cement

Haiti is a lost cause, depopulate and start over is their only chance lest someone discovers the world’s largest “fill in the blank resource” deposit there

the Haitian people are not so violent really but things just tend to boil up and it’s all of a sudden thunderdome

I see though that US style hip hop thuggery has permeated the slums now there much like in Kingston

which can’t be good.

[paristwelve]

I’ve been to Martinique. As a French speaking American I was treated very well.
The French run those Islands like monopolies, the system is worn out. It’s just good sense to break up those huge land holdings it would spur free enterprise. They could also set up trade routs with mainland South America, goods would be cheaper coming from Brazil!

[Cheetahcat]

“I’ve been to Martinique. As a French speaking American I was treated very well.
The French run those Islands like monopolies, the system is worn out. It’s just good sense to break up those huge land holdings it would spur free enterprise. They could also set up trade routs with mainland South America, goods would be cheaper coming from Brazil!”

I was there a while back Mercedes taxi cabs as I recall and it is the birthplace of Josephine Napoleon's Wife as I understand it ,even years ago I got that feeling of not being wanted there.

[Iron Munro]

Whitey Did It!

[Radix]

"Exactly what “category” would that be?"

That would be the typical "ANY" category I suppose. I do not mean to suggest that human beings ought be categorized, nevertheless, we do (it is done) it every day.

Personally, among my acquaintances, Haitian natives are very industrious, and the work ethic of some of my Haitian friends is beyond compare.

I suppose that it comes from collective experience, or it might just simply be innate.

[GreenLanternCorps]

Botswana just to the north of South Africa, and most of the English speaking Caribbean...

[G.Mason]

I just wondered. (I'm not suggesting anything derogatory)

I suppose the qualifier "some" would help explain why Haiti remains such a hell hole.

[Radix]

"I suppose the qualifier "some" would help explain why Haiti remains such a hell hole."

It is a rough environment there.

 

I really do have a number of Haitian friends & acquaintances.

I read Jared Diamond's book Collapse a while back, and it gave me some insights. Good book, EZ to read, and informative.  I am certain that there are better resources, but this particular book is OK for most readers I would say. The Haiti problems are just a part of the subject matter.

[dinasour]

> Haiti is a lost cause

Its a shame, too because they are really good people. After Aristide no one is going to invest there so that some Hugo Chavas wannabe can just come in and take it.

> US style hip hop thuggery has permeated the slums

The Haitians that I know are in the mountains, north of Jacmel. Subsistance farmers, mostly. My wife calls them “rednecks”. They don’t care too much for the city people.

[Richard Kimball]

I was in Haiti in the 90s, and it was unbelievable. In Haiti, they don't count the bodies.

I don't think I ever saw a wild animal. No birds, nothing. I read an article recently that said some over there were down to eating dirt.

[wardaddy]

Did we just hit a time warp?

Do you get paid?

[wardaddy]

sounds like El Salvador style “land reform”

no thanks

[Radix]

Haitians continue to burn what is left of their trees. The deforestation is simply awful. I have not actually been there myself, but I have read a bit.

A few years ago, when I was in St Kitts, I saw a dead dog in the middle of a downtown road, (I forget the name of the city )and I realized then that the place where I grew up was unlike the rest of the world.

I never saw a dead dog laying in a street before. I mean that dog had been there for a while. It was surreal.

I expect to see more than just a dead dog in the streets of home in the not too far away future. I digress, but it is ever on my mind what we in the USA are headed toward a sort of perdition that is not unlike what might be found now in places such as Haiti.

And where can we go to when that sort of circumstance occurs here? Poverty, hunger, fascists all about, and dead dogs in the streets?

[Richard Kimball]

I flew into Port au Prince, and took National 1 (highway) along the sea coast and the interior to Cap-Haitien, then over to Fort Liberte and back. We made a stop at the border with the Dominican Republic, and there were no fences, but the mahogany trees were so thick you could barely walk through them, right across the border. I didn't have a point of reference, but the trees were over a hundred feet tall and six feet wide at the base. I asked how they kept the trees from being poached by the Haitians, and our guide told me they had guards that patrolled and would drop them on sight if they crossed the border. These trees used to cover the whole island, but the Haitians cut all theirs down. I don't know if most of the cutting was done by the French to clear for sugar cane fields, but I didn't see any trees over a couple of inches thick, unless they were inside a gate.

Life is very cheap, there. I was cautioned not to photograph anyone selling meat, although people selling fish and fruit were okay. The meat was quite possibly human, I was told, and they'd suspect me of gathering evidence.