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04-03-08, 03:52 PM
"When we tell the story of the Haitian Revolution, we should not end with the glorious victory of 1804. We should also speak about what happened afterwards, about what has happened since the African Diaspora gave all Africans everywhere the great gift of the first Black Republic of Haiti.
In this regard, we have to contend with the fact that whereas the American and French Revolutions succeeded to create the conditions for the development of the American and French people, Haiti has not experienced similar development. Indeed, she has been subject to the very opposite of development.
As Africans, in Africa and the African Diaspora, we have to answer the question as to why there has been this divergence of experience in the aftermath of revolutions as interconnected as were the American, French and Haitian Revolutions. In answering this question, we may also be able to answer the question as to why, in many respects, the African condition, certainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, has been worsening over a number of years, despite the fact that we now exist as Black Republics, as Haiti has done for two hundred years."
"I further believe that we must also arrive at a common conclusion with regard to the critically important matter of determining who or what our enemy is. I am convinced that the conclusion cannot be avoided that the deepest structural fault in global society and the global economy is the poverty in which millions of Africans in Africa and the Diaspora are immersed."
"Entangled within the story of Haiti are many matters relevant to the challenges we have to meet. These include issues of race, class, gender, culture and social consciousness, governance, globalisation and global imbalances in economic and other matters, and the effect of the preponderance of the major powers, possibilities for South-South cooperation and so on."
Thabo Mbeki
University of West Indies
Jamaica,
30 June 2003
History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals
Omowale Malcolm X (1925 - 1965)
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