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Embryo-Politics in Haiti*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

David Nicholls
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Extract

THERE ARE FEW COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD IN WHICH THERE IS NO constitutional machinery for changing the head of the government. Certainly there are a number of heads of government in Latin America who are effectively irremoveable by constitutional means (and Mr Burnham would seem recently to have joined their ranks); constitutionally, however, they are bound to go through the motions of an election.

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Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1971 , pp. 75 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1971

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References

1 Cf. C. J. Friedrich ‘The Changing Theory and Practice of Totalitarianism’, Il Politico, March 1968, pp. 53 ff. In distinguishing between totalitarianism and despotism, I am of course indebted to the writings of Friedrich, H. Arendt, K. Wittfogel and others. I have said a little more about my view of totalitarianism in ‘The Totalitarianism of Thomas Arnold’, The Review of Politics, October 1967.

2 Oriental Despotism, New Haven, 1957, p. 156.

3 I am hoping to deal with ideology and politics in Haiti more thoroughly in a monograph which is to be published by the Institute of Social and Economic Research (University of the West Indies).

4 ‘Petit Eloge du Fanatisme’, Le petit impartial, 2 June 1928.

5 It is, of course, possible to trace the roots of the négritd ideology further back than Price Mars. Haitian writers like Anténor Firmin, L. J. Janvier and Hannibal Price are sometimes mentioned; but their emphasis was different. They were more concerned with showing how Haitians, though black, were really Europeans underneath. There are few occasions when they pointed with pride to that which is specifically African in their heritage. ‘The Haitian is African by blood’, wrote Price, ‘he is above all French by spirit.’ (De la réhabilitation de la race noire par la république d’Haiti, Port au Prince, 1900, p. 445.)

6 Cf. L. Denis and F. Duvalier ‘Psychologie ethnique et historique’ in Les Griots, 1939, reprinted in F. Duvalier, Oeuvres essentielles, Port au Prince 1966–67, vol. I (first edition) p. 161. Cf. also ‘L’évolution stadiale du voudou’, ibid. pp. 16 3 ff.

7 L’ethnie haïtienne, Port au Prince, 1941, p. 65.

8 Essais sur la civlture, Port au Prince, 1936, p. 5.

9 ‘Cadre de techniciens et l’état technique’, La Relève, August 1937, p. 4.

10 Maintenant, 31 October 1936.

11 Cf. in particular his open letter to General de Gaulle, reprinted in Haïti à l’heure du tiers-monde, Port au Prince, 1964.

12 Mussolini, Diurturna, Milan 1924, pp. 376–7.

13 For further details on the relations of Church and state Courlander, Cf. H. and Bastien, R., Religion and Politics in Haiti, Washington 1968 Google Scholar; these writers concentrate, however, more on the social aspects of the voodoo cult. I deal in more detail with Church-state relations in an article published in The Canadian Journal of Political Science, September, 1970.

14 For a more detailed discussion of Duvalier’s policy towards the army cf. my article ‘On Controlling the Colonels’ in Hemisphere Report, No. 2 July. 1970.

15 Dra-Po, Port au Prince, 1928, p. 31.

16 Cf. Rationalism in Politics, London, 1962, pp. 137 ff.

17 Duvalier, F., Hommage au marron inconnu, Port au Prince, 1969, p. 56 Google Scholar.

18 The conch shell was used as a means of communication and as a rallying cry by the negroes of Saint Domingue.

19 Ibid., p. 71.