I was the special guest of the wonderful and tireless Dr. Maggie Remy’s “Sak Pase,” a TV program of the St Lucie County Schools designed to reach the Haitian Community in the Treasure Coast. Dr. Remy and I talked about the importance of education and particularly the “Promise” Program which Indian River State College (Fort Pierce, Florida) just launched to provide free College tuition to High school students in the area.
**This informative program is especially helpful for Haitian parents and High school students.
“Brief Notes on Haitian Atheism, Radicalism, and Marxism”“Brief Notes on Haitian Atheism, Radicalism, and Marxism”
***This post is not an attack on Mr. Kerby’s atheism or philosophical worldview! However, as a Haitian intellectual historian and religious scholar who has published prolifically on the history of ideas in Haiti and the experience of the Haitian people with religion, I seek to bring some clarification on the subject matter.
Haiti has a strong (theistic) humanist tradition, which can be traced in the early nineteenth century, such as in the ideas and writings, for example, of Haitian public intellectual Pompée Valentin Vastey. Haiti, nonetheless, does not have an atheistic tradition or a non-theistic humanist tradition.
Ismael de Kerby, the President of “Society of Atheists of Haiti” (“President de la Société des Athées d’Haiti”), is quite an articulate Haitian thinker and well-versed in the history of ideas of Western atheism, but he is ignorant of the history of ideas in Haiti and the history of Haitian radicalism. In his superb interview on Blocus, he referenced the ideas of Jacques Roumain, one of the most influential Haitian thinkers in the first half of the twentieth-century, to promote his philosophy and worldview of Haitian theism. In 1934 when the American military forces left Haiti, Jacques Roumain founded the Haitian Communist Party (Le Parti Communiste Haïtien: PCH) and spread enthusiastically the Gospel of Marxism and Communism as promising future possibilities in the Haitian society. Roumain had exercised a profound intellectual influence on the emerging Haitian intellectuals, including Marxist thinkers and communist-militants René Depestre, Jacques-Stéphen Alexis, Christian Beaulieu, Max Lélio Hudicourt, etc. In 1932, both Roumain and Beaulieu travelled to New York to forge alliance with the American Communist Party and to find resources to help them launch PCH in Haiti in 1934. Hudicourt, for example, was the leader of the Parti Socialiste Populaire (Haiti) (PSP). Gérald Bloncourt helped launch a journal, “La Ruche” (“The Beehive”) in Haiti and published many Marxist-themed pieces for the Haitian public. He also worked for the Parisian Communist Party newspaper called L’Humanité (“Humanity”).
Haitian radicalism is not a substitute for Haitian atheism or non-theistic Humanism. For two recent and brilliant texts on the history of Marxism in Haiti and Haitian radicalism in the twentieth-century, see Jean-jacques Cadet, “Le Marxisme Haïtien : Marxisme et Anticolonialisme en Haïti (1946-1986)” (2020), “Marxisme et aliénation. Cinq études sur le marxisme haïtien” (2021), and Yves Dorestal, “Jacques Roumain (1907-1944) : un communiste haïtien : Le marxisme de Roumain ou le commencement du marxisme en Haïti” (2015). Additional readings include Matthew J. Smith’s grounbreaking book on Haitian radicalism and Marxism, “Red & Black in Haiti: Radicalism, Conflict, and Political Change, 1934-1957” (2009); Leslie Péan’s helpful essay, “Du côté de la liberté – Christian Beaulieu,” published in Le Petit Samedi Soir, no. 320, 12-18 (Janvier 1980); René Depestre, “Cahier d’un art de vivre: Journal de Cuba, 1964-1978” (2020) ; Wilson Decembre, “Vitalité et spiritualité: Apologie du rapport-au-monde afro-haïtien” (2009), and “Cosmopoétique : La symbolique païenne dans l’œuvre de René Depestre”(2022).
I am arguing that one cannot ground the birth of Haitian atheism in the ideas and writing of Jacques-Roumain. Although Jacques Roumain was a classic Marxist and radical Communist, he was not an atheist nor a non-theistic humanist. (Many contemporary Haitian intellectuals today are exploiting the ideas of Jacques Roumain to promote a non-theistic philosophy in the Haitian culture. This is a profound misreading of Roumain and his works! I have dealt with the religious sensibilities and intellectual, radical, and philosophical ideas of Jacques Roumain in a BIG book called “Thinking in Public: Faith, Secular Humanism, and Development in Jacques Roumain [496 pages; published in 2017]).
Further, some of the most brilliant and influential Haitian thinkers including Pompée Valentin Vastey, Thomas Madiou, Benito Sylvain, Joseph Antenor Firmin, Demesvar Delorme, Louis Joseph Janvier, Jean Price-Mars, Jacques Roumain, Jacques-Stephen Alexis, Marie-Vieux Chauvet and many others were not “atheists;” rather, these thinkers and many others in the twentieth-century embraced a form of “theistic humanism” and “soft secularism.” These Haitian thinkers (Vastey, Firmin, Roumain, Price-Mars, Alexis, Vieux) did not commit themselves to any religion, creed, or dogma—including Haitian Catholicism, Haitian Protestantism, Haitian Vodou, etc.—nor did they identify themselves specifically with a particular religious tradition or system. For example, Roumain, Price-Mars, and Alexis wrote about Haitian Vodou and even defended its significance in Haitian history and the Haitian society. Yet they were not Vodouizan or Vodouists, in the very sense of the word. All of them were brought in Christian families—both Catholicism and Protestantism—yet they were not “Christians.”
In summary, the Haitian thinkers referenced above did not set an intellectual foundation to promote contemporary Haitian atheism, nor should their writings and ideas be used or misused to counter theism. Those who are advocates of Haitian atheism today need to reshape their arguments and engage in more careful exegetical reading or critical analysis of the ideas these Haitian thinkers sustained in regard to the intersections of faith, humanism, and the Haitian culture. By any means am I saying that there is not an intellectual, humanist, and Marxist foundation for Haitian atheism based on the writings and ideas of Haitian thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By contrast, I am arguing that contemporary Haitian atheists should not reference the writings and ideas of the referenced thinkers, especially Jacques Roumain, the most radical thinker in Haitian history, to promote the philosophy and worldview of atheism. Haiti has produced a catalogue of ardent theistic humanists, a tradition they inherited from European humanism, especially France’s humanist culture.
At the Crossroad: African American Studies and Me!
I came to do research and write about Haitian Studies and the African Diaspora through African American Studies. Let me briefly explain this interesting anecdote. When I was working on my M.A. degree at the University of Louisville (KY), I took two courses from the Department of Pan-African Studies at the University of Louisville that would change my entire intellectual career. The first course was on the “African Diaspora” and the second one on how to teach in the Inner City; it was a seminar designed for future teachers who are interested in working with marginalized and underperforming students. Two those courses were a life-transforming event. Behold, I became an enlightened man! I wanted to do more study and engage in more research on African American history and the Black Experience in the United States.
When I applied for doctoral studies at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), I was admitted to the PhD program in History. I spent a year as a doctoral student in History; then, I switched to major in Literary Studies, which would allow me to do research both in Black Literature and Black History. Hence, my fields of concentration and comprehensive (doctoral) examinations were in African American Intellectual History, African American Literature, and Caribbean Literature and Culture. I authored a literary-historical dissertation on three coeval literary and historical movements in the African Diaspora: the Harlem Renaissance (Harlem, New York), the Negritude Movement (Paris, France), and Haitian indigenism (Port-au-Prince, Haiti).
African American Studies was my crossroad, my intellectual Papa Legba, that opened the way for me to engage in research about Haiti and the African Diaspora. For many of us who specialize in Black Studies and other academic areas, African American Studies was our first love and continues to be our sustaining crossroad to explore further research in other disciplines of study. This is my little story about celebrating “Black History Month.”
Happy Black History Month, Good and Wonderful Friends!
*** I still have to write the book on the religious philosophy of James Baldwin and Richard Wright, and a book on Du Bois and the Caribbean 🙂
I am writing this poem for you, You are in my mind, You are in my mind, You are in my damn mind, the only thing good on my mind, you become my muse, my dangerous love song unseen. When I wake up every morning, you are in my brain, before I open up my eyes. You are my eyesight, when my vision goes blurry and my world gets smaller, I imagine your presence, when I take my first breath, you are with me, strengthening me.
I am writing this poem for you, the lines no one can erase you are the first thought in the beginning, the last idea in the end, the stanza that sparks creativity, the rhythm that makes poems dance Forever in my mind, the love song that is obscure, I would rather die trying to think of you than living without you, in my mind, you defined it, and restored it. I will fight to keep your memories, in my mind, the object of my affection, my passion in action
I am writing this poem for you, the words that blossom, the flowers of life that keep giving, the voice that echoes love, in my mind, your letter on the first date, the first kiss at nightly walk, in my mind, the first embrace that binds our soul, the last song of the night that keeps us whole, You are in mind, my inescapable trap in any place in heaven, where we are one again.
Haitian Poetry Reading with Dr. Celucien Joseph: Episode 1: Ignace Nau and Carl Brouard
Ignace Nau, “Basses-Pyrénées” (1836)
“…Et moi voilà jeté, moi, triste passager, Sans amours, sans amis, sur un sol étranger, Attendait du retour l’heure lente et tardive. Ce ciel est trop désert, ce soleil san rayon, Ces champs, de mon pays, là-bas, sous l’horizon, N’ont point la nature si vive.”
Ignace Nau, “Lower Pyrenees” (1836), translated by Dr. Celucien Joseph
“…And here I am thrown, as a sad passenger, Without love, without friends, on a foreign land, Waited for the calm and late hour to come again. This sky is empty, this sun without rays, These fields, of my country, over there, under the horizon, Do not have such a lively nature.”
Carl Brouard, « Les Croix des Martyrs”
“A la Croix des Martyrs les jours qui ne rythme aucune horloge sonore s’écoulent calmes, paisibles comme un ruisseau. La petite église silencieuse est toujours là, est le gazon vert. Les cretonnes, les passereaux rouges, lentement oscillent. Sur l’écran de la vie, les heures passent au ralenti.”
Carl Brouard, “The Crosses of the Martyrs” translated by Dr. Celucien Joseph
“At the Cross of the Martyrs the days that beats no sound clock flow calmly, peacefully like a stream. The silent little church is still there; it is the green grass. The cretons, the red sparrows calmly vacillate. On the screen of life, the hours pass in slow motion.”
Carl Brouard, “Solitude”
“Seul dans ma chambre. Il pleut. Je pense à vous. Ah ! si vous m’aimiez un peu, le monde serait mort à mes yeux, puisque je ne penserais, je ne verrais, je ne vivrais que par vous. Aujourd’hui, des indifférents ont prononcé votre nom et mon cœur a battu très fort. Mon Dieu que je suis bête! Si je possédais un objet de vous peut-être ma tristesse serait moins lourde à porter. Mais à quoi bon me leurrer d’espoirs fous de rêves vains vous portez l’indifférence comme on porte une fleur à son corsage.”
Carl Brouard, “Loneliness” translated by Dr. Celucien Joseph
“Alone in my room. It’s raining. I am thinking of you. Ah! if you would love me a little, the world would be dead to me, since I wouldn’t think, I wouldn’t see, I would only live through you. Today, unconcerned people have announced your name, and my heart beat very hard. My God, how stupid I am! If I had kept a souvenir from you perhaps, my sadness would be less heavy to endure. But what’s the use of tricking myself with wild hopes, of futile dreams? you bear the indifference as one wears a flower on one’s bodice.”
Put on a display to be watched, an image of his pleasure abused and traumatized, a victim of his presence one-night stand on steam condemned and humiliated, an act of violence.
Wanted for pleasure for his passion, take-away to his satisfaction, patriarchal muse in motion boosting his ego, ensuring his masculine power, redeeming his insecurity, his gaze shifted away from you.
Desired to bear his children not a son to behold, but a song of his fantasy not a daughter of charm, but a poem of his demise a citizen in style, NO! a leader of tomorrow, Not a all! but a man of his kind.
“Nested Ring of Splendor” for and in memory of Hélène Joseph
We remember the day when God spat in the wind to create you. It was before the day of rest, the Sabbath of peace. The Divine graced the world with your presence, the first woman, the mother of life. On January 3, 1947, “The Day of Venus,” you became the daughter of Saturn, the crown Jewel of our life system. Candle in the dark, your light shines many paths, when we venture in the valley of obscurity, you enhance visibility. when we travel in the mountain of ignorance, you give understanding. You are like the sea-goat in two harmonious forms, merging drylands and the seas, linking the children of the sea and the children of the earth… as one big family. You clothe them with wisdom, creativity, and identity.
Mother of 7 beautiful rings, orbiting our Saturn of life, you put a rainbow in your daughters’ hands, to display the optical illusion of life, each one nesting in the sanctuary of your splendor… in search of the rainbow of life… You sealed your sons’ future with the rarest pearl in the world. With your rainbow rings, you filled in the gaps in their life, unifying them as one. In your womb, you nurtured life, From your breath, you gave birth to life Under your teaching, they grew, evolved, and became wise. You fed them, sustained them with language, words that have no end… sentences with no stops… You assured their reproduction through the next generation… You kept them safe, taught them to crawl… Under your shelter, they found a home, both loving and good, beautiful and sweet.
Clothing them with the majesty of motherhood, with love and peaceful beauty, you bind them all together in perfect harmony and correlation. Mother of seven gateways and thresholds, you protect our throne rooms, and guard the entryways of the temple of our hearts. Your limitless resilience, oh the Goddess of every Capricorn, pushes us forward to prevail over life adversity and painful memory. Through your daring ambition, we are made strong; When we are afraid, we remember your courage. When we lose hope, your spirit inspires faith and trust. You fill our hearts with joy and laughter. You will always be the glorious Moon of our galaxy.
Oh, Mother of 75 years today, Your days were shortened to only 72 innocent years, but your strength endures… your humility is transmissible… you hold perpetual kindness in your healing wings… You adorn nature with fresh carnations, a symbolic gift of friendship and trust to humanity. Yet you will live in us for 72 thousand years in future bliss, You, our “Nested Ring of Splendor.”
On your birthday, we will offer you pearls made of raindrops, coming from faraway lands, where it does not rain, a place where roses bloom in spring, a place where the sun always shines bright, a place where we can kiss the moon dream at dawn. We will reactivate your memories, stored in scattered phases of life. We will dig the earth to wrap your body, made of gold and light. We will dance in the dark with you between our arms, we will smile at your simple acts of love… we will sing your name in places, where life never ends where you will be Queen, where your love, the ruling King. where your virtues, the guiding principles of life. We will tell your story, the story of the Queen who never dies.
I will not write you another love poem, poems made of love inks do not tattoo your heart. I will not send you another love letter, with the same magical love languages. You said “You are not my muse.” I wrote you love songs with the pencil of God, to keep you in my destiny, for our love to stay young and strong. You responded with tears of bitterness, with an erasable marker producing alienation. You sent dried roses in the envelope, red hot stars to the cold moon to signal you love has wings. You changed the love lyrics of language.
I will not write you another love poem, to bid farewell to an old romance that faded away. You said “There is no happy love life with you in my world.” I wrote to you at last so I could forget you. I penned my last words with a heartache. You dressed your heart with a dirty robe, covered your soul with a black mask, to be unseen, untouched… It remains invisible to love at first sight.
I will not write you another love song for a last time. My last love song is written in an erasable ink. This is my farewell letter to you, a woman who turned away from her first sight love. She exposed all its imperfections. I will not write to you. I have no need to remember and to reimagine, because this love was never true.
I will not write you another love poem. My new love song is for another poet, an admirer of love languages, a poet of love, a champion of beauty. You never set your heart to love me. You never pursued me with a love that lasts. My pain is turned into shouts of joy, cheers of delight. My peace is restored. All is well with me.
I will not write you another love poem. You burned my poetry book, my love languages notebook is torn in scattered pieces. You turned off the radio when the poet sings “Love is strong and eternal.” Your love is not my love. You ended love, you pushed the sun away. You betrayed a love, so innocent, true, and pure. This is my last love poem to you.
“Haiti Then and Now”: The Most Widely Read Interviews of 2021
Hello Fans and Readers: It is our pleasure to announce the most widely-read interviews of 2021, which we conducted for “Haiti Then and Now” (HTN) during the year 2021, as part of our series of conversations entitled “Haitian/Haitianist Thinkers in the Public Space: An Interview Series.”
We hope you will take the time to read, reread them, and even share them with the people in your circle. We also hope you will find them inspiring, empowering, and informative as we continue “to engage and reflect critically on the human condition–past, present, and future– in Haiti and the Haitian experience in the Haitian Diaspora.”
We look forward to interviewing more thinkers and scholars in the new year 2022 and keeping you informed about what’s going on in the world of Haitian Studies and academia.
drcelucienjoseph, "Thinking and Meditating" 