Haiti declared independence in 1804 after a slave rebellion turned into a revolutionary war for independence from France.
Dessalines declared himself emperor and ruled with an iron fist until his assassination in 1806.
Replace Haiti’s revolution with Africa’s independence struggles, and Dessalines with the Kenyattas or Nkrumahs of this world, and Papa Doc with Moi or Mobutu, and you could be describing the post-independence history of any one of the African countries.
The assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise on July 7 has once again brought international focus on that tragic country. Haiti declared independence in 1804 after a slave rebellion turned into a revolutionary war for independence from France. The revolution was first led by legendary general Toussaint Louverture, a former slave.
A treacherous French plot led to his arrest and imprisonment in France, where he died. Louverture was succeeded by Jean-Jacques Dessalines who, after defeating Napoleon Bonaparte’s army, declared Haiti an independent republic. Shortly after, Haiti became the first country in the Americas to permanently abolish slavery.
For a people who, for centuries, were slaves on French plantations - indoctrinated to believe that their servitude was the natural order of things - to defeat the most advanced military in the world is a feat that defies our intellect. It demonstrates that any adversity, including underdevelopment, is not insurmountable. In achieving that impossible triumph, Haiti bequeathed all people of African descent a dignity crushed for centuries by the experience of slavery.
But soon after that historic triumph, the decline of Haiti began. Dessalines declared himself emperor and ruled with an iron fist until his assassination in 1806. By contrast, a few years earlier in the US, George Washington had led his forces to victory over Great Britain in the American war for independence. He then presided over a constitutional assembly that drew up the Constitution of the United States. He went on to serve two terms as the first president under this new republican constitution. In one country, a dictatorship was being created while in another, a constitutional democracy was being fashioned.
Dessalines’ dictatorial archetype would keep re-emerging throughout Haiti’s history. In 1957, Francois Duvalier, also known as Papa Doc, became president. He declared himself President for Life and created a killer squad to silence opponents. On his death in 1971, his son Jean-Claude Duvalier “Baby Doc" continued his father’s murderous rule until his overthrow in 1986.
None of the dictatorships, from Dessalines to the Duvaliers and to the more recent presidencies, was able to establish a firm economic or political system on which to ground a modern republic. Coups and attempted coups, massacres, corruption, grinding poverty, murderous criminal gangs, high unemployment, chaos and despair characterise Haiti’s post-revolutionary history. The Dominican Republic, with which Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola, is a much more successful country, with a GDP that is several times bigger than that of its twin. Millions of Haitians work in the Dominican Republic.
If Haiti’s history sounds eerily familiar, it is because it is. Replace Haiti’s revolution with Africa’s independence struggles, and Dessalines with the Kenyattas or Nkrumahs of this world, and Papa Doc with Moi or Mobutu, and you could be describing the post-independence history of any one of the African countries. Will Africa also stagnate for the next 200 years?
Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator
