My article last year this time, Coming in from the cold landed me several networking opportunities, and speaking engagements and was published in a pan African journal from out of Guyana. I was in Dominica at the time reflecting on how Marley’s legacy can yet impact upon Caribbean realities in ways beyond the profane cultural effect it is making now. No, I did not mean profound, nor am I implying that Marley himself was anything but profound. Every social gatekeeper understands however, if you cant stop it, then co-opt it. Both work just as well.
This Feb 6th however my mind is not in Guyana but in Haiti. I have no idea what is likely to take place in the next 24 hours when the Transitional Council dissolves. Neither do the Americans, who have posted their warships offshore ‘just in case’ somebody has the sudden urge to ‘sell drugs’.
In each of the several conversations I’ve had with persons who have had a long history of interaction with Haiti at the governmental and diplomatic level, I kept repeating my one dumb question, “What interest do the Americans have in Haiti now?” I know of course all of the historical narratives and all the ideological shibboleths. But why they should give a damn what happens next in Haiti was unclear to me. Dogmatic cockiness is a luxury afforded only by ideologues. I long ago discarded my Black and White screen imagination for the newer enhanced-color, digital models age and wisdom have made available.
The truth is, I have too much to say to try to say it. I will say a few things at the end of the month, but not as much in words as in pictures. The intellect is much too slow and clumsy a tool to communicate the volumes inside. I’ll let others do the talking.
See you then.
YeKengalé 
Cuba, Cuba, Cuba… being strangled to death by the Trump Administration following decades of embargo. Why? And there’s no a whimper from the Caribbean community in which Cuba has been a force for good unlike Haiti which has been sucking up compassionate energy and resources/aid like a blackhole. The Cuban people are also lovely and so lovable. American wickedness towards them needs to be called out.
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I question both your commitment and authenticity in that you take two major of the several serious threats that exist to Caribbean sovereignty and prosperity and what you choose to do is play one off against the other? Disparaging one people’s predicament while romanticizing another? If you have not been hearing more than grumblings from Caribbean governments, can you imagine why not? I would imagine that using what platforms you may have to passionately higlight both issues, alerting others to prayerful and concerted action would better signal good faith. These are clearly matters for sovereign inteliigence.
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In all honesty I feel ambivalence towards the Haiti situation… their problem seems intractable and I can’t shake the thought that this is because the nation was given over to occultism/vodoo by its founding father, Desallines. Papa Doc Duvalier also entrenched it in the culture. Not so with Cuba which has had Christian influence via the Roman Catholic church in its origin and could be more responsive than Haiti to help from outside. Just my view but I do not think that the comparison is unreasonable. Perhaps Cuba can be used to inspire change in Haiti if given just a small fraction of the assistance that Haiti has gotten, to no avail, over decades.
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Errol, I am as assured of your honest feeling as I am equally sure those of those on the wrong side of every argument since the beginning of the Christian church, and beyond. Morality like truth is not settled by sentiment. I am always curious how it is that Christians who insist upon framing their entire religious outlook on the framework of universal radical grace (“…so loved the whole world that whosoever…”) can so effortlessly at times indulge in such judgmental comparisons between sin conditions and speculative projections on upon who God is more inclined to have mercy. If there is any man or nation so evil that it takes them beyond the pale of Pauline soteriology, then be done with the doctrine of the ‘saved by grace through faith alone’ because clearly man’s works (or affiliations), whether of relative righteousness or evil, surely account for even a measure of divine grace or condemnation.
That said, let me delve into the more pernicious elements of the religious narrative you project and embrace. The case has been publicly presented, buttressed upon many manifest hypocrisies, but still not yet effectively publicly challenged, that Haiti is cursed by its embrace of Voudon. Since it would take up too much space to tackle that in a single comment, let me ask a rhetorical question to open up the can of worms concealed by so many one sided narratives concocted in the womb of the white church and unquestioningly embraced by her proselytes and the recipients of her education. Which spirit is more pernicious, the god of Boukman and Mackandal or the god Columbus called upon by the name of Jesus? Compare Boukman’s prayer with Columbus’ epistle, compare Nehanda’s mhondoro with the religion of the colonizers. Compare the ancestral worship of tormented slaves with the devout Catholicism and Anglicanism of their torturers. Tell me where you find your Jesus in all of this, then we can talk. Check following hyperlinks if unfamiliar with references:
https://thelouvertureproject.org/index.php?title=Boukman
https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/before-1600/king-ferdinands-letter-to-the-taino-arawak-indians.php
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