Happy New Year & Happy Haitian Independence Day

I am out of pocket for the New Year weekend and will not be able to broadcast tonight.

Happy New Year and Happy Haitian Independence Day! See you next week for continued musings on 1804 and its legacy. Enjoy your bowl of Soup Joumou.

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Legacy of 1804 -- 2015 Year in Review: 6 Key Moments #LOF1804 #Haiti

Join me and and guest pundits Hans Roy and Hugues Girard as we go over most significant moments of the year for Haitian and Haitian Diaspora current affairs.

What are the 6 key events? (We review the first 4 moments tonight and will review the last 2 next week during our "2016 New Years' Resolutions" show. Or for all 6 points in one place, you can listen to the full  pre-recorded show in archives.)

1.  Evidence of US and Western Meddling in Haitian Elections in 2010 and 2015 -- From the Clinton Emails to Brazilian OAS Official Ricardo Seitenfus' tell-all Book to Opont's revelation to CEP member Ginette Chérubin's book, Le Ventre Pourri de la Bête.  Leading up to what has been called the August 9th coup. (First hour)
2. The Apparent End of a US-Led Unipolar Word -- Signaled by Russia putting its foot down and opposing U.S. led regime-change in Syria. We go over how this all ties into Haiti. (Starts at top of second hour.)
3. The Baltimore Protests and the rise of #BlackLivesMatter in the U.S.
4. The Deportation of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent from the D.R. to Haiti
5. Developments with non-GMO seeds
6. The Rise of Co-operative Economics in the West and among Blacks in the U.S.

Listen live or archived at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/pancaribbean/2015/12/31/legacy-of-1804--2015-year-in-review-lof1804-haiti. Call in to listen at (714) 242-6119.

This show was pre-recorded on 12/31/2015. There will be no live Q&A. 


UPDATE: FULL SHOW AUDIO (INCL. ALL 6 MOMENTS)








LIVE TWEET RECAP

HAITI: Nov. 18, 1803: Haitians say NO to slavery

 

"Martelly, de son côté est allé faire de la figuration en Espagne, le pays de naissance de Hernan Cortès, génocidaire des Indiens mais néanmoins modèle de Martelly, de même que Duvalier, Pinochet, Michel François ...

Il paraît que la figuration a donné des résultats puisque le président rose a obtenu un rôle, celui d'accompagnateur du chanteur Julio Iglesias en RD."

-  Le Monde du Sud/ Elsie News, "18 novembre 1803,Haïti chasse les Français/18 novembre 2012 Martelly, président du pays, se balade en Espagne"

According to defend.ht, Pdt Martelly would be the first president in Haitian History to miss the festivities of commemoration of Vertières.

But this is not surprising as it appears Martelly is none other than a spokesmodel for the UN and other foreign agencies currently holding the Haitian state and nation hostage. If you don't believe me, hopefully you will believe a UN official who recently admitted as much to The Nation:

A spokesman for one of the largest UN organizations in the country offered a stunningly blunt portrait of this dynamic. Asked whether the government of Haiti has ever told him what to spend donor money on, the spokesman, who insisted on remaining anonymous, said: “Never. They are not in the position, because they are financially dependent. Recently, there was a government press conference. There was nothing ‘government’ about it; we organized it and told them what to say.” He chuckled, then added: “Very sad, really.”

Would it be a coincidence then that national Haitian monuments, including the Vertières monument in the North are constantly being desacralized? Vertières monument found painted in pink (!!!) and white (!!!!!!!!!) for example or better yet, the Citadelle being clawed  and climbed upon by Labadee(TM)  Labadie cruise line personnel.

 "La Citadelle Laferriere: Patrimoine or Playground?'

Kiskeácity Daily | HaitianBloggers.Collected | @kiskeacity| Facebook

Christmas, Mexican Punch, Jambalaya!

I skipped the traditional Haitian meal this year and instead got treated to some Mexican and Louisianian traditions at my neighbor Michelle's.

Her friend Carmen made my day with the traditional Mexican punch of her childhood which in her words, "smells like Christmas". A feast of cinnamon, green apple and tropical apple, guava, orange, sugar cane, sorrel and tamarind. Carmen skipped the ginger for fear it might overshadow the other flavors.



After a simmering boil, the vivid tea-like infusion invited splashes of rum or could be savored sweet and warm.

Michelle's jambalaya, equal parts hot and tomatoey, was a nice complement:



Thanks to Carmen, I also got to taste home made tamales for the first time. Carmen (who had rolled 150 of those the night before with her nieces and nephews!) had them nicely color-coded: green for cheese and mole, red for cumin and pork, pineapple beek for the sweet ones.

View the slideshow.



Technorati: mexican punch - jambalaya - tamales

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I Give You Global Voices en Français for Francophonia Day

March 20th was la Journée Internationale de la Francophonie (Francophonia Day) and I had this to say on Global Voices for the occasion. Please please please check out Global Voices en Français and tell your interested friends when you get a chance. (Lire le billet en Français à ... Global Voices en Français, traduit par Claire Ulrich.) And please contact me in the comment section to volunteer if you are a French-English bilingual.




Today is March 20th was Francophonia Day. About 50 French-speaking countries and territories, some belonging to the Organisation Mondiale de la Francophonie and others not, will reflect on what it means to have French as a language --often alongside others. (Not to worry we will tell you what the bloggers said as soon as they've said it.)

At Global Voices, this day has special significance as well. One year ago, I was barely getting my feet wet as a novice Francophonia Editor, translating into English blurbs from the blogs of French-speaking countries who don't get much coverage in other media. Today as Global Voices Lingua team leader, I and wonderful francophones like India-based Haitian blogger Pascale Doresca, French journalist and Le Monde contributor Claire Ulrich and Malagasy blogger and GV author Lova Rakotomalala have been translating in the other direction, i.e. from English to French at Global Voices en Français. The goal is to bring more and more Francophones online into the global conversation. By translating Global Voices content into French, we hope to do just that.

See for yourself, the Global Voices en Français site is a work in progress but volunteer translators have been generating French-speaking GV content for Francophones for over a month. If you are a French-English bilingual, please contact us to join the team at francophonia [at] globalvoicesonline [dot] org.

Flashback. Inspired by Global Voices Latin-America Editor David Sasaki's workshop on GV and language at the GV 2006 Summit in Delhi, a group of francophone bloggers approached Global Voices co-founders Ethan Zuckerman, Rebecca MacKinnon and Portnoy Zheng about starting a Francophone GV page similar to Portnoy's then year old GVO China site over lunch at Delhi Day 2. Other language communities expressed interest and Project Lingua was born.

Lingua, which is still in its infancy, brings you more than just GV en Français. It comes in:

-Bangla http://bn.globalvoicesonline.org/
-Chinese (simplified) http://zh.globalvoicesonline.org/hans/
-Chinese (traditional) http://zh.globalvoicesonline.org/hant/
-French http://fr.globalvoicesonline.org/
-Portuguese http://pt.globalvoicesonline.org/
-Russian http://ru.globalvoicesonline.org/
-Spanish http://es.globalvoicesonline.org/

Please join me and the whole Lingua team by contributing your language skills to any of the above groups.

Francophonia Day is truly a multilingual day for us at Global Voices.

Technorati Tags: journée internationale de la francophonie, francophonie, global voices en français, lingua, claire ulrich, lova rakotomalala, pascale doresca, bangla, russski, portugues, french, chinese, español

Carnaval in Ouanaminthe, on the Haiti/DR Border

Marie-Christine from the Contempororary Stationary blog (one of my favorite readers) left this picture and message on the Carnival Here, Carnaval There, Carnaval Everywhere post and I thought I'd share:

Carnaval is long gone in Haiti and elsewhere. But I thought it would be nice to take a quick peek on how folks celebrate it outside of Port-au-Prince. Below is the link to a picture of the carnaval celebration in Ouanaminthe (my father's home town and where my brother lives now). Ounaminthe is in the département du nord d'est (North Eastern part of Haiti) and right at the border with the Dominican Republic.

Oh and yes, I've just added her blog to the Haitian diaspora blogroll to the right of the home page.

Technorati Tags: ouanaminthe, carnaval, dominican republic, republica domnicana, république dominicaine

Carnaval Here, Carnaval There, Carnival Everywhere

Trinidad

• Georgia's pictures of the last hours of the trini bacchanal.

Brazil/Lusosphere

• Lusosphere: Reporting Carnival, Jose Murilo Junior's roundup at Global Voices of what local bloggers are saying about carnival in Brazil.
  

Martinique

• Pictures of Miss Carnaval 2007 and more by Amandine.
  

Guyane

• Walking, dancing Mother Natures by Photoblog de la Guyane.
  

Guadeloupe

• Carnaval Beignet recipe (FR).
  

Haiti

• Just in case you haven't been reading this blog in the past couple of days: the whole enchilada.
  

Photo by CaribbeanFreePhoto

Technorati Tags: brazil, carnaval

Goodbye Carnival 2007, Goodbye Tiga

The last time I saw Tiga (a.k.a. Jean-Claude Garoute) was 4-5 years ago in Haiti. As usual he was preaching and pontificating about art and the value of his various methods and schools. He was surrounded by the mill of children, women and disciples I had always known him to attract. I myself had been one of his students 10 years earlier as a teenager. Every saturday morning for several years, I traipsed up to Kaytiga near Place Boyer and --first as a student and later as an assistant -- attended one of his "artistic rotation" workshops for children. The method almost always disappointed parents eager to see their children draw or paint classically because Tiga was not about what he called "joli-joli" or nice figurative painting. Instead, he favored a complete sensory rotation in which children freely moved around from drumming to paint to clay and created what they fancied. The point was that Tiga believed in creative freedom and limitless expression.


When I saw him that last time, I can't say I was excited to hear the spiel all over again 10 years after leaving Haiti but it was unbelievable to see how his energy for life, art and the propagation of his teachings had stayed intact. The man was unstoppable!


And why wouldn't he be? All of his life had been spent creating safe havens of artistic expression and of daring bohemianism even under--and indeed despite-- the repressive Papa Doc years. The first institution he created was Poto Mitan in downtown Port-au-Prince in the 1950s I believe where he welcomed all and in particular groomed a whole generation of future modern Haitian painters including Philippe Dodard, Edouard Duval Carrié and Occénad. (It later became Kaytiga and survived to his death last December and through many different addresses.) And while he did Poto Mitan in the capital he also paired up with Maud Guerdes Robard to do the same in Soisson-La-Montagne, a rural area near Port-au-Prince but with farmer pupils -- a setting quite similar to his native Jérémie where he spent the first 6 years of his life. Basically, wherever he was -- in Haiti or abroad during his many travels -- Tiga spent his life bringing people of all walks of life together in spaces that invariably ended up being reminiscent of the Lakou, the unit of Haitian rural life.


I was shocked to find out about Tiga's death in January, one month after the fact. Death was so incompatible with the way he lived his life. It was in passing conversation with my mom who was then visiting. In many ways my mother Eddie Calvin Backer and Tiga are of the same ilk. People who spent their lives passing on knowledge and teaching people of all social classes, whether art as in Tiga's case or French, literacy and teacher training as in my mom's case. And just like one receives their mother's advice often begrudgingly only to find out later just how valuable and vital it was, I often received Tiga's teachings begrudgingly. Only to find out today as I mingle with Haitian-Americans full of questions about Haiti how lucky I was to have taken in his philosophy, that unique mix of Haitian artistic and folkloric sensibility laced with eclectic modernism.


What consoles me though is that in his lifetime, Tiga's very quality of almost never shutting up ensured that he did not only impact me but really a whole country. From the "post-naive" St-Soleil school of rural Haitian painters now known the world over to the modern school of the more cosmopolitan Port-au-Prince crop he mentored, many many more beyond me had the chance to take in his energy and spirit of expressive and artistic freedom.


So it made complete and total sense to me to find out that this year's Carnival was not only dedicated to him but also took on one of his favorite symbols, the sun, as a theme: "Solèy Leve" (Risen Sun). The sun was always present in his concepts. Saint-Soleil (Saintly sun) was the name of the painting school he made possible in Soissons La Montagne. Soley Brile (Burnt Sun) was the name of the technique he often used in his own paintings (using what I believe was a combination of ink and acid). And though my memory stops there, I'm sure any number of his other students can come up with any number of other solar references in his speech and ideas.


Now it's time for his former pupils to continue his work and legacy by firstly making sure that we document it for other young people in Haiti and elsewhere. Thank God we have blogs and the internet. It would be nice if all his former students took it upon themselves to use free online publishing of all sorts to make sure we or future generations don't forget his incredible spirit.


For more on Tiga's life and work check out Arnold Antonin's video documentary Tiga-Haiti: Rêve, Possession, Création, Folie.


Other Links:

Miami Herald Article on Tiga's Life

Top Photo: Tiga courtesy of Haiticarnival.org

Middle Photo: "La Ronde" by Dieuseul Paul in the Saint-Soleil style courtesy of artactif.com.

Bottom Photo: Painting by Tiga using the Solèy Brile technique.


Technorati Tags: jean-claude garoute, tiga, saint-soleil, soleil brulé, solèy brile, poto mitan, kaytiga, carnaval, solèy leve

A Fat Tuesday For Haitian Tourism?

Two yeas ago at the Caribbean Studies Association conference held in Santo-Domingo, I found out that more is being done by the Haitian diaspora in Cuba and the United States to preserve certain Haitian cultural forms than is being done in Haiti.

This year's carnival, the last day of which --Mardi Gras [Fat Tuesday]-- is today, may be a long awaited departure from that trend. According to the Miami Herald, this year the Haitian government went all out and invested $2 million in the Carnival in order to encourage Haitian diaspora tourism in Haiti. Judging from the exponential growth in hits to this blog since I started blogging about Carnival three days ago, I guess the government is right that Haitians abroad are starved for any and all Haitian culture they can find. It seems that in the case of Haiti, the web is providing diasporans a way to stay in touch with their country. Hopefully, all the live online carnival (I know of at least 4 websites which were broadcasting), regained security, colorful costumes and the official website will indeed help bring more "dyaspora" home next year.

The Miami Herald quotes the tourism Minister as saying:

''We are making the statement that there is not a problem of insecurity in Haiti. Yes, there is insecurity in certain areas, but not in the entire country,'' said Tourism Minister Patrick Delatour. ``This is not a country either at war or one coming out of civil war.''

That's all good and this statement was long overdue. Here's my question to the Haitian government though, why can't it secure the country the same way it did during the 3 "fat"days of carnival all year long?

Photo: Haiti Carnival Official Website.

Technorati: carnaval - mardi gras

More Carnaval (Jacmel Mas Videos)

Today is Carnaval Day 1.

Check out this wonderful podcast by Public International Radio which samples previews of rootsy Haitian carnival songs! Offers gossip on Sweet Mickey's fake retirement of last year (he is back this year anyway) and lots of well curated tidbits on Haitian culture and musical genres.



Also, more video. This time, excerpts of two band a pye i.e "mas" from January pre-carnival festivities in Jacmel. (Again, email and blog reader viewers, please come to the site.)




Watch Port-au-Prince Carnival live at sakapfet.com.

Update 2/19: You can also watch the carnival live at http://www.belradio.com/.


Technorati Tags: carnaval, jacmel

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Carnaval Is Here!

Carnival kicked off in Haiti today, one day earlier than usual so that the festivities will be for 4 instead of the usual 3 days!
There's tons of goodies on YouTube but I curated Kreyòl La's 2007 carnival song for you because they are featured in today's early kickoff on the Champ-de-Mars. Enjoy! NYC will hopefully get to hear it on the parkway on Labor day.

You can also watch the festivities live at Sakapfet.com starting Sunday Feb. 18 and check out Karlito's excellent preview of this year's festivities.

Update 2/18: Note that the official carnival site features all 24 carnival songs.

Update 2 on 2/18: Looks like Archivex Haiti is aggregating Carnival blogs and news. Sadly, no RSS or Atom feed!

Technorati Tags: carnaval, kreyol la, carnival

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Global Voices Valentine's Day Poetry Contest

Global Voices is having a poetry contest. Just click on the above badge, read the instructions and enter your submission in the comments section. It can be in any language but would ideally have some regional coloring. Happy Valentine's Day!

Global Voices organise un concours de poésie pour la St-Valentin. Pour y participer, cliquez sur le badge ci-dessus et tapez votre poème dans la section commentaires. Votre poème peut être en Français et doit de préférence avoir une couleur régionale. Prière de me faire savoir si vous avez des questions sur les règles. Si suffisamment de monde le réclame, je promets de les traduire. Joyeuse St-Valentin! (Vous avez jusqu'à minuit heure du Pacifique ou GMT-8 pour vous faire entendre.)

Carnival Kickoff & Digicel Soccer Cup in the Tropics

My latest Global Voices post is about carnival kickoff in the French Caribbean Overseas Departments (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane). The post features 3 video clips of Guadeloupean mas bands Mas a Kle and Akiyo that I'm sure you'll want to see.

What's going on in Haiti on that front? Not sure. Bloggers have been preoccupied with other things but I'm sure there has been some sort of kickoff there too. (Update: HaitiXchange has just the answer to this question. Apparently, pre-carnaval festivities in Port-au-Prince have been attracting about as many people as carnival itself due to regained security.)

Not to mention, Kiskeyans are probably too busy celebrating the Caribbean Digicel Soccer Cup Championship title, subject of another post on GV and for which you can see soccerfabulous pictures here.

Photo by Alex DeCarvalho

Technorati: Digicel- Mas A Kle - Akiyo

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A Martinique Christmas

Loulou Boislaville chante nwel
Video sent by matinikphoto

This video was posted on Daily Motion today. It is a biguine Christmas carol performed by some of Martinique's music greats including Ralph Thamar and Loulou Boislaville. The video is dated Dec. 24,2006 on Dailymotion and technically aired on Martiniquan television last night. Why does it look so vintage to me? Could it be that Ralph Thamar looks not a day older than 20 -- not a wrinkle, not a gray hair? I wonder if this was not a re-airing of a 70's recording. Maybe our Martiniquan friends can chime in...

In any event, Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it.

technorati: Ralph Thamar - Loulou Boislaville - Martinique - Caribbean - Christmas

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Thankful for Friends, Family & ... Readers

With family at Easter this Spring.

I never know what to post on Thanksgiving because 1) the holiday has lots of detractors and 2) i did not grow up celebrating it inmy native Haiti. One caveat though is that in my near 15 years of living in the US, I have never met a person, however critical of the holiday, who did not actually spend valued time with friends and/or family during it.

Today I received a text message from my friend Sarah, a neighbor I turn too when I miss speaking and laughing in our native Creole, that summarizes my sentiments perfectly. From a train station in Pennsylvania where she was waiting to be picked up by her brother, she managed to tap onto her mobile the following words:

"I know this holiday is extremely problematic...even so, i want y'all to know how special you are to me & how thankful i am to have you in my life."

I say the same to you my readers from the bottom of my heart.

I will also share the musings of my other friend Jennifer on this day. Jennifer, who is of irish/african/native american descent via Virginia and the Bahamas, blogged for the first time in a while today, reminiscing on her late mother, love and the importance of genealogy in understanding family. Specifically, she advances a theory that her beau, a New Orleans Creole, may have an usually cohesive family precisely because of that French connection. Very interesting.




I am about to go spend time with her and my own family. In the Haitian meaning of the word, that means I am about to see not just siblings and parents but really, cousins, nephews and most importantly friends who have become family. I don't know if French ancestry or a French colonial past have anything to do with it but somehow indeed "lafanmi" as I define it rather broadly is very important -- and when you think of the money transfers that take place every day from the US to Haiti between family members, you can even say vital -- to most Haitians. In that sense, I can only imagine that Thanksgiving is as important as any holiday to most Haitian-Americans.

As I eat turkey and yummy cranberry sauce alongside pommes de terre au gratin, tarte a l'oignon, souffle de mais and griot and bannan peze later on, you'll be in my thoughts.

If you are in the US, have a great Thanksgiving. If you are elsewhere, please receive my sincere thank you for reading me.


Technorati: thanksgiving - haiti - haitian-american - new orleans - creole - caribbean-american

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Haiti Video Game+ A Father's House+ West Indian Parade

Ayiti Cost of Life Socially Conscious Video Game

• Not all agree that video/virtual reality games are a tasteful way of raising awareness on hot button issues (cf controversy on Darfur is Dying virtual reality game). That said, Gary Dauphin explains that a video game is being designed that will challenge players with the day-to-day task of making ends meet for a poor person in Haiti.

My Father's House

• While you're at Gary (aka ebogjohnson.com)'s blog, notice this slideshow of his father's house before it sold in 2003. (The blog post about the slideshow is here.) All well and good, you're thinking. Yes, except if you also read this other post of his months ago where he explained a thing or two about his father's philosophy on economy, aesthetics, throwing things away (or not) and fixing things endlessly. (This set of habits should sound familiar to some of those hailing from Western Hispaniola --okay fancy way of saying Haiti--or places like it. It does to me. Ha!)

New York West Indian Day Parade

• Yes I attended, yes I have footage. No the footage is not ready to post because I plan to use it as an exercise in learning to use YouTube. Yes, there are other sites you can visit that have lots and lots of pictures, namely this page at sakapfet.com.

ayiti cost of life - gary dauphin
- west indian parade - brooklyn - haiti - caribbean

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