Preoccupied as I am with reporting on the struggles of disenfranchised and disadvantaged peoples from often remote and violent locations (Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, India-administered Kashmir, Haiti itself), I confess that I haven’t had the time or inclination to keep up with every self-justifying bit of moral and intellectual acrobatics performed by the affluent foreign commentators that have comprised the bulk of support for Haiti’s disgraced former president since his ouster in February 2004. Given the array of very serious problems that confront Haiti these days - a dysfunctional parliament, spiraling food costs and attendant demonstrations, rampant deforestation and environmental degradation - the attention of those concerned with the country’s fate may indeed also be better focused elsewhere rather than on a protracted back-and-forth between two foreign intellectuals over a book of negligible interest or value to alleviating those ills.
Which would be, ... understandable on the face of it, if only just slightly; it's not out of the ordinary for an author to reply to a scathing review of his book. But Deibert's affected indifference to engaging with privileged Western dilettantes in this instance wasn't in evidence in his almost desperate attempt to get in the last word with Justin Podur following Podur's review of Deibert's own book: Notes From the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti.
Time and again, the clinching argument of a passage will be made by 'a member of the team', 'a veteran of international observer missions', or a seemingly ubiquitous 'OASUS official'. Further claims are attributed to still more anonymous sources: 'many said', 'most said', 'critics wondered', 'it appeared'; or simply to 'rumours', some of which were 'unusually detailed rumours'. Half a dozen interviews with prominent Haitian opponents of the Lavalas government: Andy Apaid, Evans Paul, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, Hans Tippenhauer, Micha Gaillard, Pierre Esperance of the National Coalition on Human Rights and (in Manhattan) Michele Montas, widow of Jean Dominique, the radical radio journalist profiled in Jonathan Demme's The Agronomist: fill in the gaps.
Deibert submitted (originally to NLR), and Znet published, his reply to Podur, which ended with this stirring recitation of the importance of his work for the people of Haiti and, therefore, the urgency that he be allowed to correct Podur's errors:
With time, Haitians, along with their true friends abroad, whose loyalty and commitment to the country's poor majority goes beyond slogans to an actual long-term engagement with the people there, will change Haiti, finally realizing the political strength of its long-excluded peasant majority as well as the industry, honesty and fundamental decency of the huge majority of its citizens.
We who love Haiti will never give up the fight to make it a more just and equitable society for its long-suffering people, nor will we surrender a monopoly of dialogue on the subject to mercenaries, opportunists and novices, as there is just too much at stake: indeed, the fate of an entire nation. The Haitian people deserve nothing less.
Znet had Podur craft a reply to the specific counter-charges made by Deibert. You'd think it would have ended there, with Deibert being too preoccupied with ongoing campaigns for justice for the world's downtrodden, who are depending on him to save them from North American university students with only a shallow understanding of the history and politics of the rest of the world they want to meddle in, to bother staying in the fight with an ignorant outsider like Podur. Strangely, no! Deibert very much wanted to continue the "debate." Denied this privilege, he can lapse into the most enraged stream-of-consciousness ranting:
Ever since I was libeled in its pages by a wealthy, college-dwelling professional dissembler (York University Professor Justin Podur) and a convicted criminal and perjurer (Patrick Elie), and then denied the right of response, I have always thought that one had about as much chance reasoning with the crowd that populates the internet publication ZNet as one did of reasoning with a barnyard animal, though no doubt the barnyard animal would be less pernicious by nature.
Ah well.
ADDENDUM
In his original review, Deibert chastises Hallward for his scant treatment of Haitian history thusly:
These historical periods are viewed by Hallward as needless distractions from the task at hand, which is to rush headlong , very much in the manner of the novice though ultra-confident commentator that he is, into proving his thesis, but unfortunately for him, the periods of Jean-Pierre Boyer, Faustin Soulouque, Salomon and Estimé (as well as the tenures of more minor presidents such as Sténio Vincent and Elie Lescot) all left profound impacts on Haiti’s political culture, leading up to today. One scans the book’s pages in vain for any discussion, or even acknowledgment of Boyer’s 20 year annexation of the Dominican Republic, of Soulouque‘s arming of irregular loyalists known as zinglins (precursors of Duvalier’s Tontons Macoutes paramilitaries and Aristide’s chimere bands in later years), of Salomon’s virtual destruction of the commercial districts of Port-au-Prince in 1883 (and along with it the murder of at least of 1,000 of the president’s enemies) and of Estimé's ascension to the presidency in 1946 (breaking 20 years of mulatto hegemony of the office), but none is to be found.
I found this all a bit rich. Deibert loves to compare his own personal experience of 10 or so years in other writers like Hallward and Podur, plus their inability to speak the language of the country. Reading Deibert's brief history (which avoids even mentioning the twenty-year occupation of the country by US marines between 1915 and 1936 and the US-established "national guard" used to control the populace as such institutions did throughout the Caribbean and Latin America) within this context prompted me to think that Deibert ought not to talk about Haiti in the 19th century, since he wasn't even born yet, let alone in the country! The past is a different country!! We can't have such novices presuming to lecture us about it!
As well, I can't help but notice this gigantic lapse in honest argument. In this post, Deibert refers to "an ugly attack on the progressive journalist Jane Regan" for her documentary "An Unfinished Country." Deibert was helpful enough to provide a link to this horrible crime, where the level-headed reader can find some interesting analysis. The reviewer (one Shirley Pate) criticizes Regan's documentary for only focusing on the chaos in Haiti and the violence of the Aristide government and its supporters. It includes the following:
Another critic pressed Regan further about her omission of the US role in destabilizing Haiti and the kidnapping of Aristide. Regan provided a bizarre, but revealing response:"It is true that the US government, and also the EU, Canada, etc., all do and did fund opposition groups, NGOs that were anti-Aristide etc., and that these were the ones who were involved in lots of anti-government demos. It is also true that it was a little convenient that Philippe and another 100 camouflage-clad men with guns were able to mass in the DR and come across the border... certainly there was DR government involvement and probably US, although I have never (not yet) found proof. But the film was not about that... If I had been the editor (WNET has final say) I would have put in more about US involvement in Haiti over the years, supporting Duvalier, funding what I call the 'real coup' against Aristide. etc. But in the end, WNET had the final say."
Which was it? Did she originally include footage about the imperialist web of deceit that facilitated Haiti's most recent descent into hell but WNET decided to cut it? Or, in hedging her bets about how to fund her film, did she make a conscious decision to omit this vital political background altogether?
That's damned interesting I'd say. Unless Pate fabricated that quote, which I doubt.
A rather lengthy stay at Deibert's blog has compelled me to conclude that I'm at least 80 percent certain that Deibert is not a willing and deliberate apologist for imperialist murder. What he is, sadly, is a pompous ass and a pretentious bore. These qualities, combined with some other ones, has allowed him to become a journalist on international affairs for the "respectable" press, in this case Reuters. You won't write many articles for the mainstream press if you make constant references to Western imperialism or class warfare. What I think Deibert does is the result of his genuine preference for Western officials, Western-centered NGO's, and the well-funded local collaborators of same. This makes him prefer their analysis over any others, and Deibert's own pomposity and self-adulation shield him from becoming infected with the superior analysis of people on the left.
One more time, to be clear: Contrary to Deibert's assertion that we of the North American left are fanatical Aristidistes, who believe that Aristide could do no wrong, and etc., etc., what we're actually saying is that given the long history of Western imperialism in the rest of the world, the coup against Aristide was not motivated by altruism, but by baser motives. This is imperialism and it is wrong. We have been proven right in our criticisms by the way. Deibert himself has to admit that the human rights situation during the "interim government" period following the coup was abominable, and should he ever develop the introspection to honestly listen, he'd realize that whatever the case, Aristide's record was far better than his predecessors or successors. And, even if that wasn't the case (and it is), surely it is not Canada's place, or the U.S.A.'s place, or France's place, to topple a government and install another one just as brutal?
Finally, contrary to Deibert's professed hopes that Western imperialists stay to help Haiti in the long haul, the fact of the matter is that we have essentially abandoned that country (aside from UN missions to take weapons away from Lavalas supporters) and while, for instance, Canada's Stephen Harper gives tax cuts to the wealthy, the people in our "prize pupil" Haiti are reduced to eating dirt because of the world food crisis.
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