MARK KURLANSKY
499
A class born and raised in a degree of privilege that is almost
nonexistent in Western democracies will not watch passively if its privi–
leges are even reduced. These people will not be persuaded to negotiate
away their privileges, no matter what negotiating skills the U.S. or the
UN musters.
As for the hungry, impoverished masses who largely made up the
sixty-seven percent of Haitians who voted for Aristide (to cite one of
Haiti 's few solid statistics), at the few moments when they sensed an op–
portunity to take control such as after the flight of Duvalier in 1986,
before the 1987 election and after Aristide's victory, they showed an un–
derstandable thirst for revenge, a ruthless taste for blood, and very little
interest in democracy. They wanted the chance to become the empow–
ered class and to act the way the empowered class in Haiti always has.
Through all of this there have been many remarkably courageous
Haitians who have worked for the betterment of Haiti, and many of
them have been killed, yet so far no leader has emerged who could
moderate the fury of a people who have known nothing for several
centuries but abuse, exploitation and cruelty. Aristide always saw this
anger as a force to mobilize rather than moderate.
So if invasion won't work, and an embargo won't work, and even
a closely monitored and fair election cannot launch democracy, what is
to be done for Haiti? Should we despair and agree with the Duvaliers
that Haiti is not capable of democracy? If isolationism is the old friend
of Haiti's " bloodthirsty gang," then what Haiti needs is to be brought
into the community of nations. Here is another Haitian statistic, often
quoted, unchanged for years, based on nothing but guessing: Eighty per–
cent of Haitians cannot read or write. They have absolutely no educa–
tion. My elite friend who found he did not like democracy used to
complain to me about how hard it was to teach skills in his factory to
adults who had never before experienced the process of being taught.
Whenever I fly to the U.S . from Haiti, embarrassed Haitians hand me
their passports and ask me bashfully to fill out their U.S. customs forms
for them.
Ignorance is the great Haitian conspiracy. In slavery days many
planters strictly forbade slaves to have access to education. After the
revolution erupted in 1791, it was often pointed out that Toussaint
L'Ouverture, the leader of the revolution, was one of the rare educated
slaves. Since independent Haiti was established in 1804, most of the
country's rulers have consciously repressed education, regardless of what–
ever speeches they may have offered for its promotion . Under Duvalier,
teachers were killed or driven out of the country. After the overthrow
