VOICE OF NON-VOICE OF HAITI
Cultural richness
The international media have a tendency to speak of Haiti until the country is hit by a natural disaster such as on the occasion of the earthquake on January 12, 2010, to discuss its endemic poverty and political instability. Everyone has, for example in memory the images of children eating mud cookies that we have watered French television. This is not to deny the social reality that Haiti is indeed dramatic, but the incredible artistic and cultural vitality of which Haiti is shown even more remarkable in this context and certainly deserves to be highlighted. Thus the French writer Michel Le Bris, organizer of the Festival of Astonishing Travellers, said Jan. 28: The Haitians are very proud of their artists because they feel that in their books, their music, their painting, they say that the human being has in him something bigger than what pretends to shoot him. " [1]
Among the arts with Haiti which radiates in the world, there is of course the literature. For 2009 alone, no fewer than eleven literary prizes were awarded to Haitian authors in France, the United States, Germany, Canada, including the prestigious Medicis for the writer Dany Laferriere or price for Wepler Lyonel Trouillot.
Overdose concrete
In the hours and days that followed the earthquake, uncertainty prevailed about the fate which had been subjected to the Haitian writers. Besides those who live in Haiti, some living abroad, were that day in Port-au-Prince, the Festival of Astonishing Travellers who was supposed to open its doors the day after the quake earth. We quickly learned that Georges Anglade, geographer and writer invited to this event had died, and his wife, during the earthquake. "Death of an overdose of concrete" for Ironically the words enshrined in the aftermath of the Mexican earthquake of 1985 in Mexico City.
Georges Anglade (photo Thomas C. Spear)
In a novel [2] published in 2004, following the war in Iraq, he envisioned a scenario in which delusional Haiti declared war on the U.S. side in Iraq, hoping to be rebuilt at great expense after being crushed!
Port-au-Prince devastated (photo Julien Tack)
Finally nature has done much more damage that could have no weapons of mass destruction States United and the scenario of a country crushed about to be rebuilt has become, unfortunately, a reality that the author will not attend ...
law subjectivity
Miraculously, the other writers of international renown have been spared this terrible tragedy that befell their land, as to enable them to bring the world the witness of a martyred people they have become the voice that they can say the terror, pain, dignity and hope for Haitians. Writing for them is no doubt a therapy, a catharsis. Playwright Syto Cavé conclude on this testimony, which will be discussed by these sentences: "Someone called me yesterday to ask me if I am dead. Absolutely, "I had to respond. A friend suggested I write, as if to take my place among the living. " [3] is also an opportunity for Haiti to regain respect and not only object, to speak on his behalf, to hear his subjectivity.
Toys fatality
Among the first evidence that we have reached an author, is the poet Rodney St Eloy, interviewed by the writer from Martinique Confident Raphael, whom he describes how he experienced the earthquake:
"I felt in that moment something unusual. Tremors, twitching indescribable. Everything starts to shake around.
Rodney St Eloy
I saw shattered the hotel. I saw the moment of cracking. The crack eat this monument, the hotel that I just discovered. And everything becomes so simple, without pride or vanity, the exact measure of things. There the ground has shifted beneath my feet actually. I did not understand one side of brute force, wild, impassive, and other submission to this fatality. I wanted a more complex relationship ... less arbitrary. And we, all killed by land as mere toy of fate. Only a great cloud of dust envelops the city. " [4]
" Buildings which liquefy "
Dany Laferrière, writer living in Montreal, which won the Prix Medicis in 2009 for his book "The Enigma of Return [5] was at hand Rodney St Eloy, when the earth shook. He managed with great accuracy to transcribe, in an interview [6] given to Christine Rousseau, sensations he felt at the height of the earthquake:
"We were So now dinner when we heard a loud noise. At first, I thought it was an explosion that came from the kitchen, and then I realized it was an earthquake.
The improvised rescue (photo Julien Tack)
I'm right out in the yard and I'm lying on the ground. There were endless sixty seconds when I felt that it would not only never end, but the ground was open. That's huge. There is a feeling that the earth becomes a sheet of paper. There are more density, you can not feel nothing, the soil is completely soft. "
The writer Kettly March, has also described this sensation that the laws of matter seemed abolished by speaking of" buildings which liquefy " [7] .
Solidarity and impotence
After these sixty seconds, the lives of these men and women will certainly never be the same, the life of this country will be forever changed, forever changed her face. But we must deal with the most urgent. Rodney St Eloy tells the organization of first aid in the minutes of the drama and sense of helplessness assailed him at the extent of the damage:
"At the Hotel there is a complex apartments, which collapsed. The 5-storey building, ground floor has disappeared. The cries of the survivors have alerted us. Two-step, three moves, the relief was improvised. A ladder to rescue a family stuck in fourth. An ax to open doors ... the smell of blood and death. Thus begins a cold accounting: the dead and the living. As the phones do not work, we are all caught off guard. One gets the impression that there is not much. Beside us, one hears muffled voices in the rubble, and we know that dozens of dead or dying are there. But we are helpless. " [8]
Anxiety
Danny Laferrière said afterwards, "a huge hush fell over the city:
" No one moved or almost. Everyone tried to imagine where his family could find.
Dany Laferrière (photo Andrew Smith)
For when the earthquake occurred Tuesday, Jan. 12, Port-au-Prince was in full swing. At 16 hours, students still hang after school. This is when the People make their last races before returning and where there are traffic jams. One hour of total breakdown of society, to scatter. Between 15 and 16 hours, you know where your relatives but not at 16:50. The anguish was complete. She created a deafening silence which lasted for hours. Then we started to look for people. We returned to the hotel and, thanks to American radio and word of mouth, we learned that the presidential palace collapsed but that President Préval was safe. But no one around us had heard from his family. " [9]
Zombies
In the first days which follow the drama, everyone is stunned, in a trance, people wander like "zombies" in the streets, to use a local image in the middle of a post-apocalyptic setting, as in a waking nightmare ... It manages to describe what the writer Louis-Philippe Dalembert:
"How to tell the unspeakable? How to tell the corpses of children and adults, young and old, men and women who litter the streets?
Louis-Philippe Dalembert
The injured man carried on his back in a wheelbarrow, on stretchers improvised? Children spoof other children. And those faces haggard, as if they were not aware of what happened to them. Hundreds of thousands of people wandering the streets in search of missing relatives, relief items necessity. Some try, transit does not work, to join another place they expect more lenient. Often upon arrival, they come across similar to their own suffering.
My brother and I, we also look into the city. With their bare hands, with a pickaxe, a shovel, people trying to clear the rubble looking for survivors. A young man crossed the street says, a bewildered smile at the corner of the lips, "I lost my sister and my first son." For this girl, this is "only" five aunts. Later, an old lady talking to high voice to the corpse lying at his feet. He reign chaos.
The small business school with my brother is a pile of rubble. We came out, for now, a dozen bodies lifeless. It must remain many others under the rubble. At the time of the quake, three classes were in progress. The keeper, who retired from the ruins of unnecessary files, has lost a son. " [10]
Telling the indescribable
Syto cavé The playwright manages to reach Thurgeau [11] , and can believe what he discovers:
"That was Turgeau? A joke! The old house has faltered, then fell with all his columns and a large balcony, as someone appearing to apologize to time. This is called an earthquake, a real one! He has traveled the city and much of the country. He ate a lot of people. Ate! Literally! That is to say: Ground! Swallowed! Those he has left out the other dead, are aligned on the sidewalks, some short, others wrapped in plastic sheets or white. (...) It's heavy. Difficult to walk. It was littered with dead head. Each day the number increases. " [12]
" A stench covers the districts most affected, we can not pass through without vomiting. Migration to the province.
Kettly March
Some streets are crowded with people going in all directions. You must leave the capital, these streets are broken veins. "Shows the young writer Kettly Mars, which addresses a point that the cameras and photographers could not transcribe, but perhaps long haunt those who have experienced ...
The suffering in the diaspora
For those not physically present in Haiti, the mental anguish and despair are no less great. It is estimated that the Haitian diaspora has about 4 million people spread between New York, Montreal, Paris, Guadeloupe, etc.. All have experienced the excruciating pain of being without news of their family, friends, and the giddiness of helplessness that causes the distance. For some, the news will never, this tragedy has left tens of thousands missing.
photo Julien Tack
Poet Anthony Phelps lives in Montreal, but he projects himself with his poetry in Port-au-Prince, and wanders through the ruins, the ruins of its past overthrown in less than a minute. Wherever she is in the world bleeds Haitian diaspora with his brothers remained in the country:
"I do not know yet if the family home is still standing, but my sisters, nephews and niece have been spared. Some friends are missing. Many are safe. My apartment in my old radio station Radio Cacique, was held up and still houses my place of memory. (...) The church of my childhood was destroyed, the Sacred Heart. My college has disappeared, the Institution St. Aloysius Gonzaga. Colleges, universities and other schools no longer exist. So many voices have been silenced forever! So many victims of blind rage of the land that bore us! ...
Between the vine roots whole nation grieved silently moves in silence clay chasms and falling within the retinas movement cotton replaced the verb. Life is all night. (...) Who's going to redesign my Country? We have more mouths to talk we bring the world's woes and the birds have fled our body odor. The day has lost its transparency and looks like night. " [13]
Dignity
perception that the press, sensationalism often hungry, give the people of Haiti to the external shocks more than one, like Michel Le Bris, the writer French organizers of the Festival of Astonishing Travellers, who was present in Port-au-Prince at the time of the earthquake: "I want to emphasize the moral force of Haitians. The first articles we read, arrived in Guadeloupe, Haiti - since I've read others, excellent - we were shocked. What, Haiti for them is reduced to this, voyeurism photos of kids in shock-blood, screaming women? Sensationalism and shoddy with endless articles about the supposed "looting"? (...) The Haitians were not the hordes of savages tear each other, but decent people, courageous, caring! People who did their best, organized themselves as best they could. "
Photo Julien Tack Frederick Gircour (chien.creole @ gmail.com)
[1] "Literature Haitian stronger that the earthquake "in the context of the show The Great Library of France 5, devoted to Haiti (http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/la-litterature-haitienne-plus-forte-que-le-seisme_845356.html)
[2] Georges Anglade, Haiti And if the U.S. declared war, Ecosociété editions, 2004
[3] Syto Cavé, "My place among the living" , Haiti Press Network, January 28, 2010 (http://www.haitipressnetwork.com/newsprint.cfm?articleID=13311)
[4] Interview Rodney St Eloy, published January 21, 2010 on the site Montray Kreyol (http://www.montraykreyol.org/spip.php?article3471)
[5] Dany Laferriere, The enigma of return, Grasset, 2009
[6] Haiti, the overwhelming testimony of the writer Dany Laferriere, the World January 16, 2010
[7] Kettly Mars, "It is necessary that the aid reaches the victims," published on the website of the Nouvel Observateur, Biblios (http:// / bibliobs.nouvelobs.com/20100116/17040/il-faut-que-l-aide-atteigne-les-victimes)
[8] Interview Rodney St Eloy, published January 21, 2010 on the site Montray Kreyol ( http://www.montraykreyol.org/spip.php?article3471 )
[9] Haiti, the overwhelming testimony of the writer Dany Laferrière, le Monde, January 16, 2010
[10] Louis-Philippe Dalembert "Earthquake" Potomitan, January 26, 2010
[11] Thurgeau: neighborhood of Port-au-Prince
[12] Syto Cavé, "My place among the living," Haiti Press Network, January 28, 2010 (http://www.haitipressnetwork.com/newsprint.cfm?articleID=13311)
[13] Anthony Phelps, my country here, published on the South Crop, January 30, 2010 (http://culturesud.com/contenu.php?id=124)
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