HAITIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY
ZOÉ SAMUDZI
There isn’t a single more elegant “new year, new me” flex than celebrating independence on New Year’s Day. Haiti marked the end of its successful revolution against and independence from France on January 1, 1804—it is the only uprising of enslaved (or rather, formerly enslaved) peoples that led to the founding of a nation-state that was free of slavery. Haiti was the world’s first liberated Black nation, and her freedom in 1804 became a blueprint for Black insurrection and self-determination on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. On January 1, in this post-Obama but not yet post-racial Trump and global fascist moment, it seems we’ve difficulty understanding the legacy and lessons of the revolution, especially as often derailing goals of “diversity and inclusion” seem to supplant more ambitious goals of freedom and autonomy. But the Haitians taught us—and this is, of course, far easier abstractly understood than done—that there can be no compromises in assertions of Black humanity, even as we’re punished for attempting to bring that too-long-deferred dream to fruition (just as Haiti has been punished for the past two hundred years). But even as capitalism digs its talons into our resources and political imaginations, we are learning and storytelling and scheming and dancing—just as the Haitians danced at the vodou ceremony at Bois Caïman on the evening before their revolution began.
SAMUDZI