Faith Complex: Michael Eric Dyson on hip-hop theology

Dear Roland,

The words I’m sending with this message will speak for themselves. Be Blessed!

Voices Beneath The Rubble

Do you hear us beneath the rubble?
Do you hear us when we cry?
Our voices keep on speaking
Even though our bodies die

Though trapped beneath the rubble
We’ve really been made free
For we see God in His glory
Our eternal destiny

Still some things they still concern us
What lies ahead for you?
Have you become a better people?
Has our voices made it through?

Why did it take the earthquake?
For you to show you cared
Aren’t there still the poor amongst you?
What about the ones God spared?

Take heed the world above us
The earth is just at rest
What will it find you doing?
Will humanity pass its test?

Please don’t give up searching
It might surprise you what you’ll find
The voices below will guide you
To redemption for all mankind

By Derek W. Hunter

Would tackling this issue not be more useful in the long term, recovering the $21B forcefully taken from haiti, we is every body afraid to discuss issues, why is this fear.
A MUST READ for anyone wishing to understand Haiti’s history!
The hate and the quake

Published on: 1/17/2010.

BY SIR HILARY BECKLES

THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES is in the process of conceiving how best to
deliver a major conference on the theme Rethinking And Rebuilding Haiti.

> I am very keen to provide an input into this exercise because for too long
there has been a popular perception that somehow the Haitian nation-building
project, launched on January 1, 1804, has failed on account of mismanagement,
ineptitude, corruption.

> Buried beneath the rubble of imperial propaganda, out of both Western Europe
and the United States, is the evidence which shows that Haiti’s independence was
defeated by an aggressive North-Atlantic alliance that could not imagine their
world inhabited by a free regime of Africans as representatives of the newly
emerging democracy.

> The evidence is striking, especially in the context of France.

> The Haitians fought for their freedom and won, as did the Americans fifty
years earlier. The Americans declared their independence and crafted an
extraordinary constitution that set out a clear message about the value of
humanity and the right to freedom, justice, and liberty.

> In the midst of this brilliant discourse, they chose to retain slavery as the
basis of the new nation state. The founding fathers therefore could not see
beyond race, as the free state was built on a slavery foundation.

> The water was poisoned in the well; the Americans went back to the battlefield
a century later to resolve the fact that slavery and freedom could not
comfortably co-exist in the same place.

> The French, also, declared freedom, fraternity and equality as the new
philosophies of their national transformation and gave the modern world a
tremendous progressive boost by so doing.

> They abolished slavery, but Napoleon Bonaparte could not imagine the republic
without slavery and targeted the Haitians for a new, more intense regime of
slavery. The British agreed, as did the Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese.

> All were linked in communion over the 500 000 Blacks in Haiti, the most
populous and prosperous Caribbean colony.

> As the jewel of the Caribbean, they all wanted to get their hands on it. With
a massive slave base, the English, French and Dutch salivated over owning it –
and the people.

> The people won a ten-year war, the bloodiest in modern history, and declared
their independence. Every other country in the Americas was based on slavery.

> Haiti was freedom, and proceeded to place in its 1805 Independence
Constitution that any person of African descent who arrived on its shores would
be declared free, and a citizen of the republic.

> For the first time since slavery had commenced, Blacks were the subjects of
mass freedom and citizenship in a nation.

> The French refused to recognise Haiti’s independence and declared it an
illegal pariah state. The Americans, whom the Haitians looked to in solidarity
as their mentor in independence, refused to recognise them, and offered
solidarity instead to the French. The British, who were negotiating with the
French to obtain the ownership title to Haiti, also moved in solidarity, as did
every other nation-state the Western world.

> Haiti was isolated at birth – ostracised and denied access to world trade,
finance, and institutional development. It was the most vicious example of
national strangulation recorded in modern history.

> The Cubans, at least, have had Russia, China, and Vietnam. The Haitians were
alone from inception. The crumbling began.

> Then came 1825; the moment of full truth. The republic is celebrating its 21st
anniversary. There is national euphoria in the streets of Port-au-Prince.

> The economy is bankrupt; the political leadership isolated. The cabinet took
the decision that the state of affairs could not continue.

> The country had to find a way to be inserted back into the world economy. The
French government was invited to a summit.

> Officials arrived and told the Haitian government that they were willing to
recognise the country as a sovereign nation but it would have to pay
compensation and reparation in exchange. The Haitians, with backs to the wall,
agreed to pay the French.

> The French government sent a team of accountants and actuaries into Haiti in
order to place a value on all lands, all physical assets, the 500 000 citizens
were who formerly enslaved, animals, and all other commercial properties and
services.

> The sums amounted to 150 million gold francs. Haiti was told to pay this
reparation to France in return for national recognition.

> The Haitian government agreed; payments began immediately. Members of the
Cabinet were also valued because they had been enslaved people before
independence.

> Thus began the systematic destruction of the Republic of Haiti. The French
government bled the nation and rendered it a failed state. It was a merciless
exploitation that was designed and guaranteed to collapse the Haitian economy
and society.

> Haiti was forced to pay this sum until 1922 when the last instalment was made.
During the long 19th century, the payment to France amounted to up to 70 per
cent of the country’s foreign exchange earnings.

> Jamaica today pays up to 70 per cent in order to service its international and
domestic debt. Haiti was crushed by this debt payment. It descended into
financial and social chaos.

> The republic did not stand a chance. France was enriched and it took pleasure
from the fact that having been defeated by Haitians on the battlefield, it had
won on the field of finance. In the years when the coffee crops failed, or the
sugar yield was down, the Haitian government borrowed on the French money market
at double the going interest rate in order to repay the French government.

> When the Americans invaded the country in the early 20th century, one of the
reasons offered was to assist the French in collecting its reparations.

> The collapse of the Haitian nation resides at the feet of France and America,
especially. These two nations betrayed, failed, and destroyed the dream that was
Haiti; crushed to dust in an effort to destroy the flower of freedom and the
seed of justice.

> Haiti did not fail. It was destroyed by two of the most powerful nations on
earth, both of which continue to have a primary interest in its current
condition.

> The sudden quake has come in the aftermath of summers of hate. In many ways
the quake has been less destructive than the hate.

> Human life was snuffed out by the quake, while the hate has been a long and
inhumane suffocation – a crime against humanity.

> During the 2001 UN Conference on Race in Durban, South Africa, strong
representation was made to the French government to repay the 150 million
francs.

> The value of this amount was estimated by financial actuaries as US$21
billion. This sum of capital could rebuild Haiti and place it in a position to
re-engage the modern world. It was illegally extracted from the Haitian people
and should be repaid.

> It is stolen wealth. In so doing, France could discharge its moral obligation
to the Haitian people.

> For a nation that prides itself in the celebration of modern diplomacy,
France, in order to exist with the moral authority of this diplomacy in this
post-modern world, should do the just and legal thing.

> Such an act at the outset of this century would open the door for a
sophisticated interface of past and present, and set the Haitian nation free at
last.

Sir Hilary Beckles is Pro-vice-chancellor and Principal of the Cave Hill
Campus, UWI.

Michael Eric Dyson on hip-hop theology, that's a must to see. Check our seminary as well.