My blood brothers, today we are struck by misfortune and have become paralyzed with fright. Disguised as angels of goodness, a swarm of voracious beasts have destroyed our fields. With their corrosive saliva, they burn the flesh of our women, our children. Full of loathing, they spit on us. Their disgusting breath hovers over the entire island. Strangles us. Submerges us in a hell of sulfur and fire. Their hooves mark our land with the seal of disgrace. We know of no yardstick with which to measure this affront, of no scale capable of weighing this insult, so great is our humiliation. At first, too stunned by their insolence, their hypocrisy, we didn’t react. Now the time has come to get rid of our sterile fears. To unburden ourselves of past hatreds so as to meet this enemy with united resistance, a seamless front, a sturdy shield dipped in the courage of the true Haitian.
A storm of applause, fed by deafening screams, interrupts the speaker. Raynand threads his way through the crowd, trying his best to carve out a path through the tightly packed elbows of the heated assembly. He wanted to make his way to Paulin, whom he hadn’t seen in so long. He so desperately wanted to see him up close. To talk to him after the meeting. To shake his hand.
… This isn’t the first time these dreadful monsters have raided a peaceful country. Five centuries ago they came by sea, not yet having sprouted wings. They came with their Holy Bible, which they quickly bartered for Cibao’s flakes of gold. Having exterminated millions of Indians within a single decade, they then descended on Africa like an army of ravenous grasshoppers. For three centuries they threw the very womb of the continent into turmoil, made into the widow of so many athletes and so many princes become slaves. In the meantime, they turned Saint-Domingue into an insufferable hell of shame, gunpowder, and whips. The years went by. And one morning, Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Capois-La-Mort, Henri Christophe, Alexandre Pétion, legitimate heirs to the sun, planted light — an inextinguishable star — in the very core of Haiti.
The whole crowd, in an inexpressible communion, cut off Paulin’s words with a clapping of hands, with cheers and deafening cries. The most exuberant shook handkerchiefs and hats to show the speaker their boundless approval. Their indignation. Their resolve to enter into battle. Their faith that they’d win this fight. It was written on every face.
… They built up their material riches, their art, their science, and their technology at the expense of four continents. And today they dare speak to us about their “civilization”! Can they already have forgotten that it would suffice to scratch ever so lightly at any stone of their buildings, any slab of their streets, any sheet of metal in their machines to uncover the blood of the oppressed? Citizens of the Third World, any time you pass through Europe or North America, when you visit the high places of so-called Western culture, speak loudly and march proudly, because you can feel right at home there where the strength of your muscles and the blood of your bodies have helped to make life blossom. Your blood converted in the mill of History into Shakespearean plays, Racinian tragedy, Haydn’s symphonies, Rembrandt’s paintings, and Puccini’s operas; into romantic dramas, stone cathedrals, marble palaces, concrete and metal skyscrapers; into Hegelian dialectic, or Einstein’s formulas, or launching pads. We must remind all those who have profited from our labor, those secular exploiters who disdain us today, that we have contributed to the progress and the beauty of their civilization, in the mines, on the plantations, in their factories, and often under the overseer’s whip. Henceforth, we do not intend to be treated like poor relations and servants. We reject enslavement. And without denying what’s ours, we proclaim our right to enjoy all of the West’s most marvelous conquests and to savor the fruits that ripen on the manure of our sufferings.
With these words, a real electric current passed through the crowd and it reacted as a single being. On its feet, endlessly applauding the speaker, whose pathos-ridden voice became that of two-thirds of the planet.
… Oppressed people of this earth, we need only rely on ourselves. Not even the proletarians of the advanced nations. We blame them, too. In the division of riches between the predators and the prey, they too benefit from our exploitation. And they happily accept the crumbs from the bountiful table of their bosses. For a long time now, they’ve violated their own pledge, which today they consider like some youthful folly. We’ve adopted their rallying cry: Stand up, wretched of the earth! But we’ve remained alone on the pavement. They’re no longer by our side. They haven’t responded to our brotherly appeal. So where are the cohorts of workers from North America, from the great and sublime Europe? We publicly accuse them of being revolutionaries for nothing more than salaries and social services. Their bellies full of waste, the workers in industrialized countries have become wise adults, drunk on their paid vacations, their leisure activities, their beer and their wine. With their insurance policies and social security, they can hold out for a few more centuries. There’s no urgency for them anymore. That’s why they’re biding their time; they stay blind and deaf to our misery. They aren’t threatened. If the body of the snake is on their turf, its voracious head, the devouring head, is definitely on ours, in the Third World. And we should burn down the granaries that feed both the bosses and the workers of the imperialist powers.
Once again, Paulin stops speaking, interrupted by the frenzied bravos of the overexcited crowd. Elbowing his way forward, Raynand gets a lot closer to the low wall where the speaker is standing. He screams Paulin’s name at the top of his lungs, trying to be heard over the general enthusiasm. The patriotic fervor swollen with the stormy din of an indignant, highly charged crowd.
… People of Latin America, Asia, Africa, of the Indian Ocean, the time has come to urge you to combine your efforts to slice off the tentacles that pitilessly suck you dry. The time has come to track the predators skillfully hiding behind the angelic masks of philanthropy. In this regard, it’s urgent …
At this precise moment, the crowd is thrown into disorder by some violent, unexpected movement. What follows is an indescribable brawl. The protesters disperse in complete panic. The invaders, pitchfork-wielding monsters, knock down the participants, the militant activists, the bystanders, and the passersby. Paulin is arrested and savagely beaten. His head wounded, he bleeds profusely. His face swollen, he hurls abuse at his torturers as they strike him with ferocious rage. Raynand tries desperately to get closer to Paulin. Suddenly, he, too, is seized brutally in the sharp claws of two of the monstrous creatures. He struggles courageously. But the deep bites and scratches of the horrifying beasts soon overcome his physical resistance. As he’s being manhandled, forced to walk, he looks around for his friend Paulin while screaming, like a madman, with a hoarse voice:
— Paulin! Paulin! I’ve found a title for your novel. The perfect title for your novel.
But Paulin, piled into a van, doesn’t hear his friend. The evil wind that’s blowing that day greedily swallows up Raynand’s cries, mixing them with the yelps of some angry dogs nearby.
Leave your lamp lit, well in advance of the eclipse of the dying star. The lamp’s flame flickers. What treacherous love does it still offer to amnesic butterflies?