Claude Moise on Firmin

Claude Moise's essay in the 117th issue of Conjonction is a fine overview on the life and works of Anténor Firmin, one of Haiti's greatest intellectuals. For Moise, Firmin was an honest and sincere patriot who believed Haiti needed non-despotic, regular administration under civil authorities that promoted the economy and the education of the masses. Otherwise, Haiti would never become truly democratic or fully civilized, in the sense of uplifting the masses, reforming administration, and providing the required rational governance that would lead to Haitian economic growth. While surprisingly brief on the details of Firmin's famous essay arguing in favor of racial equality, Moise does contextualize Firmin's background and intellectual and political writings with the events and features of Haitian society and politics in the decades leading to the US Occupation of 1915. By the end of his life, Firmin had even moved beyond the Liberal program of his heroes, Edmond Paul and Boyer Bazelais, favoring more state intervention whilst lamenting the lingering impact of colorism and inequality. Sadly, the Haiti of today would probably horrify Firmin even more than the despotic regimes of incompetent leaders and the parasitic elites of the pre-1915 years... 

Firmin's Equality of the Races (De l'égalité des races humaines)

I finally read  The Equality of the Human Races translated by Asselin Charles after a preemptive review on this blog. This classic really challenges a lot of stereotypes about Haiti and Haitians: a black man (and not mixed-race like many of Haiti's intelligentsia and educated elite at the time) who is well-read, educated, articulate, open to scientific progress and positivism as well as connected to broader intellectual debates on the international level is striking since Haiti is supposed to be the "best nightmare on earth" and black Haitians in particular stereotyped as savage, 'Voodoo-practitioners'. In many ways the book not only offers a scientific and philosophical defense of the Haitian Revolution and black autonomy, but also a vindicationist text on ancient Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia as inherent proof of black equality, which, actually predates a lot of Afrocentric interpretations of the African past by several decades. I thought it was a little outdated at times because Firmin assumes a sort of "Western Europe" is best mentality at times by looking down upon the contemporary cultures of Africa ("now fallen into barbarism..." 287). That's hardly unique to him, I suppose, since many diasporic black peoples in the 19th century saw contemporary Africa through Eurocentric, racist lens or a Christian missionary perspective. Indeed, from what I have read via secondary sources, early 19th century Haitian writers, such as de Vastey, despite praising ancient African civilizations such as Egypt and Nubia, saw the African societies of the early 19th century as inferior culturally and technologically to Europe. Firmin also alludes to several Haitian literary and cultural figures, as well as scientists and other educated examples to further demonstrate the absence of scientific evidence for black sub-humanity or separate species. He includes "mulattoes" and mixed-race people as proof of the inherent equality of the human races, too:

But to acknowledge the intellectual equality of mulattoes and Whites is inevitably to admit the equality of Blacks and Whites. Indeed, if the two races had any innately different intellectual abilities, it would be impossible to understand how the mulatto is endowed, not with an average intelligence but, to the contrary, with an intelligence equal to that of the supposedly superior genitor. So most anthropologists simply refuse to recognize the intellectual equality of the mulatto and the White man, an equality so positively proclaimed by the author of L’Espece humaine” (204).

Nevertheless, Firmin's important text, though not nearly as widely known as that of Gobineau's Inequality of the Races, predicts future 'Afrocentric' thoughts quite brilliantly with powerful quotations such as the following, “Besides, the honor of having invented the science of numbers and surface measurement does not belong to the White race. The origin of mathematics goes back to Black Egypt, the land of the Pharaohs” (168). On page 242, he suggests that the ancient Egyptians were of a red-brown, or brick-like color, quite common in Africa, whereas elsewhere he defends African religion as practical rationalism instead of the dominant European perception of Africa as a land of superstitious fetish worship and irrationality (342). He also conducted linguistic research, examined the flora and fauna of ancient Egypt, studied migration patterns, and analyzed sculptural depictions to place ancient Egypt firmly in the world of black history, something which fit into a vindicationist framework centered on Haiti as the rehabilitation of Africa and the African diaspora.Thus, despite some rather condescending or pro-European views of 19th century Africa, the text offers a powerful critique of white supremacy and stereotypes of Haiti, Africa, and the silliness of scientific racism since ancient Africa was the bedrock of many ideas that contributed to human development and civilization. In addition, his entire book calls into question the notion of black mental inferiority from positivist and philosophical grounds, proof of how there was a space for black intellectuals from Haiti to respond to the burgeoning field of scientific racism and Social Darwinism in the late 19th century. Indeed, though Firmin was educated in Haitian institutions, he utilized the inductive positivist approach to anthropology developed by Auguste de Comte as well as personally engaging with Francophone anthropologists and scientists in Paris who actively debated the merits of scientific racism in terms of cranial measurements and outdated theories of polygenesis versus monogesis (an important debate prior to the irrefutable discovery of early anatomically-modern humans in Africa) within the Societé d'Anthropologie de Paris, where the leading scientists of the day gathered.

As an early text of Pan-Africanist thought by a pioneer in anti-racist  anthropology and science, Firmin's text's ultimate strength lies in its relevance to today's world, since pseudoscientific racism has again arose in the works of Rushton, The Bell Curve, and the recent appearance of scientific racism over claims of genetic differences between native whites in the US and Latin American immigrants that causes the latter to have lower IQs, leading to the author to call for limited immigration due to what would arguably be innately inferior IQ scores. The ugliness of scientific racism, a scourge that grew exponentially in the late 18th century and fueled by Social Darwinism and European imperialism, requires strong critiques, and Firmin's classic text provides a great example, despite it being published in 1885. Although disturbing at times for his statements (such as the mulatto being more beautiful than both blacks and whites, or referring to Africa as a land fallen to barbarism), Firmin is mostly on point by doing what the earlier black writers of Haiti had established since the days of Henri Christophe and de Vastey, vindicating the sons and daughters of Africa at home and abroad through a combination of history, science, philosophy, anthropology, and the progression of ideas over time. The equality of the human races, therefore, lies in the equal potential to reach the noblest heights of human existence, and since natural selection and evolution made human 'races' unfixed, it would be foolish to elevate one race as permanently 'superior' to that of others.

Antenor Firmin Predicts the Rise of the US and Obama

"Appearances to the contrary, this big country is destined to strike the first blow against the theory of the inequality of the human races. Indeed, at this very moment, Blacks in the great federal republic have begun to play a prominent role in the politics of the various states of the American union. It seems quite possible that, in less than a century from now, a Black man might be called to head the government of Washington and manage the affairs of the most progressive country on earth, a country which will inevitably become, thanks to its agricultural and industrial production, the richest and most  powerful in the world. These are not utopian musings. We only have to consider  the increasing participation of Blacks in American society to cast aside our skepticism. Besides, we must remember that slavery in the United States was abolished only twenty years ago."