The Simulacra

Philip K. Dick's The Simulacra explores much of the same themes and tropes as his other novels of the 1960s. Prehistoric human species, time travel, intrigue, time travel, World War II, nuclear war, and the obsessive fixation on the real and the artificial drive this novel. While it seems like a typical PKD novel of the decade, the ending is less clear-cut than some of his other work. Furthermore, intrigue between various cartels and government departments in this totalitarian society (Matriarchal, and guided by the Magna Mater figure of Nicole) bring down the government and the population of the United States of Europe and America must confront "reality." This novel actually brought to mind a point from Jeremy Jenning's book on Sorel, in particular the distinction between artificial nature, artificial nature, and human knowledge of the world. If I remember correctly, Sorel's point was that experimentation to progress scientific knowledge was "artificial nature" because it reproduced "natural nature" but in controlled settings, shaped by human knowledge. Perhaps the distinction between the simulacra/ersatz world and that of actually-existing conditions in this 21st century dystopian novel point to the limitations of human reasoning to understand the difference, and social myths (such as the Great Mother figure and its mythic/archetypal connotations) as a basis for a post-apocalyptic government will end in ruin. Perhaps this is the limitations of social myth as a basis for metaphysics?

Contribution à l'histoire du mouvement syndical en Haïti: Janvier 1946-Novembre 1947

Due to my ongoing interest in the history of Haiti's labor movement and leftist social parties, I finally perused Contribution à l'histoire du mouvement syndical en Haïti: Janvier 1946-Novembre 1947 by Daniel Fignolé. Fignolé's self-aggrandizing account of his pivotal role in the formation of Haiti's first important (and officially recognized) labor unions in the aftermath of the 1946 revolution is fascinating because of his correspondence with various government officials and managers of companies where the staff were attempting to unionize. Unfortunately, without access to all of Fignolé's correspondence and his party's newspaper, Chantiers, there are several gaps in the narrative. For example, the role of the Parti Socialiste Populaire and its influence in the Fédération des Travailleurs Haitiens is downplayed while Fignolé plays up his leadership and skills in securing union rights for Haitian workers, job protections, and even "civilizing" the Haitian worker through his leisure centers for the Haitian urban working-class. Perhaps, unsurprisingly for Fignolé, one realizes how fundamentally condescending his view of the Haitian proletariat was, but one must admire his broadly social democratic vision and opposition to 'esclavagiste' politicians and companies.

In terms of HASCO and the labor force, it is of interest that the first formal union of HASCO employees emerged in 1946, even though an attempt was made in the 1930s. Moreover, Haitian canegrowers for HASCO organized and included a woman in their leadership, Rebecca Jean-Baptiste. From other sources I've read, I think HASCO, at least in its initial stages, recruited its labor force through native recruiters, but I have to locate more information about the labor force, the role of the independent sugarcane cultivators, and the impact of proletarianization in the Haitian countryside. My long-term research project, if I ever attain access to certain archives and documents, is to document the impact of HASCO, SHADA, Plantation Dauphin, and other companies on the Haitian peasant, the development of a "rural proletariat," and the role of unions and socialist parties. Fignolé is useful for providing some early context and correspondence, as well as the labor federation he dominated.

Krönungswalzer, op.133

I recently went through a jazz-waltz phase, and decided to go back to the 'roots' of the style. Of course, this entailed listening to more Strauss and other Vienna composers, in addition to the vast corpus of the classical genre's composers who used the waltz. Somehow, that led me eventually to Joseph Lanner, a key figure in the history of the waltz. There's something irredeemably uplifting and soulful about the waltz.

Bureau d'Ethnologie

While perusing old issues of Conjonction for articles on specific topics in Haitian literature and history, I came across the above image in an issue dedicated to Jean Price-Mars. Unfortunately, Jacques Roumain, a key figure in the Haitian ethnological movement's left, is not included, but it's fascinating to see some of the major figures involved with it together. One also sees how an interest in folklore and culture could align with any political orientation, as the examples of Price-Mars, Duvalier, and Roumain demonstrates. However, since Haitian anthropology has been a tool to combat racial inequality since the 19th century, a further examination of its impact on Haitian socialists, nationalists, and Duvalierists is necessary. Perhaps this will be the topic for a future post...

Testament

A fascinating and interesting video of Justin Castera speaking about the Duvalier dictatorship in the 1970s. Very educational and useful context for understanding what was going on in Haiti at the time as well as the activities of the Haitian Diaspora opposed to the dictatorship.

Notes sur le développement du mouvement syndical en Haïti

One of my current long-term interests is the historical and ideological foundations of radicalism, labor movements and socialism in Haiti. Although I still have a long way to go in terms of access to specific reading materials and primary sources, Notes sur le développement du mouvement syndical en Haïti, coauthored by Marxist historian Michel Hector (Jean-Jacques Doubout) and labor organizer Ulrick Joly, provides a succinct overview of the Haitian labor movement from its origins to the fall of l'Union Intersyndical d'Haiti (UIH) in 1963. While the authors have their biases as Marxist-Leninists and Joly's past in the UIH adds a personal dimension, this is an important overview of the Haitian labor movement and Duvalierism from a Haitian left perspective. 

Unfortunately, the study skips over most of the period prior to the US Occupation, and focuses for the most part on 1946-1963, covering the role of the 1946 revolution against Lescot, the brief period of democratic reforms and progressive labor laws, and then the repression of labor under Estime, Magloire, and Duvalier. While partial to the PSP, PEP, and PPLN parties, this study is more sympathetic to fignolisme and the MOP than Hector's major study of labor and socialism. Fignolisme combined charisma, social reformism, noirism, and demagogy with labor but was too limited to Port-au-Prince and its environs. The Federation of Haitian Workers (FTH in French) was more influenced by the PCH (Parti Communiste Haitien of the 1940s) and the PSP (Parti Socialiste Populaire). The other labor union federations were either phantom unions tied to the state or led by opportunists. The PSP sounds like the most coherent socialist political party with the most determined support for labor militancy and union democracy during this period (1946-1950). 

However, the main utility of this important work for me is detailed breakdown of affiliated unions with the UIH in the 1958-1963 period, when Duvalier finally cracked down on democratic labor unions. I once asked a Haitian academic about labor unions among the trieuses of the coffee sector in Haiti after reading that Jean-Jacques Dessalines Ambroise had helped organize workers in the industry, and this book gives the names of two specific unions of trieuses for Maison Madsen and Maison Vital plus their delegates to the UIH. Furthermore, the transformations in the Haitian economy during the 1950s and 1960s under US imperial capitalism helped explain why socialists and syndicalists were able to made impressive gains for labor as the number of companies employing vast numbers of workers increased, including rural areas with agro-industrial US companies and mining. Indeed, some of the strikes launched by regional peasant unions and rural proletarian unions, such as in the Nord-Est, involved thousands of people and were able to win concessions from the labor department of Duvalier into the early 1960s. 

Perhaps most useful, however, is the reflection of Joly and Hector on the weaknesses of the labor movement and internal flaws of UIH. Like economist Mats Lundahl, they point to the lack of a united front of the labor movement as the reason for its inability to defeat Duvalier, but they offer a more nuanced interpretation of the various historical actors and their role in the social totality. Like Lundahl, they acknowledge how the labor movement between 1946 and 1963 was too centered on Port-au-Prince and its environs, did not encompass the poor peasants, and was divided ideologically by fignolisme and socialist currents, but the UIH itself fell victim to economism and winning direct victories for affiliated unions instead of democratic political reforms. The pro-democratic forces were already divided, but by not actively encouraging support for it, UIH may have lost sight of the larger vision for democratic reforms to ensure protections for the growing number of unions affiliating with them. Moreover, the rise of regional federations or confederations of peasants and agricultural workers, partly tied to the political conflicts of 1956 and 1957, proved they were useful for labor organizing in the rural areas but UIH was probably not as proactive in connecting the urban working-class and countryside, despite the involvement of figures like Rodolphe Moise. 

In their defense, state repression placed limits on how much could be done, and despite their shortcomings, UIH supported literacy campaigns, a cultural center, a clinic, fought for the rights of Haitian migrant workers in the DR and Bahamas, and produced a party organ for political education. In short, the UIH, which was supported by PEP and PPLN, was perhaps lacking in a a concerted effort to promote democratic reforms to safeguard the gains of the labor movement while having to deal with an increasingly fascist regime which continued to pretend it was the natural supporter of workers. Moreover, while praising the unification of the PEP and PPLN for the formation of the PUCH by the end of the 1960s, perhaps Hector and Joly's defense of vanguardism may be a blindspot. Indeed, if fignolisme was characterized by the MOP's refusal to trust the Haitian masses with the decision making processes itself, and the UIH did indeed attempt to ensure affiliated unions and their rank and file were involved with democratic decisions of the organization, perhaps the vanguardism of the PSP and PUCH were closer to fignolisme and what Nicholls referred to as the technocratic character of Haitian socialists?

And what does one make of the paternalist mentality and belief in charismatic figures which supposedly characterizes pre-capitalist societies and helps explain, perhaps, the fatalism of the Haitian poor and working-class? Presumably, this fatalistic belief of the Haitian lower classes that a state or individual will save them is part of the same trope among other Haitian leftists that the Haitian people need to develop class consciousness as a class for itself, in itself, and take ownership of its own destiny (masters of the dew, perhaps?). Claude Souffrant once made a similar argument about the religious fatalism of the Haitian peasant. However, is it a just a strawman? Did the Haitian Left have its own CLR James or Joseph Edwards, Caribbean leftists who championed the self-activity of the workers and opposed state bureaucracy and vanguards? UIH came somewhat close to this by trying to stay accountable and include rank and file workers in the decision-making apparatus, but Joly and Hector never denounce vanguards. 

Orlando Patterson

I've been reading more authors across the ideological spectrum lately, and I find myself more and more intrigued by the works of Glenn Loury, Orlando Patterson, and even Thomas Sowell. While there's much to disagree with here and there with all of these scholars and commentators, I find Patterson's work interesting in terms of the culturalist and structuralist arguments about race, class, and inequality. Patterson, unlike conservatives, acknowledges the role of structure but argues for studying culture so as to prevent the right from dominating the discussion of culture's role in inequality and social stratification. I still have much to learn and read of Patterson, but this lecture is a good start for getting an idea of where he's coming from.