The anti-dialectical signification of Erzulie Danthor and Bois Caiman of the Haitian Revolution. Issue 4 (1st October 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mocombe, Paul C.
• Is Part Of: African identities. Volume 14:Issue 4(2016)
• Page Start: 332
• Page End: 347
• Publication Date: 2016-10-01
• Subjects: African-Americanization -- Vodou -- religiosity -- black diaspora -- dialectical -- anti-dialectical -- Affranchis -- the spirit of communism -- Bois Caiman -- Haiti; National characteristics, African -- Periodicals; Africans -- Periodicals; African diaspora -- Periodicals; Africa -- Civilization -- Periodicals; 305.896
• DOI: 10.1080/14725843.2016.1143803
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1472-5843

Abstract

Abstract: This work focuses on how and why the purposive-rationality of the originating moments of the Haitian Revolution at Bois Caiman is an anti-dialectical, as opposed to a dialectical, movement against enslavement as offered by traditional interpretations of the Revolution. The author concludes that the intent, as reflected in Boukman's prayer, of the originating moments of the Haitian Revolution at Bwa Kayiman (Bois Caiman) was not for equality of opportunity, distribution, and recognition with whites by reproducing their norms and structure, as in the case of the Affranchis under the purposive-rationality of the mulatto elites and petit-bourgeois blacks, but for the reconstitution of a new world order or structuring structure 'enframed' by an African spiritual and linguistic community, Vodou and Kreyol, respectively, grounded in, and 'enframing, ' liberty and fraternity among blacks or death. In fact, the author posits that it is the infusion of the former worldview, liberal bourgeois Protestantism via the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism, on the island by the mulatto elites and petit-bourgeois free persons of color, Affranchis, looking to Canada, France, and America for equality of opportunity, distribution, and recognition that not only threatens Haiti and its practical consciousnesses, Vodou and Kreyol, contemporarily, but all life and civilizations on earth because of its dialectical economic growth and accumulative (neoliberal) logic within the finite space and resources of the earth.