In An inside stranger, the author Sarah Martinez retraces the journey of the historian and activist of Haitian origin Frantz Voltaire, from his childhood in the colorful post-war Port-au-Prince to his most recent battles in favor of the social justice, in Quebec as in Haiti.
These stories of an adventurous life of commitment are fascinating, especially when it comes to the initiatory journey undertaken by Voltaire, in his twenties, to understand the history of the Americas and slavery or even his years of training in Chile in the run-up to the 1973 coup. But their deployment was sometimes rough.
In this regard, it would have been possible to redact the text of its numerous repetitions without affecting the rhythm of the orality which characterizes it. That said, repetition proves at times useful to create benchmarks in the profusion of the characters evoked.
Among other things, An inside stranger reveals the close links maintained from the beginning of the twentieth century by Haiti with French-speaking Quebec, but also, for a longer time, with Cuba. In fact, nearly 800,000 descendants of Haitians now live in the region of Santiago.
With the dictatorship of the father and son Duvalier (1957-1986), a new episode of wandering and exile began for Haitian society. From the 1960s, Montreal became the main point of contact for the diaspora. It is among other things to bring together memories scattered to the four winds that Frantz Voltaire founded in 1983 the International Center for Haitian, Caribbean and African-Canadian Documentation and Information (CIDIHCA). Through the publication of books, the organization of conferences and the presentation of thematic exhibitions in public places, CIDIHCA creates an original link between university research and community action, here as elsewhere.
The wandering society portrayed by Frantz Voltair is reminiscent of a gigantic family whose branches span all continents, which is reminiscent of the tight knit aspect of French-Canadian society in the past. This dense tangle of individual trajectories is sometimes dizzying. Thus, the history of Haiti, the history of its diaspora and the history of Quebec, although distinct, merge, with all due respect to the conservative and nationalist movements whose deadly ideal of homogeneity is sharply attacked by the historian.
Almost 40 years after his arrival as a political refugee, Frantz Voltaire believes rather that the future of Quebec depends on the ability of the province to make its cosmopolitan metropolis coexist with its regions. “In the world of tomorrow, Montreal could be this flagship city where men and women of all origins live in peace in a world threatened by violence, terrorism, racism and war. Montreal […] could be this mirror city of humanity, a multilingual, multireligious and multiethnic city. “