In the Dominican Republic, work is underway to build a 160 km wall to prevent Haitians from entering the country. However, the Dominican economy is largely based on the contribution of cheap Haitian labor, most of whom are kept in a situation of illegality and perpetual precariousness by the authorities of Santo Domingo. Dominican dependence on Haitian labor is so real, moreover, that the wall in question is partly erected by workers of Haitian origin.
With the political and humanitarian crisis reaching proportions almost never seen in Haiti, the flow of migration has accelerated. These days, a good part of the elected officials, the media and the Dominican population speak squarely of an “invasion”. The term is heavy with meaning when you understand the complex and tense history between the two countries that share an island.
To summarize things very quickly: the Republic of Haiti unified the island for twenty years, following its independence, in particular to abolish slavery which was still rampant under the Spanish regime. The Dominican planters of course never digested living, in the 19e century, under a political regime supported by blacks who sought to relieve them of their “property”. The fear of a new Haitian invasion has since played a particularly critical role in the local political narrative.
Dominican nationalism was therefore notably built on what is known as “anti-Haitianism”, brought to its climax during the 30 years of Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship, between the 1930s and 1960s. over the decades an ideological narrative that deeply marks the imagination, according to which the nation would be characterized by its deep links with Europe, in opposition to a Haiti linked above all to its Africanity.
The myth justified, on the one hand, a migration policy long closed to non-Europeans, the cornerstone of a project of “whitewashing of the race” explicitly named as such during part of the 20th century.e century. On the other hand, it allows for a denial of the legacy of slavery in the Dominican Republic itself, and an association of any Afro-Dominican with Haitian origins. At times, there have even been organized massacres of civilians (rightly or wrongly perceived as being) of Haitian origin.
To be black in the Dominican Republic is therefore still often to be suspected of being Haitian, and therefore of having an illegal presence in the country, and therefore to suffer a very specific form of police harassment, which quickly leads to problems, especially if you don’t carry your national identity card with you at all times. The phenomenon increases or calms down, depending on the political context. Lately, the least we can say is that it is getting worse.
Last fall, Washington decided to denounce the situation. The United States has even officially recommended that its “dark-skinned” citizens avoid traveling to the Dominican Republic, citing the risks of being caught in anti-Haitian raids. The message was of course strongly denounced by the Caribbean country, whose economy is based in part on a tourist industry already weakened during the pandemic.
The American denunciation of anti-Haitianism was also received by several observers as a gesture of great hypocrisy. It’s because the Americans certainly don’t want Haitians either. If the Dominicans build a wall, moreover, one can suspect them of having been inspired by someone, somewhere. Somewhere in the United States.
Since last fall, US President Joe Biden has been pushing for Canada to take the lead in a military operation to “stabilize” the situation in Haiti. One would like to feel, somewhere deep within oneself, that this concern for the crisis in Port-au-Prince stems from a genuine humanitarian concern. But when it comes to US-Haitian relations, naivety is not an option. Washington’s “national interest” for Haiti is the migration issue. The best way to turn back Haitian asylum seekers once and for all is to ask an ally to “settle the problem at the source”.
Just as it is partly hypocritical for Americans to denounce Dominican anti-Haitianism, we are equally misplaced, from Canada, to point the finger at the poor treatment of Haitian asylum seekers in the United States.
This week in particular, there are comments in the public space about Roxham Road that are bloodcurdling inhumanity. The question of passage is of course broader than the Haitian question alone. But if the path has become such a strong political symbol in Quebec in 2017, it is in particular because Haitians took it to flee Trump’s policies. The total insensitivity of good taste these days is all the more staggering when we know that, just last weekend, we celebrated the funeral of Fritznel Richard, who died alone in the cold on January 4 in near Roxham Road.
It seems that we are losing sight, at the start of the year, of a fundamental truth: the difference between these “good citizens” who would not like us to “do too much” for others and asylum seekers , it is not virtue, nor work ethic, nor intelligence, nor any other merit. The difference in the human condition finds its source in the lottery of birth, which allows some to start their life on the “good side” of the borders and others not. Point.
While the public debate wanders, part of the Haitian population must choose between the plague and cholera. We can expose ourselves to cholera – far from being metaphorical – which has been on the rise in Port-au-Prince since the fall. Or being treated like the plague by one country, then another, then another, in the hope of finding somewhere perhaps a little security.