POLITICS, GANGS, AND VODOU

A history of Haiti’s long struggle for freedom and civil society.

Milien begins his study of Haiti’s troubled past on a personal note—he recalls putting on his best clothes and attempting to participate in his native land’s first free democratic election in decades, only to have the day dissolve into the infamous violence of the Ruelle Vaillant massacre of 1987. That event led the author to ask one essential question: Why must democracy cost so much in blood? Milien provides a comprehensive tour of Haiti’s past, including its long tenure as a colonial possession worked by African slaves, followed by the 1804 revolution (“which created the world’s first Black republic but also provoked isolation and punishment from the global powers of the time”), the U.S. occupation from 1915 to 1934, the Duvalier dictatorship, and the poverty and turmoil of recent years after the nominal establishment of democracy in 1994. Key inflection points are fleshed out, perhaps most crucially the end of the Duvalier dictatorship, when Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier fled into exile in France. “He took with him millions in stolen state funds and left behind a broken country,” Milien writes, “bruised, impoverished, and desperate for change.” Alongside all these events, the author traces the spiritual practice of vodou, which he points out is usually badly misunderstood outside Haitian society. “To understand Haiti’s democratic struggle, one must understand vodou,” he contends, “not as folklore but as a living force of cultural identity.” He concludes his treatment with a series of prescriptions for Haiti’s future.

Milien’s prose is engaging and unadorned, mostly at the cost of granular detail; no matter what period of Haiti’s history the author addresses, many far more in-depth studies are available to readers wanting more information (the book’s References section isn’t extensive, but it’s a good place to start). The narrative’s greatest strength by far is not historical rigor but rather the evocation of the kind of spiritual resistance the author attributes to vodou. Milien returns regularly to the philosophical underpinnings of national rebirth, applying these precepts to the steps Haiti would need to take in order to strengthen its chances for a brighter future. “What Haiti needs is a moral awakening—a transformation that touches not just laws but lives,” Milien writes. “A return to conscience. A resurrection of the spirit.” He outlines the social pillars that are essential to a working free country, laying out ideas about reforming tax codes, improving schooling, and changing the role of the media, which “must not simply report what is—it must illuminate what could be,” the author writes. “In a land often flooded with bad news, journalism must become a lantern, not just a mirror.” Readers coming to the book hoping for a more in-depth history of Haiti’s history might find the ideological emphasis a bit disappointing, but the defiant optimism Milien expresses about his country’s future—his strong belief that “no obstacle is insurmountable” if the country stays true to its own aspirational past—is the book’s most memorable element.

A spiritual and uplifting look at how Haiti can build on its troubled past to build a brighter future.