As things stand in Haiti, violent gangs may not only be given a formal role in government - they may become the government. With gangs seizing critical infrastructure and Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigning, Haiti is showing all the familiar hallmarks of a failed state. The people are left with a tragic choice: the continuation of the rule of a corrupt "democratic" elite or the direct rule of gangs who present themselves as "progressive".
With law and order collapsing, the Caribbean regional intergovernmental organization Caricom announced an agreement to create a transitional council to include a wide range of Haitian political and civil society groups. The council would have some powers that normally belong to the (vacant) office of the president, including the power to appoint an interim prime minister. That government would eventually be expected to hold elections, and thus a complete political reset.
But who will participate in these new arrangements? Haiti has been under a state of emergency since armed groups attacked the country's largest prison in early March, killing and wounding police and prison staff and nearly 4.000 inmates escaping. Gang leader Jimmy "Rostilj" Sherizije - himself a former police officer - took credit for the attack and called for the government to be overthrown. Gangs now control 80% of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, after seizing the country's main airport to block Henry's return from a diplomatic mission in Kenya, where he was seeking police reinforcements.
The CARICOM agreement excludes anyone with a criminal record or sanctions, which disqualifies Cherizou. But he has long been known to harbor political aspirations. He is no ordinary gang leader, but also a populist politician, who said in an interview in 2019: "I would never massacre people who belong to the same social class as me." Earlier this month, he announced: "We will not lie to people that this is peaceful revolution. This is not a peaceful revolution. We started a bloody revolution in the country."
Cherizie compares himself to Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and even Robin Hood. But at the same time, he is a devotee of "Papa Doc" Divalier, the right-wing dictator who ruled Haiti with an iron fist from 1957 to 1971 and also terrorized Haitian society with armed paramilitary groups, led by the infamous Tonton Makute.
In a warning issued late on the evening of March 11, Cherizie announced that the gang alliance called Viv Ansanm (Live Together) would not recognize any government emerging from the Karikom agreement, adding that "it is up to the Haitian people to choose the people who will lead the country." In a similar tone, an adviser to Guy Philippe, the leader of the Haitian rebels who recently returned to the country, warns that Port-au-Prince will be burned to the ground if there is no place for Philippe in the next government.
The story of Haiti is a protracted tragedy. For more than 200 years, Haiti was punished for the successful slave revolt (started in 1791) from which it was born as the first black republic in the world. Forced to pay reparations to France, its former colonial master, its only chance for prosperity came when Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Lavalas party took power decades ago. A thorn in America's side, Aristide was ousted in a 2004 coup.
However, Haiti is an extreme case of a wider phenomenon. Violent gangs control parts of cities in Ecuador and Mexico; a gang of supporters of outgoing US President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. Trump is now promising that one of his first official decisions, if re-elected, will be to pardon all those convicted of participating in the attack.
The Proud Boys are the strongest gang of all that organized the rebellion on January 6; an all-male, neo-fascist organization that openly promotes and participates in political violence. Let's remember how Trump, when asked what he would say to white supremacist and paramilitary groups, infamously exclaimed during the 2020 presidential debate: "Proud boys, stand down and be ready!" crimes against the United States for attempting to block the constitutional transfer of presidential power.
Interestingly, the Proud Boys have an initiation process that includes physical abuse, such as being beaten up for wrong answers to pop-culture questions, while members must "abstain from pornography." As strange as these rituals may sound, they are familiar mechanisms. Fraternal rituals play the role of poetry, as described by Ernst Jinger, an unwilling companion of the Nazis who, like the Proud Boys, celebrated the purifying effect of military combat: "Every struggle for power is preceded by the verification of images and iconoclasm." That's why we need poets - they initiate the overthrow, even of titans."
Failed states are no longer confined to remote parts of the global south. If we measure a state's failure by cracks in its power structure—that is, ideological civil strife, a parliament blocked by irreconcilable divisions, and increasingly insecure public spaces—we have to admit that France, the United Kingdom, and the United States are clearly on a spectrum. Norwegian political theorist Jon Elster was right when he wrote in 2020: "We can reverse the common phrase about the threat to democracy and say that democracy is a threat, at least in its short-term populist form." Recent experience offers clear signs of what will happen if Trump wins the presidential election in November.
It's a good time to paraphrase an old joke from East Germany: Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Trump have come to God and each has the right to ask him one question. The first asks Putin: "Tell me what will happen to Russia in the next few decades?" God answered him: "Russia will become a Chinese colony." Putin bowed his head and wept. Si asked the same question about China, and God replied, "China's economic miracle is over, and you will again have to impose a harsh dictatorship to survive, and you will ask Taiwan for help." Si bowed his head and wept. Finally, Trump asks God, "What will be the fate of America when I return to power?" God bows his head and weeps.
(Project Syndicate; Peščanik.net; translation: M. Jovanović)
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