Haiti, 500 Years of Suffering and Resistance: God, Where Are You?
By La Rédaction · Port-au-Prince
· 4 min read · Updated 24 April 2026
Translated from French — AI-assisted and reviewed by the editorial team. The French version is authoritative. Read the original · About our translation policy
For over five centuries, Haiti has walked through a valley of trials, chains, blood, and silence. The Haitian people, proud and resilient, have endured slavery, colonization, war, betrayals, humiliations, catastrophes, extreme poverty, constant violence, and abandonment by their own and by others. And today, after having snatched its independence at the cost of blood and fire, it is still there, disfigured, starving, held hostage. So, looking up at the sky, it asks an ancient and burning question:
God, where are you?
A History That Begins in Pain
Haiti's history does not begin in 1804. It begins with the extermination of the Taínos, the forgotten genocide. It continues with the transatlantic slave trade, the slave ships, the chains, the whip lashes, the plantations, the mutilations, the dehumanization.
Then came the revolution. Dessalines, Toussaint, Capois, Sanite Belair, and so many others. The fire, the fury, the victory. Haiti became free, independent, the world's first Black Republic. A miracle. A light in the darkness. But this light disturbed.
An Independence Dearly Paid For
From its birth, Haiti was isolated. It paid the price of its freedom. Literally. 150 million gold francs demanded by France to “compensate” colonists dispossessed of their slaves. A ransom for the honor of being free. A debt that bled the country for over a century.
Meanwhile, the world's powers turned a blind eye. And internally, power struggles, divisions, political assassinations, and betrayals took root.
A People Crucified on Their Own Land
Today, Haiti is a country without official war, but in a state of permanent war: war against hunger, against insecurity, against corruption, against gangs, against despair. Schools close, hospitals lack everything, young people flee, families mourn. Entire neighborhoods are left to the law of arms.
And while the people cry out, the elites get richer, politicians plot, institutions collapse. And the foreigner? They observe, they manipulate, they intervene as they please. Haiti becomes a laboratory of failure, a theater of geopolitical experiments, a playground for conflicting interests.
Like the Jews? Yes, but with a land without peace
The Jews experienced exile, pogroms, the Holocaust. They wandered without a homeland, rejected, scorned, until they found their land again. Haiti, however, has a land. But it is devastated, plundered, abandoned. This people has also been humiliated, scorned, rejected. They tried to silence it. They turned it into a caricature.
Haiti has become a people crucified on its own cross.
Why This Hatred? Why This Fate?
Because Haiti broke a historical curse. It proved that Black people could defeat empires, claim their humanity, write their own history. And this, neither the colonists, nor the empires, nor modern enslavers have ever truly forgiven.
Internally too, this hatred has infiltrated: self-hatred, betrayal by elites, contempt for the poor, deliberate fragmentation. A people divided to better stifle them.
So God? Where Are You?
The question spans generations.
God, where are you when we die of hunger? Where are you when our children flee or are killed? Where are you when bandits rule and the law is absent? Where are you when nations exploit us and our leaders sell our future? But perhaps God is there. Not in palaces, nor in empty speeches. But in the mother who feeds her child despite everything. In the farmer who cultivates his land even without fertilizer. In the teacher who teaches without salary. In the young person who still dreams. In the artist who sings of hope. In the people who, despite everything, resist. Haiti is not abandoned. It is in agony. But agony is not death. It is a transition. It is the moment of choice. To rise or disappear. To unite or sink. Perhaps God is waiting for Haiti to awaken, to reconcile with itself, to banish its Judases, to rise with faith, courage, and intelligence. And now? Haiti's destiny will not be decided at the UN, nor in Paris, nor in Washington. It will be decided here, among the sons and daughters of Dessalines. Those who will choose the path of sacrifice, unity, progress, respect for life. The real question may not be “God, where are you?” But “Haiti, where do you stand with God, with yourself, and with your destiny?” Haiti will be reborn. But that depends on us. Joseph Georges DUPERVAL
General Coordinator
BATON JENÈS LA
God, where are you when we die of hunger? Where are you when our children flee or are killed? Where are you when bandits rule and the law is absent? Where are you when nations exploit us and our leaders sell our future? But perhaps God is there. Not in palaces, nor in empty speeches. But in the mother who feeds her child despite everything. In the farmer who cultivates his land even without fertilizer. In the teacher who teaches without salary. In the young person who still dreams. In the artist who sings of hope. In the people who, despite everything, resist. Haiti is not abandoned. It is in agony. But agony is not death. It is a transition. It is the moment of choice. To rise or disappear. To unite or sink. Perhaps God is waiting for Haiti to awaken, to reconcile with itself, to banish its Judases, to rise with faith, courage, and intelligence. And now? Haiti's destiny will not be decided at the UN, nor in Paris, nor in Washington. It will be decided here, among the sons and daughters of Dessalines. Those who will choose the path of sacrifice, unity, progress, respect for life. The real question may not be “God, where are you?” But “Haiti, where do you stand with God, with yourself, and with your destiny?” Haiti will be reborn. But that depends on us. Joseph Georges DUPERVAL
General Coordinator
BATON JENÈS LA
