On the necessity of building a collective memory in Haiti!

In Haitian academic circles, the fundamental question of the necessity of restoring a collective Haitian memory always resurfaces. This debate is gaining momentum in the current context, particularly due to problems hindering the construction and affirmation of a Haitian identity, the inability to position itself in relation to other nations and, ultimately, the difficulties encountered in guiding the country towards common goals. Faced with this increasingly pressing necessity and need to unite and tell their story together, the selection of what should be retained for transmission to current and future generations raises an important question: does a collective memory exist in Haiti? If it does not exist, what prevents its construction and narration? Marie-Claire Lavabre, in her text titled « collective memory between sociology of memory and sociology of recollections? », offers a definition of memory that opens a perspective on an important duality fueling discursive circles. She emphasizes that « memory, understood in its 'collective' dimension, sometimes refers to recollections or representations of the past that individuals, linked by a common experience, carry ». The contradictions arising from this definition rekindle an interminable debate on the primacy of individual memory as the initiator of collective memory, or the primacy of collective memory as the basis for constructing individual memory. Jefferey Andrew Barash, analyzing Paul Ricœur's work: « Memory, History, Forgetting », draws attention to the fact that memory is deeply linked to the original sphere of the person before expanding and participating in the construction of a collective memory that extends to communities. This gives memory a fundamental role in the construction first of a personal identity, then of a collective identity. This conception of memory aligns with Locke's vision. Memory is thus posited as a self-experience that goes back as far as our consciousness can reach into the past, and it is from the discovery of different moments and actions of the past that each person constructs their personal unity and identifies themselves in the present. However, this vision of individual memory and individual identity poses a problem, because society and/or communities cannot be conceived as an assemblage of individual memories. This « social atomism », despite the contractual links that can unite individuals within the social framework, does not allow for the birth of a collective memory, specifically due to the complexity of the relationships that contribute to the dynamic of communities. On this subject, Paul Ricoeur refuses to reduce individual memory to a collective source, as Maurice Halbwachs suggests in « The Social Frameworks of Memory and Collective Memory ». His thought, to transcend individual experiences and lead to a collective memory, relies on Husserl's phenomenology, which establishes the possibility of « understanding others » based on an analogy that allows one to grasp the other by referring to « one's own ego ». This approach, based on a logic of assimilation, invites a projection that allows one to « constitute the other within myself ». Husserl, relying on the experience of « other non-egos in the form of other egos », avoids the trap of limiting oneself to this simplistic vision of « a plurality of isolated others ». This plurality, even before being expressed, « already presents itself within me as a community ». This way of conceiving the common breaks with any logic of assembling individual memories and allows for the construction of the social cohesion necessary for the advent of collective well-being. Has this collective memory, conceived as a common experience and historical selectivity commanded by the present to serve community interests, ever existed in Haiti? Current memory claims lead us to consider two historical moments that reflect this ambiguity linked to a unitary memory in the Haitian space. The first moment extends over the entire colonial period, while the second extends from independence to today, despite the appearance of new actors, particularly Syro-Lebanese and Arab groups, around the mid-19th century, as Michel Rolph Trouillot highlights in his book « The Historical Roots of the Duvalierist State…» The different groups that made up Saint-Domingue society were always in contradiction. The diversity of their origins as well as inequalities did not allow for the construction of a collective memory. The impossibility of constituting a common narrative was fueled by these contradictions until it exploded in 1804. The construction of a hierarchy based essentially on epidermal criteria, which made the white person the main actor of history and other groups mere extras, did nothing to help build a common narrative…. LEPS le MAGnifik
Lionel Édouard