美国板块--被遗忘的海地

United States - Forgetting Haiti: The rest is history

美国板块--遗忘海地：众所皆知

Americans have forgotten how their government shaped Haiti

美国人已经忘记了他们的政府是如何影响海地的

“I’M PISSED,” said Representative Maxine Waters outside the Capitol on September 22nd.

“我很生气，”9月22日，众议员玛克辛·沃特斯在国会大厦外这样说道。

“What we witnessed was worse than what we witnessed in slavery.”

“我们所目睹的现象比奴隶制还可怕。”

Ms Waters was referring to images of Haitian migrants stalked by border agents on horseback in Del Rio, Texas, on the border with Mexico.

沃特斯女士指的是在德克萨斯州与墨西哥边境的德尔里奥，边境人员骑着马紧追海地移民的画面。

The agents appeared to be whipping them.

那些边境人员似乎在鞭打他们。

The NAACP, a civil-rights organisation, compared the photos to an overseer lashing his slave.

民权组织全国有色人种协进会(NAACP)将这些照片比作监督员鞭打他的奴隶一样。

Entertainment outlets invited historians—and the vice-president—to muse on the antebellum symbolism of the pictures.

娱乐性的媒体邀请历史学家和副总统来思考这些照片在南北战争前的象征意义。

The border agents, it later transpired, had not whipped anyone.

后来发现，边境人员并没有鞭打任何人。

But Edwidge Danticat, a Haitian-American novelist, had seen another parallel.

但海地裔美国小说家Edwidge Danticat却看到了另一个相似的例子。

The images, she told NPR, a public radio station, recalled scenes of forced labour during the American occupation of Haiti, when white marines, also on horseback, had towered over Haitians.

她告诉公共广播电台NPR，这些图片让人回想起美国占领海地期间强迫人民劳动的场景，当时同样骑在马背上的白人海军陆战队员比海地人高得多。

Unlike the slavery comparisons, these echoes were of a history few Americans know anything about.

与跟奴隶制的对比不同，这些遐想反映的是一段几乎没有美国人了解的历史。

Haiti once mattered to Americans. The revolution of 1791-1804 had seismic repercussions.

曾经海地对美国人很重要。1791-1804年的革命产生了翻天覆地的影响。

“All of the mightiest armies in the world were defeated by an army of enslaved people,” explains Michael Harriot of The Root, a magazine.

“世界上最强大的军队都被一群被奴役的人打败了，”《The Root》杂志的迈克尔·哈里奥特解释道。

The Haitians defeated the British, the Spanish and the French.

海地人打败了英国人、西班牙人和法国人。

For black folk and white abolitionists, the first black republic heralded the promise of freedom; for American slaveholders it brought fear.

对于黑人和白人废奴主义者来说，第一个黑人共和国代表的是自由的宣言；对美国奴隶主来说，它带来的是恐惧。

When France moved to blockade the new republic, President Jefferson joined in.

当法国采取行动封锁这个新共和国时，杰斐逊总统也加入了进来。

Duelling images of Haiti, both a beacon and a bother, competed in the public imagination for a century.

一个世纪以来，在公众的想象中，海地既像灯塔，又像麻烦。

In the 20th century America expanded its sphere of influence, and took an increasing interest in Haitian affairs.

20世纪，美国扩大了自己的势力范围，对海地事务插手越来越多。

It took Haiti’s gold reserves away on gunboats, then intervened to guarantee American banking interests.

它用炮艇抢走了海地的黄金储备，强行介入以确保美国银行的利益。

After the country’s president was assassinated in 1915, marines occupied Haiti for 19 years.

1915年海地总统遇刺后，美国海军陆战队占领该国长达19年之久。

The country was run much like the American South, with black people as second-class citizens.

他们对海地的治理方式很像美国南部，黑人是二等公民。

A photo of the resistance leader Charlemagne Péralte—Christ-like, spreadeagled on a cross—could have been snapped at a lynching back home.

一张像耶稣一样挂在十字架上的抵抗运动领袖Charlemagne Péralte的照片，可能是在家里被私刑处死时被拍下的。

Ms Danticat’s uncle once watched marines kick around a cut-off Haitian head.

Danticat女士的叔叔曾经看到海军陆战队员们把一颗砍下的海地人的头颅踢来踢去。

Later interventions were more subtle.

后来，美国的干预更加含蓄了。

America brought business opportunities to Haiti, but also backing for despotic dictators—namely the Duvaliers, from whom many Haitians fled between the 1950s and the 1980s.

美国给海地带来了商机，但同时也支持专制独裁者——也就是杜瓦利埃家族，许多海地人在20世纪50年代到80年代逃离了杜瓦利埃家族。

Subsequent American interference was viewed with suspicion.

美国随后的干预遭到了质疑。

In 2019 protesters sacrificed a pig outside the American embassy to show their contempt for the Trump administration’s support for the unpopular Jovenel Moise (the president backed by America until his assassination in July).

2019年，抗议者在美国大使馆外祭祀了一头猪，以表示他们对特朗普政府支持不受欢迎的若弗内尔·莫伊兹(7月被暗杀前，他一直受到美国政府的支持)的蔑视。

Legend has it that a pig was sacrificed by Haitian revolutionaries the week before the uprising.

据传说，海地革命者在起义前一周祭祀了一头猪。

But the Haitian equivalent of a re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party was lost on most Americans.

但大多数美国人对海地重演的波士顿倾茶事件并不感兴趣。

Some frame the current migrant crisis within the scope of American meddling.

一些人将当前的移民危机归咎于美国的干预。

Daniel Foote, the US special envoy to Haiti, resigned on September 22nd citing the “hubris” of constant interventions.

美国驻海地特使丹尼尔·富特于9月22日辞职，理由是不断干预海地是“傲慢”的。

Others consider it unhelpful or misguided to rake through centuries of historical wrongs.

另一些人则认为，回顾几个世纪以来的历史错误毫无益处，或者会引人误解。

America cannot be blamed for the devastating earthquake of 2010, for example, which drove many Haitians to South America (from where many of the most recent migrants arrived at the Texas border).

例如，不能因为2010年毁灭性的地震去指责美国，那次地震迫使许多海地人前往南美(近来许多移民从那里抵达德克萨斯州边境)。

But a country first has to know what it has done to understand whether it is responsible for the consequences.

但一个国家首先必须知道自己做了什么，才能明白自己是否要为后果负责。

Black Americans too have become too inward-looking, argues Ajamu Baraka of the Black Alliance for Peace.

黑人和平联盟的Ajamu Baraka认为，美国黑人也变得过于内向了。

Too often, expressions of solidarity are empty theatre, such as Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee’s visit to the Del Rio camp after it had been cleared.

多数情况下，象征团结的剧院都空空如也，比如国会女议员希拉·杰克逊·李(Sheila Jackson Lee)在德尔里奥难民营被清理后访问了那里。

In reality, the relationship between Haitian and black Americans at home is characterised by competition for jobs and livelihoods, not a shared admiration for Toussaint Louverture or Jean-Jacques Dessalines, explains George Wilson of the University of Miami.

迈阿密大学的乔治·威尔逊(George Wilson)解释说，事实上，海地人和美国黑人在国内的关系以竞争工作和生计为特征，而不是共同敬佩图森·卢维杜尔(Toussaint Louverture)或让-雅克·德萨林(Jean-Jacques Dessalines)。

In 1994, shortly before another American intervention, Joe Biden said that America would not notice if Haiti sank into the sea.

1994年，就在美国再次干涉海地之前不久，乔·拜登说，即便海地沉入海中，美国连看都不会看一眼。

When his comments resurfaced in response to the images of migrants deported to Haiti, hundreds voiced their disgust on social media.

当网络上出现移民被驱逐到海地的照片时，拜登的言论再次浮现，数百人在社交媒体上表达了他们的反感。

Meanwhile, a rally held on September 26th in downtown Chicago by a coalition of Haitian-American leaders attracted only a hundred people.

与此同时，9月26日在芝加哥市中心由海地裔美国领导人联盟举行的集会只吸引了100人。

Chicago’s founder, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, was a Haitian immigrant, whose name adorns schools, parks and, officially, the famous Lake Shore Drive expressway.

芝加哥的创始人让·巴蒂斯特·塞布尔角(Jean Baptiste Point du Sable)是一位海地移民，他的名字出现在学校、公园和著名的湖滨大道(Lake Shore Drive)高速公路上。

But not much has changed. Americans still don’t know about Haiti.

但这并没有带来多少改变。美国人仍然不了解海地。