Talk:Haiti

Talk:Haiti/archive1

Independence

Why do we have the year that France recognized the nation followed by the year that the United States recognized them? Isn't the idea just to list the year in which they were first recognized by another country? Zephyrprince 04:36, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

World's First Black Independent republic

Any evidence of this? Where's the citation for this claim? I was under the impression that Haiti as a whole was the world's first black independent republic, not just the southern portion ruled by Petion Stanley011 14:58, 5 May 2006 (UTC).

Jdlyall 04:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC) I agree here. The first declaration of independence in 1804 under Dessalines was called a republic. Dessalines later made himself emperor, which contributed to the disaffection among the other generals and ended with his assasination.

Jdlyall 05:11, 7 May 2006 (UTC)Working on cleaning up further down in the History section following the USA occupation. There is a lot of political bias in the existing text. A lot of anti-Mulatto bias as well. For instance, Dumarsais Estime is called 'first black president' by the previous author. I don't know how to flag *errors of fact* or *evidence of bias* or other things I've seen in the Pedia, but that certainly applies here. There were many black presidents before Estime. Haitians say "dark".

Coup d'Etat or uprising/rebellion

Jdlyall 04:44, 7 May 2006 (UTC) I have replaced the cited 'coup d'etat' with 'uprising'. The link to "coup d'etat" demonstrated that there was no "coup d'etat" as defined within Wikipedia; that is, by an arm of the state in dissension. This "coup d'etat" is being pushed in the info sphere by a political agenda with anonymous agents.

axgoss 01:40, 20 May 2006 I disagree. I understand that there is some vagueness around the arm of the state. However, The rest definition of coup matches the situation in Haiti almost perfectly in wikipedia:

"A coup d'état (pronounced /ku de'ta/), or simply a coup, is the sudden overthrow of a government through unconstitutional means by a part of the state establishment that mostly replaces just the top power figures. It may or may not be violent in nature. It is different from a revolution, which is staged by a larger group and radically changes the political system."...""A coup consists of the infiltration of a small but critical segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder." In this sense, use of military or other organized force is not the defining feature of a coup d'état."

-What happened in Haiti was "the sudden overthrow of a government through unconstitutional means". The 'uprising' was highly organized and was conducted by former generals of the Haitian state. This is the arm of the state in dissention. The President was removed and subsequently every other level of government was displaced. Basically wikipedia is saying that a coup is the removal of only a few key political leaders with the purpose of displacing government.

-furthermore the term 'uprising' is extremely vague in Wikipedia and refers you to the 'rebellion' page which says rebellion can be: non-violent resistance, resistance, revolution, insurgency, insurrection, revolt, mutiny, subversion OR even, get this, uprising. Of these terms the one that closest resembles the coup in Haiti is insurgency; however, all of the 'rebellion' spin-offs seem to refer to an attack against the state. This was clearly not the intent of the coup in Haiti as its sole purpose was to remove key political figures within the state apparatus and ended immediately after achieving that goal.

US 'Invasion'

Is this pulled straight from some US propaganda source, such as the CIA`s website on nations? I find the description of the appalling US invasion to be ludicrous in the extreme; even calling it simply "biased" doesn`t do it justice. This really needs to be re-written, badly. Wikipedia articles in general seem to have a habit of painting other nations` invasions accurately as imperialist expeditions, but when the US does it, suddenly evil acts become good, even though they are exactly identical in nature. This behaviour is irrational and should have no place in a supposedly non-biased encyclopedia. The paragraph talking about the US invasion of Haiti is just one bad, straightforward example among many. These weak attempts to whitewash acts of blatant imperialist aggression, murder, and theft are absolute nonsense, or at the least do not belong in an encyclopedic source. Leave that to US textbooks and "official" sources. -- Smyslov 7 June 2006

It is more than a bit lop-sided! --Lilidor 15:35, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

What's "appalling" about the US invasion? Haiti is, and always has been, a real swamp of dysfunction. The Americans have the sense to try to prop the place up when it gets too crazy. They know they'll never totally fix the place, but at least they can try to give it a smack on the head. 06:41, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I have a dear friend in Cap Haitian who gave me his perspective on U.S. occupation. During the last period of anarchy a few years ago, my friend and all he knew were in fear for their lives from bands of roving, politically fervent young men. The French were the first to 'invade'. Things improved somewhat but women in certain places in Haiti were in fear of the male French soldiers. When the Americans appeared or 'invaded', people could now travel, the roads were improved, badly needed supplies could be imported and even jobs were created in response to the US 'invasion. According to my friend, the presence of the Americans was greatly appreciated. Barbp 19:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be a determination to pretend the U.S. was not intent on crushing a popularly elected government and to avoid the nightmare of 'another Cuba' in the sense of a government not open to anything U.S. businesses might inflict. As it stands this account of Haiti's recent history is misleading in all it leaves out. A disappointing effort that by implication discredits other entries. Michaelstor (talk) 08:06, 26 January 2008 (UTC)Michaelstor, Jan 26, 2008.

Or could it be that there is a determination not to include unsourced point-of-view descriptions of historical events? The kind of thing that is acceptable if reliably sourced (unless given undue weight) are statements like "According to Chomsky, the American intervention was aimed at crushing a popularly elected government to avoid 'another Cuba'.^[12345]".  --Lambiam 19:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Caco?

Why do the search for caco redirect here?

"Cacos" were Haitians who fought against the occupying forces during the United States occupation of Haiti - Jwillbur 20:28, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Original "Cacos" were peasants who fought against General Sylvain Salnave in 1867. They captured and executed Salnave in 1870 near the DR border Hoserjoe 05:45, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Third Republic?

Does the Republic of Vermont, 1777 to 1791, qulaify as being the second republic after the United States, making Haiti the third? 64.4.235.79 11:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

World's only successful slave revolt??

I have deleted the quote "Haiti's revolution proved to be the only successful slave revolution in history" because its wrong. Who were the Hebrews in Egypt, the hundreds of independent communities of ex-slaves who escaped slavery in the colonies of the Americas or the Mamelukes who overthrew their Ottoman lords and established their rule in Egypt, to name a few notable examples? Do some reading before you make such assertions! Kemet 00:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe what they mean is the overthrow of their rulers and establish their own nation. The Hebrews left Egypt, and the Mamelukes did not rule all of the Ottoman Empire, they took a section of it, which was egypt. GreatChimp 11:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

It should be more clear then. Right now it says "and the only nation ever having a successful slave revolt" which is wrong. If what was meant was that the slaves were the first to establish their own nation, it should say that. Shadowoftime 22:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

You can't claim that the slave revolt was successful because Haiti is still a mess. It's a bigger mess now than before the revolt 06:38, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Second Independent Country in Americas

This is false. A more correct description would be 'second country that became independent following European colonisation'. Many countries (to use the word loosely) were independent beforehand....the Inca and Aztec civilisations are examples.--Phillip Fung 04:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I do agree but in history books, they would not really call them 'Nations' Caribbean1

Some Eurocentric textbooks might not consider them nations but it doesn't mean they aren't. Looking at Wikipedia's own Nation definition, the Incan and Aztec Empires were nations. Should we decide that we're going to make an exception for them and consider them non-nations just because there weren't white people in America yet? That doesn't sound look very good reasoning to me. In fact, I'd go further to say that the Incan and Aztec Empires had definite political structures and so are not just Nations but Nation-Sates and therefore most definitly countries. Shadowoftime 22:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Deleted sentence

"Actually, the venezuelan government led by Hugo Chávez, send humanitarian aid to Haiti for help him on a time of the hurricane success, and he promise to cooperate on the economy of the country." deleted from Aristide as it is poor English and has little relevance to the section. Lucaq 16:31, 26 August 2006 (UTC)lucaq

Least developed country in the Western hemisphere

What about Sierra Leone? Aren't they less developed?

Oui, but the term Western Hemisphere is more geopolitical term, not a geographical term.Caribbean1 17:37, 17 November 2006 (UTC)Caribbean1

I suppose "least developed country in the Americas" would be more accurate. - Jwillbur 20:13, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Hate-ee or High-ee-tee?

more like Hay-tee GreatChimp 11:56, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Hay-ee-tee is more it. CyberAnth 03:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[ha'i:,ti:]. —Nightstallion (?) 01:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget that H's are silent in French. Ah-ee-tee. Dan Carkner 04:15, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Wi, li ah-ee-tee nan kreyol ayisian. Barbp 19:54, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Heroes (TV series) has led me to look into this - the Collins Concise dictionary gives the pronunciation as either 'heiti or ha:'i:ti (hay-tee or ha-ee-tee). I'm English and I've always used the latter - can we have feedback on whether the former is US English and the latter UK English or otherwise? Wilymancunian (talk) 20:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed WikiProject

There is now a proposed WikiProject for the Caribbean area, including Haiti, at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Caribbean. Interested parties should add their names there so we can determine if there is enough interest to start such a project in earnest. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Eyes

I noticed alot of people from Haiti have this gorgeous slanted Asian eye shape. Are Haitians a mixture of Asians?

No, I am guessing they are descendents of the taino indians.

yvpal

Uh, lots of Africans have "this gorgeous slanted Asian eye shape". You have to get out more Hoserjoe 05:13, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Not too many asians in haiti however they do exist. Some haitians are believed to have some taino ancestry but it remains unproven... theoretically it is highly possible. Spyder00Boi 09:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Not appropriate

Someone has edited this page and after the text line concerning HIV infection and mortality has written in "and we are all happy". Someone needs to edit this page and remove that comment now.

Or you could come off your high horse and fix it yourself... 70.72.134.166 01:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Does the long peninsula to the southwest of the capital have a name?

Just wondering if anyone knows...--HisSpaceResearch 23:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

It's called the Tiburon Peninsula (le tiburon) by many sources but its usually referred to simply as the southern peninsula. Spyder00Boi 09:57, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

this had been vandalised, I cleaned it up

somebody had changed the heading of the section on Aristide to say "Aristide likes to eat poop". I deleted everything after his name in the heading, so it just says aristide now, somebody might want to lock this one for new accounts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Buhatkj (talk • contribs) 18:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC).

It has been vandalized again. I cut and paste what was inserted, something about 'power rangers' and other nonsense. I don't know what it is about Independent African peoples that makes some folks feel so insecure. Could someone clean up the statement by Aristide's picture?

"It presently reads like this:

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest,Aristide fought in a brutal war against the jedi and the jellybelly monsters, his only allies were the fiercesome power rangers first became President of Haiti in 1991. He would lead for three terms until he was deposed in 2004 in a violent revolt."

Much appreciation to the administration for their help. A fair and level playing field is only right when it comes to historical truths.

It's wikipedia... vandalism happens... 70.72.134.166 01:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Photos

Could someone who knows how please put some photos of haiti on this page, i couldnt help noticing there are photos of prominent people and plenty of maps but no photos of cities or countryside. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.4.74.65 (talk) 14:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC).

I never knew that Haitians had immigrants from northern europe. the only countries that i know have descendence from northern europe are Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and Chile.

The article documents numbers of Germans in Haiti 06:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Haitian Art

Haitians are very famous for their artistic capabilities, especially paintings,wood carvings and drum oil sculptures. Haitian paintings are collected all over the world; and they are in many museums permanent collections.

yvpal

Dominican Republic

Can this be cited? Was the DR really founded as a white-Catholic nation separate from Haiti?

"Following Christophe's death, the nation was reunited as the Republic of Haiti under Jean-Pierre Boyer, Petion's successor. Boyer liberated the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo and united the entire island under free Haitian rule, until 1844 when the Dominican Republic was formed as white-Catholic nation separate from Haiti for reasons of tax burdens(to pay the debt obtained from the independance of Haiti from France), discontent of the population after abuses of the Haitian army against the population and different language, culture and religion." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.17.73.227 (talk) 19:24, August 20, 2007 (UTC)

Demographics

This section seems to have a lot of personal opinions towards what should be stated. I believe it is enough to simply state "West African" seeing that is the region where most Haitians descend from. Another editor has seen it fit to state specific ethnic groups from West Africa believing it compatible with the rest of the info (mulatto and arab etc.). What do you ppl think about this. Spyder00Boi 18:30, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I know Haitians are descended from a number of ethnic groups from both West Africa and even elsewhere, but I think specifying a number of these would be of interest to many who want to learn about Haiti. I am surprised no mention is made on the list of the Fon group since they are the first people I would think of and this information is readily found elsewhere. Til Eulenspiegel 23:35, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I to would like to know the exact % of some of these so called diffrent races in haiti cause its funny how the cia website left those details out cause it says black 95% and white & mullatoe 5%. or maybe the person who edited the page is lying. anyways wheres the proof for the asian, arab and diffrent whites the demographic info is useless until otherwise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.62.56.197 (talk) 21:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Uh...the racial term "white" includes polish, french, german ancestry and etc. The racial term "mulatto" signifies "mixed". Are you not very comprehensive? And there are arabs in haiti with proof of that. Spyder00Boi 12:28, 05 January 2008 (UTC)

Lmao sweetheart i know that. where is the proof for the Asians? you know the sources? because like all other carribean countries they have sources from all over. yet you guys say haiti has asians.{not saying it isnt true} but where are the sources. see im diffrent spyderboi i like to see exact numbers instead of percentages. and it doesnt even show that.

Improper source

The source citation given for the "seven major groups" does not support the text at all: most of the groups on this list are not even mentioned in this supposed source, and vice versa. The easy solution is to remove the list plus the citation, and leave it at that – unless someone finds a reliable source with an authoritative list.  --Lambiam 19:24, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding list

Is it really warranted to list all the ethnic groups of West Africa when the term really defines them all? It seems a bit excessive dont you think so. If one wants to know the different ethnic groups in West Africa they can merely look it up on the respective article. Spyder00Boi 22:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

As Til Eulenspiegel noted above, there may be some legitimate interest in the major groups comprising the ancestors of Haiti's present black population, and there may be some value in illustrating the large diversity. There is also a relationship between the various vodoun "sects" and ancestral tribes. But I'm very much against including haphazardly collected lists. Let's not list any tribes, unless we have a truly reliable source (which the previous one was not). Furthermore, the natural place for such elaborations are the articles Demographics of Haiti and Saint-Domingue, much more than this one. Duplicating the same information across many articles makes it unnecessarily hard to maintain.  --Lambiam 23:59, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

"Haiti"/ Arcade Fire

As I understand it, Régine Chassagne is the daughter of Haitian refugees, and the band have generated a significant amount of money and publicity for Partners in Health on Haiti's behalf. I think, given how much they've done to raise the profile of Haiti, and how strongly associated with the country they've become, it might be worth mentioning them in this article. Not sure though, second opinions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.120.116.178 (talk) 00:18, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you'd want to write. Régine Chassagne has her own article on Wikipedia (as does Arcade Fire), and she is mentioned both in Haitian Canadians and List of Haitians. Most notable Haitians on that list (several of which are, in my opinion, at least as notable as R.C.) are not mentioned in the article.  --Lambiam 01:08, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

My thinking is that, independant of the actual music they make, they're strongly associated with the country itself. It's kind of their cause. They've found a lot of ways to publicise Partners In Health for their work in Haiti and make people aware of what's happening and what's happened there politically. I'd have considered them at least as worthy of mention as Wyclef Jean, for instance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.120.116.178 (talk) 23:33, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree thoroughly with the above. With all their efforts to raise awareness and funds concerning Haiti, and the relative brevity of the page, it could only be a positive thing to mention them. William Golder (talk) 16:53, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Although I'm still not sure what you'd want to write, this is Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit (as long as you keep to the Wikipedia policies). So be bold.  --Lambiam 22:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Haitian Media

Why isn't Haitian Media talked about? I would like to know the development of its media, TV, Radio and some statistics.

Language

This article needs more about Haiti's languages. Specifically, what are the relative positions of French and Haitian Creole in Haiti? How widespread is French? Does anyone in Haiti use it outside of government or business (i.e. speak it natively)? Is Creole used in government any? This article needs a language section, or at least a language subsection under demographics, to clear all this up.(Lexington1 01:36, 3 November 2007 (UTC))

Note: Moved what language info there is in this article from the culture section into its own subsection under Demographics and added a request for expansion. (Lexington1 02:00, 3 November 2007 (UTC))

Does Haiti have it's own dialect of French? If so, this needs to be mentioned in the article. Gringo300 02:01, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Statistics in the country infobox

The article has an {{Infobox Country}}, with a list of data, including several statistics. The data should be verifiable, which means it must be possible to ascribe them to reliable sources, just like all other information in our articles. For some groups of data this is done in a specific way. They have a parameter whose name ends with "_rank". These parameters result in links to specific articles that give the data for that group, with a proper ascription. For example, "population_estimate_rank = 85th" results in the text "(85th)" being displayed following the population estimate. This is a link to our article List of countries by population. There we find, indeed, that Haiti ranks 85th on a list of countries by population, based on the 2007 mid-year estimate by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs – Population Division. The 2007 population estimate from that report is given in the article: 9,598,000. This figure can be verified in Table A.2 of the UN report, which is online: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2006). "World Population Prospects, Table A.2" (PDF): p. 37-42. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

I have tried to adjust the data in the infobox to correspond with the properly sourced data from the articles serving to provide the sources for these figures. Unfortunately, other editors keep reverting to other values, such as the unsourced (and obsolete) 2005 population estimate 8,528,000.

Please don't revert again without giving an argument on these talk pages, and preferably, discuss the changes first, so that we may reach a consensus.  --Lambiam 03:48, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

• Dear editor: We value your input but Keyword = Population Prospect. It was an estimate that was formed before the year. We're about to be in 08 and the population is still not yet close to capping 9 million. The official stated population is still just about over 8 million maybe closer to 8.7 million. The 05 data isn't obsolete...the country didn't boom with a million new citizens in only 2 years. Spyder00Boi 08:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

  All these numbers are estimates, not accurate counts. An estimate can go up by a million without the population increasing. The official estimate for the number of citizens of Turkey recently went down by several millions, while the population is growing. Please remember, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. If you have reliable sources that give the 8.5 million figure, please cite them. Do not just change the number because you happen to believe it is "more correct".  --Lambiam 23:44, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

US Occupation

I removed one of the paragraphs dealing with the US occupation. It was heavily biased and POV. It did have one source, but as that was a US gov one, it's not really unbiased either.

As a counter to the romantic picture of marines trying to help backwards Hatians towards progress, here's an excerpt from the introduction to The Uses of Haiti (Introduction by Noam Chomsky). "Numerous U.S. interventions culminated in Woodrow's Wilson's invasion of Haiti, where his warriors... murdered and destroyed, reinstituted virtual slavery, dismantled the constitutional system because the backwards Haitians were unwilling to turn their country into a U.S. plantation, and established the National Guards that ran [the country] by violence and terror after the marines finally left." --Gyrcompass (talk) 22:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Haitian cuisine and "dirt cookies"

As you can read in our Geophagy article, the practice of eating "dirt cookies" is widespread and common, in particular among Africans and descendants of African slaves, and in these groups in particular among pregnant women, by way of medication or food additive (antacid) and nutritional supplement (iron, calcium), where the particular benefits depend on the type of clay (such as bentonite and kaolin). Such clay cookies are also sold in some health-food stores in the U.S. This is not at all specific to Haiti, and no more "cuisine" than the consumption of omega-3 pills among the affluent. The Haitian tradition of geophagy is a schoolbook example of the common practice as a dietary supplement. Resorting to eating these cookies not for health benefits but to fill an empty stomach is incidental and only highlights the lack of available food, in the Haitian case because of sky-rocketed food prices. Even so, this use is also not confined to Haiti; it is a common phenomenon in impoverished areas in such circumstances.  --Lambiam 22:40, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Clean up

Cleaning up this article has taken me about 10 minutes. Someone should have done it a lot sooner. Adam 04:18, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Further clean up is urgently required. The article is factually incorrect in a couple of places, it uses inflammatory language, and truly terrible grammar. I am specifically referring to the history section, which I only had time to edit about a third of. I will bookmark this and return to it when I have time but I suggest that anyone who has the time, a legitimate and factual reference, and a good understanding of English grammar and encyclopedic sentence style take a look and see what they can fix. Mike Dacre (talk) 05:23, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that this is a not very good translation from the French article fr:Haïti. We also have an article History of Haiti, and it is curious that the History section in the present article contains much detail not found in the main History article.  --Lambiam 19:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)