Horner's Corner

“There is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism.”
— Walter Benjamin (and see also here for more on Benjamin’s ideas about history and meaning)

 

“That whenever any form of government…”

In essence, it argues that the American people have a right to make up a new form of government, of whatever sort they like, any time the old forms of government seem like they aren’t working. Needless to say, this is an incredibly bold and incredibly dangerous proposition to put forth. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the document, was — along with his colleagues — perfectly aware that he was opening a massive can of worms with this principle of revolution and self-rule.

More at:
The Smart Set: Independent Streak

Some Second Thoughts

Americans do love their founding fathers, and their founding documents. And they publish lots of books and articles about them, like the one above. And with reason.

But..

I’m reminded of the remark to the effect that all the documents of civilisation are also documents of barbarism.

The Declaration of Independence is an inspiring document, with its roots in the radicalism of English revolution -Locke, The Putney Debates and so on -and with the ability to stir thoughts of resistance to our current masters (whether American, British or whoever..)

But it’s also a bit of cover – ideology – that suited people who wanted retrospective justification for insurgent militias who had killed Crown troops. They also wanted ‘Indian’ land, not to pay taxes for a war they had done well out of, AND of course,  they wanted to keep their slaves. What injustices had these prosperous white men put up with, compared to the death and oppression they were intending to unleash on certain unlucky others?

Truly, the document has many meanings!

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival….

Frederick Douglass, 1852

 

The Bois Caiman, August 14th 1791: the gathering of the Haitian slaves at the ceremony that marked the beginning of the Haitian Revolution.

Inspired by the tall figure of Boukman (a slave who could read? = bookman?) the slaves struck for freedom – and won, in the first great successful slave uprising. Armies sent against them were all defeated: when French troops were sent against them under Napoleon the Haitians sang La Marseillaise to tell their opponents that they were on the wrong side. The black slaves freed themselves under Toussaint L’Ouverture, and others – making the principles of revolutionary freedom truly universal as nothing else could.  Overthrowing Kings and Slave owners was only the start. Those principles amount to more than being ruled by elites, who deign sometimes to have their rule over us ceremonially reaffirmed in elections.  What came to be known as the  ‘Tennis Court Oath’ – when the ‘Third Estate’ (the commoners) swore an oath not to allow themselves to be dissolved until they had forged a free constitution for the French people – shares its world-historical importance with the uprising in Haiti. [1]

 

The Tennis Court Oath 1789: the assembly of the representatives of the French people refuse to be dissolved by the King.

What was  the true beginning of the French Revolution? for more on the events discussed here, see CLR James The Black Jacobins (the history of the Haitian revolution) and Susan Buck-Morss Hegel, Haiti and Universal History (for the philosophical significance). James’ book was a pioneering work of black history while Buck-Morss’ is a new (2009), erudite yet concise intervention.  It’s a significant book in that it draws together the kinds of ideas in implicit in this post, and takes the discussion onto a whole other level. I don’t agree with everything she says in the book but was very glad I’d read it. I’ll never think about slavery,  or the ‘Age of Revolution’ the same way again.

We must fight the tendency to think of events like the Haitian revolution as ‘off shoots’ or mere side effects of the real action in Europe or North America. The Haitian revolution had a powerful  impact on Europeans of the day (including Hegel: Buck-Morss argues  that he must have been aware of the events across the Atlantic, and that he developed his ‘master -slave’ dialectic  with that revolution in mind).

Haiti is a poor country, and it is one that has lately been pulverised by an earthquake. But it is more than the basket case of the metropolitan imaginary: it stands for something inspiring in the history of the struggle for human emancipation. Where Haiti led, others followed.

 [1] For more on the contemporary signficance of these issues, see Slavoj Zizek’s First as Tragedy, Then as Farce (2009)