You're So Vain:A 10-Minute History of Haiti

If reader email and misguided public graffiti is to be taken as any indication, all the hullabaloo and carryings-on in Haiti lately have left most Americans feeling like they just walked in during the middle of a bad action movie with no idea why these strange people are shooting each other. Is it good? Is it bad? If they make it into a movie will they be able to put Tom Sizemore in blackface? Slow down with the questions, anxious readers, I'm only half-listening.

The history of Haiti is a fascinating story with plenty of R-rated action and a weak love interest subplot to please the ladies in the audience, the story of a country that Earl Dittman of Wireless magazine called "Heaven on earth. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll laugh at all the people crying." Though if you only like stories where the good guys win in the end, you might want to read about Germany instead. I won't hold it against you.

Haiti started out as a big tropical ball of fun whose main exports were beach volleyball and smiling people. Things stayed pretty much the same until 1492, when Christopher Columbus cruised up in his boat and hopped out to take a piss. Columbus had this weird thing about not pissing in the ocean, because he figured eventually it's all part of the water cycle and he didn't like drinking piss. So needless to say, all of Columbus' voyages took forever because he was constantly stopping off at every island along the way that looked like it might be an okay place to take a leak.

But what might have been an inconsequential pit stop in the annals of history turned into much more than that when Columbus looked around and realized he was pissing on a tropical paradise. Lush and beautiful, 13th century Haiti (then known as "here") was something of a Garden of Eden, populated by natives Columbus described as "the best people in the world. Just really fucking nice." Loving, agreeable and above all trusting, the native Taino ("We live here") people didn't even mind that Columbus was pissing on their beach.

Columbus was so impressed with the natives and the beautiful island that he returned in 1493 and killed nearly everyone there. Those who managed to hide under rocks through the Spanish invasion and genocide heaved a collective sigh of relief when the French took over in 1697, a tactical mistake since the sighers were found out, tortured, and killed under the equal tyranny of French rule. By then it mattered little, however, since the population at that time was made up mainly of slaves imported from western Africa to work on the island's plantations.

A slave rebellion in the 1790's eventually lead to Haitian independence, which survived through multiple coups, assassinations and general bastardry until 1915, when the US decided to put the Haitians out of their misery by occupying the country and keeping the profits for themselves. Despite the fact that the US pretended to leave in 1934, not much changed in the next sixty years, with one US-supported insane bastard after another controlling the country and killing everyone who looked like they thought the system sucked.

Numerous attempts at free elections occurred during the 1980's, each falling just short of success due to the fact that anyone attempting to vote was shot dead by the army. Haiti made People Magazine's prestigious "100 Most Hellish Places" list for the first time in 1982, coming in just behind North Korea and "that pollutiony town from The Lorax."

Despite the US spin that "everything was cool" in Haiti and the production of placating educational films with titles like Rockin' in the Nineteen Haitis, rebellion continued as Haitians stubbornly insisted on crawling out from under the crushing boot heel of Western occupation. By 1990, Haiti had decided they would no longer model their elections on the example of the US South circa 1954, and finally succeeded in electing a president who wasn't killed during Election Day. Parish priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide was the surprise winner, despite his support for the poor and lack of US permission to be president.

The US acted quickly in response to Aristide's election, revealing that the 1972 Carly Simon hit "You're So Vain" was actually a biting critique of the self-absorbed Catholic priest. Unfortunately for the US efforts aimed at discrediting Aristide, nobody in Haiti could understand the song because it was in English, and a French-language version of the song was scrapped because it sounded really fruity.

Failing at ousting the elected Haitian ruler through song, the US resorted to its old tricks, backing a military coup to have Aristide removed from power in 1991. Despite seven months of freedom and representative government, Haitians had to wonder if it was all worth it when everyone who'd voted for Aristide was killed after the president's fall in 1991. The coup regime was so nasty, in fact, that it inspired an international embargo so strict it allowed only US companies to do business with Haiti thereafter, resulting in record profits for US interests.

US businesses had long been attracted to Haiti because of ridiculously low wages, thanks to Haiti's brilliant ploy of not paying workers anything, instead just sending thugs to collect money from anyone who didn't work in the whoopie cushion or dog bowl factories. Haiti became basically one big magic company, cranking out baseballs, rubber snakes, and those little plastic donkey toys that collapse when you press the button on the bottom, all virtually for free. Those annoying "I exploited impoverished workers in Haiti and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" shirts became very popular among the elite and were seen on golf courses across America all through the 80's and 90's.

Eventually the coup regime got too insane, declaring Tuesdays as "shoot everybody" day, and the US decided to install Aristide back in power, as long as he didn't have a problem with continuing US military occupation of Haiti or unending economic exploitation. Aristide was happy just to see the sun again, as he'd spent the last three years in a lead box dangling over the ocean.

So what in the hell is going on now? Why are all these guys running around with machine guns and funny hats? Apparently Aristide pulled the boner move of increasing Haiti's minimum wage, building schools and investing in the Haitian infrastructure and agriculture. Such hubris had pissed off the Bush administration for years, leading this month to another US-supported coup and the covered-up kidnapping of Aristide himself.

So now that the insane coup regime is back in power, where does Haiti go from here? Yikes, don't ask me. Just don't go to Haiti on a Tuesday and you should be fine.

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