Thinking in Public

Faith, Secular Humanism, and Development in Jacques Roumain

Celucien L. Joseph

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781498203838
• eBook ISBN: 9781498203821
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Thinking in Public provides a probing and provocative meditation on the intellectual life and legacy of Jacques Roumain. As a work of intellectual history, the book investigates the intersections of religious ideas, secular humanism, and development within the framework of Roumain's public intellectualism and cultural criticism embodied in his prolific writings.The book provides a reconceptualization of Roumain's intellectual itineraries against the backdrop of two public spheres: a national public sphere (Haiti) and a transnational public sphere (the global world). Second, it remaps and reframes Roumain's intellectual circuits and his critical engagements within a wide range of intellectual traditions, cultural and political movements, and philosophical and religious systems. Third, the book argues that Roumain's perspective on religion, social development, and his critiques of religion in general and of institutionalized Christianity in particular were substantially influenced by a Marxist philosophy of history and secular humanist approach to faith and human progress.Finally, the book advances the idea that Roumain's concept of development is linked to the theories of democratic socialism, relational anthropology, distributive justice, and communitarianism. Ultimately, this work demonstrates that Roumain believed that only through effective human solidarity and collaboration can serious social transformation and real human emancipation take place.

Part I

Haiti’s Hope and Dilemma

Development Crisis and the Role of Religion

1

Global Thinking and Thinking Globally

Jacques Roumain within a Transnational Public Sphere and Context

On Friday, February 9, 2007, a group of distinguished Haitian writers, intellectuals, and professionals gathered in a memorable conference to celebrate the centennial birth of the Haitian intellectual, social critic, and the author of the classic novel in Francophone literature Gouverneurs de la rosée (Masters of the Dew), Jacques Roumain, who would have turned one hundred years old in June 4, 2007. Among the invited guests and the only survivals of Roumain’s generation were Max Vieux—the brother of the famous Haitian woman novelist Marie Vieux Chauvet who died in New York in June 19, 1973—and Max Sam; both were contemporaries, former friends and classmates of Jacques Roumain. Alongside the founder of the Haitian Communist Party, which Roumain established in 1934 at the culmination of the American occupation of Haiti (1915–34), Vieux and Sam remembered their collective struggle to create a democratic order and just society in their native land wherein all Haitians of all social classes and different backgrounds could live in peace and harmony as compatriots.

Vieux and Sam affirmed that “Jacques Roumain was an exceptional leader, who, unfortunately, has not been replaced. He was a friend, a leader for us; upon his return to the country in 1920, finding all of us dismayed under the heel of foreign occupation, it was he who was the first to show us how to fight against the Occupation.”70 The meeting was held in the conference room of the Haitian Ministre de la culture et de la communication. Presenters at the Conference delivered impressive speeches about the life, ideas, and legacy of Jacques Roumain. Max, Sam, and Carine Roumain, the only daughter born to Jacques Roumain and his wife Nicole Roumain, sat in the front row. Nicole Hibbert—her maiden name—is the daughter of the famous Haitian novelist Fernand Hibbert who was a member of the Génération de la Ronde and ancient secretary of l’Instruction publique under the presidential administration of Philippe Dartiguenave. Roumain and Nicole were married in December 29, 1929 in Port-au-Prince. The couple had two children: Daniel, his son was born in September 24, 1930 in Port-au-Prince, and his daughter Carine, was born in Brussell in April 4, 1937, during Roumain’s exilic years in Europe (1936–41).

Max Vieux and Max Sam acknowledged in public that Jacques Roumain was a model for the youth of his generation and Haitians in general who dreamed of a prosperous Haiti.71 In particular, for Sam, “Jacques Roumain is an irreplaceable model, and through his novel Masters of the Dew, which is a political program, Haiti is known around the world” (“Jacques Roumain est un modèle irremplaçable et, grâce à son roman Gouverneurs de la Rosée qui est un programme politique, Haïti est connu à travers le monde”72). On one hand, in a lamenting tone, both Vieux and Sam indicated that as “living testimonies of Jacques Roumain,” they could avow that their mentor had failed to form a government and manage to gather a great political party” (“Jacques Roumain qui n’a pas réussi à former un gouvernement, qui n’a pas réussi à réunir un grand parti politique”). On the other hand, Sam is convinced that if the Haitian people would have followed the program of Roumain’s novel Masters of the Dew, Haiti would not have been in its current state of misery. Sam hoped that the Haitian youth today would follow the footsteps of Jacques Roumain, who sought to show to the Haitian people the path of honor and dignity.73 Sam also indicated that we, his [Roumain’s] heirs, attempt to extend his memories and his vision of collective liberation and program of social development for the Haitian people, articulated in Masters of the New, by founding Le Parti socialiste populaire (The People’s Socialist Party). Daniel Élie, the Haitian minister of culture, who was also present in the conference, confessed the paramount importance and tremendous influence of Jacques Roumain on the country: “L’œuvre de Jacques Roumain est d’une importance capitale pour le pays.” Jean Julien complements that

En depit de toutes les difficultés et de tous les déboires de sa vie d’adulte, Jacques Roumain, ce nationaliste farouche, ce défenseur intraitable de la cause des pauvres et des opprimés, arme seulement de son intelligence, de son courage et de sa grande capacité de mobilisation et d’action n’a jamais cessé de penser, d’écrire et de se battre pour déclencher un sursaut, une prise de conscience collective et provoquer “l’établissement d’une nouvelle forme de pensée” chez tous les Haïtiens.74

[In spite of all the difficulties and all the setbacks of his adult life, Jacques Roumain, that fierce nationalist, this uncompromising defender of the cause of the poor and oppressed, is armed only with his intelligence, his courage and his great ability to mobilize and act, has never ceased to think, write and fight to trigger a burst, a collective awareness and cause: “the establishment of a new form of thinking” among all Haitians]

The overarching goal of this present chapter is to reconceptualize and reframe the works and ideas of Jacques Roumain within both hemispheric and international margins. The chapter presents Jacques Roumain as an individual who intentionally framed his works to reach a global audience beyond the geographical boundary of his native land. First, it sets the historical trajectories and socio-political contexts in which Roumain developed as a writer, thinker, social critic, and a public intellectual; toward this goal, the chapter establishes his early religious formation and eventually, his intellectual encounters with some of the most prodigious minds and works of the modern age.

Chapter 1 resituates Roumain’s public intellectualism and cultural criticim within the theoretical construct and global discourse of the idea of “public intellectual” and “social critic.” What does it then mean to think in public? What does it mean to be a public intellectual? The chapter attempts to articulate (hopefully) a satisfactory response by materializing the interplays between the public intellectual and the general and non-specialized public audience. The public life of the engaged intellectual is linked to the pertinent message he conveys to the public. In other words, the work of the public intellectual is significant and effective lest it is apropos to the public, and attends to the public need toward the common good.

Next, the chapter rereads the writings and ideas of Roumain within the public scene of the...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Préface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Between Two Worlds
• Part I: Haiti’s Hope and Dilemma
• Part II: Frontiers of Development
• Part III: Historical Documents, Correspondences, and Photographs
• Bibliography