In The World Is Moving Around Me, Daniel Laferrier uses culture as a reference point throughout his memoir as he navigates the wreckage and tragedy in Haiti after the Earthquake. Culture frames the memoir from its beginning, as a literary festival sets the backdrop of the book, both in the first vignette and the memoir’s foreword. Significantly, Michaelle Jean makes a direct reference to the chapter titled Culture, as to “what the value of culture is, when faced with such suffering. ‘When everything else collapses, culture remains’ In Haiti, nothing is truer” (11). Despite the country’s struggles over “natural and man made misfortunes” (Ousselin), the Haitian people have maintained a rich cultural history: “people are still looking for the reason behind the high concentration of artists in such a small space (14).
In fact, Laferrier boldly states that: “Culture is the only thing that can stand up to the earthquake” (288). At least, this is his offering of hope in the chaos his beloved country has been thrown into. However, one Haitian cultural heritage site, a family burial ground where many ancestors (and several of the country’s artists) are buried, was a place that was not as effected by the Earthquake as other parts of the country were. In the town of Petionville, outside of and overlooking Port-au-Prince, this burial ground “was crowded with brightly painted mausoleums decked out with metal flower wreaths,” where “a cross to Baron Samedi, the voodoo spirit of death, stood in a corner where people would bring him coffee and cigarettes in exchange for a favor” (Stebler).
This site of cultural, ancestral importance that overlooked the shattered Port-au-Prince was demolished only five months after the earthquake in order to make a way for a paved, concrete bus station. On location, Stebler states “people were at a loss as to how to stop the demolition, if they even knew about it. Some Friends and I went up onto the rubble to look for small remnants of this sacred place….We photographed anything that might bear witness: tiny things, tragic things, bones, clothing, a shoe, part of a coffin were strewed in with the overwhelming rubble.” One resident, who was notified about the demolition before most of the graveyard was gone, “rushed to the cemetery and retrieved the bones of her brother Stivenson Maglorie, and her mother Louisiana St. Flourant, the god-mother of the Saint-Soleil movement in Haitian Art” (Stebler).
The photographs are evocative and “stand as evidence of what has gone wrong and stand as indictments of a grim declaration that dismisses the history and culture of an already-beleaguered Haitian people” (Stebler). For myself, the photographs are similar to the style of Laferriere’s writing; picking up the bits and pieces of what remains, and trying process reality after-the-fact. This is also a testament to something quite sad, that the municipal government of this town would act in such a disrespectful manner, insensitive of the residents’ need to preserve their culture in the face of “natural and man-made misfortunes.”
Laferriere, Dany. Trans. Homel, David. The World Is Moving Around Me: A Memoir of the Haitian Earthquake. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2013. Ebook.
NB: Page numbers to Laferriere’s text will be slightly different because of the text’s medium of publication
Ousselin, Edward. “The World Is Moving Around Me: A Memoir of the Haiti Earthquake by Dany Laferrière.” World Literature Today. University of Oklahoma, May 2013. Online.
Steber, Maggie. “A Second Death in a Haitian Cemetery.” Lens: Photography, Video, and Visual Journalism. The New York Times, 18 May 2010. Online.
I think it’s interesting how Laferriere frames the equation as “natural disaster, buildings crumble, but culture remains.” Yet you point out that culture itself is shifting – and, in that, difficult to define. Although the gravesite has plenty of cultural heritage, is the paved road culturally destructive or transformative? While the site will no longer serve as a site of exchange, it becomes a part of a greater transformation of logistical connectivity by Haitians through such transport hubs.
Although I’m hardly making the argument of “out with the old, in with the new.” It’s a fine balance game, though, this game of time and culture. Laferriere’s generation dealt with the dictatorship; his nephew will deal with the earthquake and the tearing down of such heritage sites for “progress.”