ABOLITION
EVERYDAY SH!T: THE PILOT ISSUE
Content Notice: settler colonialism, state violence, gun violence, military occupation, anti-blackness,
Photo Still from the documentary “The Fight for Haiti” directed by Etant Dupain
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“We need to confront our disagreements and heal the connections because one of the biggest things that white supremacy has done to people in places like Haiti and Philadelphia is to separate us.”—James Beltis
Haitian neighborhoods have been under siege for the last few years, killing hundreds and displacing thousands. Under the advisement of the U.S.-backed PHTK government’s disarmament efforts, several gangs formed a federation and have since become increasingly empowered, gaining territory by capturing police precincts, burning down neighborhoods, engaging in kidnappings, and other forms of violence. These violent acts became more and more prevalent around 2018, primarily targeting working-class neighborhoods, when massive protests broke out around the country after a senatorial commission reported that the PHTK government had stolen Petro Caribe1 funds, eventually bringing this movement to a halt.
I talked with James Beltis, an organizer who has been at the forefront of some of the social movements in Haiti over the last few years. He has a great way of breaking down what’s happening and helping us focus on what’s essential.
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Talie: James, I wanted to have this talk with you so we can connect and reflect on the movements we’ve been witnessing or participating in in Haiti and Philadelphia. The theme for this issue is “everyday shit.” And I’m thinking, in the context of this discussion, what are the mundane daily things in our lives that can build solidarity and revolution? And what do those things mean for us who are in two places (me in Philly, and you in Haiti) that have seen a significant amount of revolutionary action in the last few years, but have both arrived at a wall of sorts? I think movements in both places have hit a wall. I don’t know if you also see it that way.James: That’s clear.
Talie: But first, I just want to ask you—how are you doing?
James: Well, as any Haitian living in Haiti right now, I’m not doing great, given the situation of violence in Haiti that seems both out of control and yet controlled by an invisible hand, all at once. We are experiencing this violence directly right now. It has created a real crisis of perspective, forcing you to plan only in the short term. Because you don’t know what the reality will be tomorrow, you don’t know which neighborhood will be under siege tomorrow.
Talie: I talk to my friends and family in Haiti every day to check in on how they’re doing and how they’re living. You know, when you’re not in the situation and just receiving updates from people, you have to sort of visualize it in your mind. And I continue to fail to imagine how anybody is managing to create a sense of normalcy in the context of the insecurity. Yet, that’s exactly what everyone in Port-au-Prince is doing.
James: I think there are two ways to explain this. The first one is a little more historical. Some scholars say that the biggest tragedy that the Haitian population will ever face is slavery. Now, while slavery did not happen to our generation directly, we also know that trauma is transmitted genetically. We know that things that might have happened to our great-great-great-grandparents are now coded into our DNA, even if we aren’t aware of it. So if somewhere in our bodies we have already experienced the biggest catastrophe possible, that is slavery, we tend to “de-dramatize”–that’s not really a word, but I’m going to use it anyway–we tend to de-dramatize anything else. So it’s no surprise that when disaster strikes, countless songs and jokes come out, and the street bands take to the streets.
Talie: Because what is a crisis to a people who have already experienced the most profound trauma possible?
James: Exactly, as Haitians say, “nothing surprises me.” Now, depending on your perspective, there’s another way to explain this sense of normalcy that might be a little more concerning. Haiti has a very young population. We know that 70% of the population in Haiti is younger than 30 years old. And 60% are younger than 25 years old. I think that’s a demographic reality we should take very seriously. So, what one might perceive as resilience isn’t necessarily resilience–for someone who is 23, when this crisis reared its head in 2018, you can calculate how old they would’ve been. The violence is all they know. They’ve spent their adolescence and early adulthood in full crisis; they don’t know another reality.
When I was young, I used to be able to leave Port-au-Prince at 10 PM and drive down south for a visit without any worry. I knew a Haiti where I could drive out of the city at night without worrying about the risk. They don’t know that Haiti.
Talie: How familiar are you with the city of Philadelphia?
James: Not very. I know a few historical facts, but that’s it.
Talie: What I can tell you is that, of all the major cities of the United States, people often say Philadelphia is “the poorest big city” in America. It reminds me of the West’s go-to description of Haiti as “the poorest country in the western hemisphere.” There is a historical connection between Philly and Haiti because when the Haitian Revolution started, colonizers and free Black people who wanted to escape the fight fled, and many ended up in Philadelphia. But I, as a person who has spent my whole life between Philadelphia and Port-au-Prince, am more interested in the more abstract or spiritual connections. Philadelphia is one of those cities that really reveal the lie that is the USA because it is a city that neglects its citizens and enacts violence on its citizens in the name of “law and order.” Because of this, Philadelphia has been home to movements like Haiti that show what Black people are capable of doing to liberate ourselves.
Philadelphia also sees a lot of gang violence–the circumstances, the impact, and political context are, of course, very different. However, I think it might still similarly make us lose sight of certain things. People misguidedly find themselves calling on increased police force to protect them from violence in the streets because they are scared. As someone who’s been following the situation in Haiti and how it’s deteriorated, it’s like you said in the beginning, the violence in Haiti seems both out of control and also controlled by an invisible hand. And it makes me want to push people to dig deeper about what’s happening here, why are our young people with so few resources somehow armed?
I’m also an educator working with teenagers in North Philadelphia. It disheartens me to see people chalk crime up to a moral failure on the part of Philadelphians instead of questioning who benefits from our mistrusting each other to the point of begging for increased police presence. Looking at the two places side by side keeps these questions in perspective.
James: What you’re saying is so interesting because for two years now, I’ve been trying to ask questions. I was one of the leaders of the Montana Accord2, which I eventually had to walk away from. But the intention was to tackle issues in new and more creative ways, but the traditional wings of this movement dragged down those efforts. One of the most unfortunate mistakes of this crisis is that so many people stood and asked the police to save us from a crisis that is ultimately geopolitical and regional. The United States is a major arms manufacturer, and as these guns evolve, they become more and more like gadgets.
I find that many Haitians forget this aspect when analyzing this situation. The United States has never been able to solve its gun crisis despite all the tragedy it has caused in its own country, so imagine what it’s causing outside of it, in the global south. If the United States has failed to put restrictions on guns in their home, and allowed it to operate as a random business sector, why would they restrict it here?
Talie: Yes! I always say, everything the United States permits in poor American neighborhoods can offer you a reflection of what’s happening in the global south, in countries like Haiti. If the US government doesn’t give a shit about the life of a child in West Philadelphia—
James: —Then it definitely doesn’t care about a child in Lasalin3.
A few years ago, it was estimated that there were 500,000 illegal guns in Haiti. I’m sure this has grown exponentially since those reports came out. The militarization of the Haitian police force alone–because the Haitian police force has essentially become a military force–is entirely equipped with American and Canadian equipment. You look at the civilian defense brigades that neighborhoods have been forced to build to defend themselves, becoming increasingly armed. These three categories, the Haitian police, individual citizens, and the gangs, are heavily arming themselves. No matter how you turn it, it is a situation that has been profitable for American arms manufacturers.
Haiti’s politicians have ignored that Haiti is becoming a bigger market for gun manufacturers in the West, and instead have supplemented this market in the name of “fighting gangs.” Instead of investigating the police force’s ties to the gangs, they have instead continued to buy more and more guns for this force. They have tried this strategy for three years with no results, until we find ourselves in a situation where everyone is now waiting for the capital to fall.
Talie: And like you say, this strategy automatically assumes that the police are for the people, when in reality, the police are all intertwined. We don’t even know where the police end and the gangs begin.
In Philadelphia, I would say the police have shown in significant ways that they are not here to protect Black people. Right in my neighborhood, in 1985, the Philadelphia police bombed and burned a whole block while targeting a Black liberation organization, for example. There are movements in the USA calling for the abolition of the police system and calling for us to create new systems of protection, new ways to live, and build together. Because everything that exists today is something that was in someone’s imagination, this whole system in the United States came from the imaginations of people who did not see Black people as people, who saw Black people as dangerous. None of these systems were built to serve us.
This is the same for Haiti because the systems we are using were handed to us by the West. Many of these institutions were built during the U.S. occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934. The United States doesn’t just export products; I’ve come to understand that one of the U.S.’s major exports is the Prison Industrial Complex itself. They’ve exported their whole system and shoved it down our throats, even though the founding of Haiti was a project that sought to create something new, something free.
It’s so complicated in the context of a Haiti that is currently under siege by armed groups, with thousands of people being displaced because of violence and kidnapping—explaining to certain Haitians that there are movements in other countries to abolish the police feels crazy. We have lost complete sight of the original fight because we’re so scared. People can’t even begin to imagine a movement that would call to eliminate the police, even if we know they don’t actually keep us safer. What if we could truly build something different?
James: This is one of the successes of the system. It has successfully hindered many people’s perspectives. It convinces you that everything here is definitive, that no other kind of world is possible. Even though in our history as Haitians, we proved that a freer world is possible, and the structures we have here are actually recent.
The way we are educated, if you are a person who simply went to school and was not intentional about entering into spaces of reflection on history and political education, creating a new world without these systems will seem impossible. We have so much we can learn from abolition movements trying to form new paths.
Talie: If we put the two places side by side, Haiti and the U.S. In 2020, the United States saw massive uprisings during the coronavirus pandemic against police brutality and the prison industrial complex. There was a police murder of a Black man right here in West Philadelphia. The rage was alive in the streets; businesses were burned and looted. In many ways, it’s as if the state lost its hold on the city for a period of time. And this was happening across the country. I felt a revolutionary surge that I’ve never felt before in this country. I remember telling myself in 2020 that if those in power can quell this rage that I’m feeling in the streets today and make everyone accept the status quo again, I will know that what we are up against is scarier and more powerful than I thought.
Now, here we are in 2025, and Donald Trump is president. Biden just spent the previous four years in power (after benefiting from the movement of 2020 to become elected), and I don’t think he accomplished anything regarding the 2020 protests’ demands. The police aren’t any less violent, and Black people are not any freer. So, if you were alive in 2020, you’ve essentially witnessed a massive uprising, and you’ve also witnessed the fire of a massive uprising be successfully crushed. We are watching fascism swallow all the institutions, but we feel more powerless than ever.
Haiti saw the Petro Caribe4 movement bring thousands to the streets, not just against corruption, but against U.S. imperialism, against the West’s hand in Haiti’s problems. And violence was enacted on the people until marching ceased. I think both Philadelphia and Haiti are at a place where revolutionary action is urgently needed if we are going to make it out of this, but in both places, dominant powers very recently sent a critical message to the masses by successfully blocking our liberation movements in a major way.
So, what do we do now? I follow your work. You were part of the Petro Caribe movement and the Montana Accord. Both were significant movements that felt potentially promising but ultimately ended in disappointment and even tragedy. Because in the end, the powers you were up against were ultimately stronger.
James: Yes, the social movements are at an impasse. These impasses create a lot of pessimism amongst activists, and make you wonder why we continue to fight when we are constantly losing and the system continues to outmaneuver us.
I always remind my comrades that, as you pointed out, from 2018 to 2021, it was not just Haiti that saw major protests. The Dominican Republic also saw major protests against corruption, and this movement propelled Abinader to the presidency–even though he is violently anti-Haitian. He rode the wave of the anticorruption movement of the Dominican Republic. Many Dominican activists felt that Abinader’s election was the completion of their movement because he seemed less corrupt than most politicians. Certain leftist groups endorsed him despite his being right-leaning. Meanwhile, in Haiti, we see what this has resulted in. Our diplomatic relations with the Dominican Republic have completely degraded, and anti-Haitianism is at an all-time high in that government.
I think about the Gilet Jaune (yellow vest) protests of France, which, despite their magnitude, did not result in any measures that addressed the demands of the French people. The protesters were repressed until they gave up and went home. This is what we saw in Haiti. What makes Haiti different is that France and the U.S. use their police to repress these social movements, whereas in Haiti, the powers that be erect paramilitary groups and empower gangs to enact violence on their neighbors.
Talie: So, how do you think Haitian and Philadelphia activists can work together, support each other, build solidarity, and learn from each other?
James: We need to communicate! Here in Haiti, even among the different regions of Haiti, the main thing the current crisis has done is separate us. It’s made organizing together extremely difficult. But even the spaces to unite, hang out, and exchange ideas have been taken from us. The more violent the crisis becomes, the less we congregate, and we lose these spaces of dialogue. But technology can help us out here. We first need to create connections and make the habit of making time to connect. I know of organizations that have open Zoom calls at a specific time every week, and it remains open for 24 hours so that anyone from the various countries they organize with can simply log in and talk to each other if they have time. The minimum is connecting; it doesn’t take many resources to come together, discuss, and share our ideas. We need to confront our disagreements and heal the connections because one of the biggest things that white supremacy has done to people in places like Haiti and Philadelphia is to separate us.
1PetroCaribe is a petroleum program between Venezuela and a number of countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. Basically, Venezuela sells petroleum to these nations at a preferential rate to allow these governments to use funds towards developmental projects. Beginning in 2018, there were mass protests in Haiti demanding this money after a senatorial commission reported that most of these funds had been stolen and/or squandered by the PHTK government.
2An accord signed by hundreds of civil society groups, political parties and organizations that sought to create a Haitian solution to the Haitian political crisis without the interference of foreign countries.
3A working class neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, and site of a massacre in 2018 where dozens of civilians were reportedly murdered.
4For three years, the Petro Caribe movement held regular mass protests.
Nathalie “Talie” Cerin is the lead editor for Woy Magazine. Woy Magazine is an online platform that seeks to be a meeting place for Haitians in Haiti and abroad, and anyone seeking to be in solidarity with Haitians. Woy’s content is available in Kreyòl and English and explores history, politics, and the arts through its blog, bi-weekly newsletter, and media partnerships. Subscribe to Woy Magazine’s newsletter on Substack.
A sociologist by training at the State University of Haiti (UEH), James Beltis is an activist committed to citizen mobilization and working towards a society based on the principles of social justice. He currently holds a key position within the citizen organization Nou P ap Dòmi (We Will Not Sleep), where he leads a citizenship education project for youth and adolescents aged 18 to 24. Nou P ap Dômi is a collective of Haitians fighting to establish a State that serves the population.