In typical hand-wringing fashion, the Guardianista believe that France should repay the money exhorted from the newly independent Haiti.
In an open letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy published in the French newspaper Libération, 90 leading academics, authors, journalists and human rights activists from around the world urged the French government to pay Haiti back for the 90m gold francs Haitians were forced to pay as a price for their independence. (Full the sake of full disclosure, I am no impartial observer of the proposal: I helped draft the text of the letter, and played no small role in soliciting the signatures. In fact, the scores of intellectuals I contacted needed little prodding to sign on.)
This is much the same argument as the one demanding that Britain apologise for the slave trade. And as such, is equally wrong. Haitians overthrew their French masters in, wait for it, 1791. Yup, Isabel MacDonald wants the modern French state – in the middle of an economic recession – to pay for the actions of Charles X in 1825 when he subsequently demanded a compensation payment of 150m gold francs from the Haitian rebels.
Once again, we have historical revisionism going on. To today’s eyes, this was reprehensible – as was the original enslavement. However, that means judging the people of the time by today’s standards, not their own. And, since when was visiting the sins of the fathers on their sons – or grandsons, or great grandsons – an acceptable idea?
No, France should not repay that which has long since been spent by people no longer alive. It’s done, past, history. There it should stay. By all means, assist Haiti rebuild, but France does not owe a debt – any more than Britain owes a debt to Africa or Italy owes a debt for the Roman occupation of northern Europe and much of the Mediterranean.
Only in the land of the Guardian does there exist such stupidity. History is something to learn from, not to agonise over or to repay debts run up by the long dead. They are dead, let them lie.
On the basis that the money was paid to confirm Haiti’s independence, then a repayment would (re)make Haiti a French possession.
Better surely than handing millions of gold francs to Haiti’s dysfunctional rulers or a corrupt international organisation, or – in the real world – sending the money to a Swiss bank selected by Haiti’s president and/or some UN official (more efficient as well as reflecting reality) France should undertake to reassert its colonial rights and run Haiti as a departement a la Martinique. Much better for everybody, particularly the Haitians.
How about reparations for the Moor’s occupation of Spain?