Neither Haitian history nor Haitian aphorisms reflect much of a predilection for democracy. One Creole proverb puts it bluntly: "The Constitution is a piece of paper, but bayonets are made of steel." Now, three years after Haitian steel drove freely elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile, overwhelming American steel is bringing him back. "In less than 24 days, I will join youin Haiti," Aristide promised from the steps of the Pentagon last week.
Haiti's future now rests largely upon a man whom most Americans find a cipher. To his critics, he is a volatile, uncompromising eccentric. To the Haitians who elected him with 67 percent of the vote in 1990, he is a gifted leader and orator -- his country's best hope for the future.
With Haiti's generals now intending to live in villas next door instead of villas abroad, it is even more important that Aristide preach a gospel of reconciliation. Echoing the themes of Nelson Mandela -- the political leader Aristide is said to admire most -- he last week pledged "no to violence, no to vengeance; yes to reconciliation, yes to justice."
Playing the game. That is still not enough to convince many congressmen, and even some Clinton administration officials, that Aristide is the right man upon whom to stake American lives and credibility. But at least part of America's unease, say students of Haitian society, stems from a misunderstanding of Aristide and the culture from which he emerged. Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, and other members of the Haitian elite who have spent time abroad, are skilled at presenting a familiar, soothing persona to American officials and television audiences, while showing a very different face at home, says Michel-Rolph Trouillot, an anthropologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a member of a prominent Haitian family. Aristide's religious background and rapport with the Haitian masses work well at home, but he has been unwilling or unable to charm his American interlocutors -- to "play with the white man" as the elite do, Trouillot says.
Nor is Aristide's fiery rhetorical style -- laced heavily with proverb and metaphor -- reassuring to many Americans, who are used to more direct locution. Aristide, says University of Chicago anthropologist Karen Richman, is a master of competitive oratory, a long tradition in Haitian culture. In public appearances, Richman says, the president often invokes a rhetorical device known as "throwing pwent," which relies upon ambiguity and indirectness. As a result, critics and supporters tend to interpret his words differently. For example, Aristide is often attacked by critics for a 1991 speech in which he is said to have endorsed "necklacing," a method of political assassination in which a burning tire is placed around a victim's neck. Aristide's supporters maintain that his words -- and intentions -- were not meant to be taken literally and that necklacing all but disappeared during his time in power.
Aristide's emotive nature also takes many Americans aback. In Anglo-Saxon culture, says Trouillot, poise and restraint are hallmarks of leadership, and Aristide therefore sometimes appears unpredictable because he can shift abruptly from exuberance to quiet reflection and back. Indeed, his U.S. critics frequently portray him as unstable: A CIA report, later disputed, charged that the Haitian president had received treatment for manic depression. Yet in Haitian culture, which is heavily influenced by religious tradition, Aristide's fluidity is seen as the mark of a strong, self-controlled leader.
Aristide's ultimate success or failure as a leader could come down to a more prosaic matter. "He may simply be too earnest a man to be a politician," says University of Arizona anthropologist Drexel Woodson. The acid test will be whether Aristide can defy Haiti's history and deep social chasms and, for the first time, make the Constitution count more than the bayonets.
