Dignity
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Carrol F. Coates (Translator), Chrstophe WargnyBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Dignity is Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's compelling story of his three years of exile, from the coup that deposed him (September 30, 1991) to the U.N. Security Council vote in favor of military intervention (July 31, 1994). He offers an intensely personal journal of events, one that records his doubts as well as his determination in the face of criticism and uncertainty. Introductory materials familiarize the reader with events from the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier (January 1986) through the first months of Aristide's presidency. The afterword provides information on the period since Aristide's return (October 15, 1994).
Dignity is a touching and readable account by Aristide, one that refutes much disinformation circulated about him during his exile. It also constitutes a major document for historians and students of the difficult institution of democracy in the Caribbean.
University of Virginia Press
Synopsis
Dignity is Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's compelling story of his three years of exile, from the coup that deposed him (September 30, 1991) to the U.N. Security Council vote in favor of military intervention (July 31, 1994). He offers an intensely personal journal of events, one that records his doubts as well as his determination in the face of criticism and uncertainty. Introductory materials familiarize the reader with events from the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier (January 1986) through the first months of Aristide's presidency. The afterword provides information on the period since Aristide's return (October 15, 1994).
Dignity is a touching and readable account by Aristide, one that refutes much disinformation circulated about him during his exile. It also constitutes a major document for historians and students of the difficult institution of democracy in the Caribbean.
Publishers Weekly
This isn't really a narrative of Aristide's life following the September 1991 coup that ousted him from the Haitian presidency. It's a manifesto. With its choppy writing, hyperbole and rhetoric, Dignity is truly for the converted. Wargny's lengthy introduction with its awkward language doesn't do much to help ("But the poorly understood formula, or rather tactic, might bring an element of humor, reduce the state of alert, and have a chance of demobilizing it."). Those who aren't familiar with Haiti's history since 1915 aren't likely to be enlightened. There is some detail about Aristide's early years in the Roman Catholic clergy. And though he left the priesthood soon after this book was originally published in Paris in 1994 (which isn't all that surprising, given that the Vatican was the sole entity to recognize the junta that ousted him), there's still plenty of theology, proverbs and preaching here. In between are prescriptions for his poverty-stricken country. One of the first is for more equitable distribution of wealth in a country where one percent of the population holds 40% of the resources. He also calls for literacy, schooling, guaranteed access to health care (though without much solid detail on how to implement them) and the separation and professionalization of the army and the police. This last reform has been happening since Aristide returned to Haiti, and that holds out hope that the very real horrors portrayed in this book will dissipate and a less repressive society will take root in its place. (May)
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
This isn't really a narrative of Aristide's life following the September 1991 coup that ousted him from the Haitian presidency. It's a manifesto. With its choppy writing, hyperbole and rhetoric, Dignity is truly for the converted. Wargny's lengthy introduction with its awkward language doesn't do much to help ("But the poorly understood formula, or rather tactic, might bring an element of humor, reduce the state of alert, and have a chance of demobilizing it."). Those who aren't familiar with Haiti's history since 1915 aren't likely to be enlightened. There is some detail about Aristide's early years in the Roman Catholic clergy. And though he left the priesthood soon after this book was originally published in Paris in 1994 (which isn't all that surprising, given that the Vatican was the sole entity to recognize the junta that ousted him), there's still plenty of theology, proverbs and preaching here. In between are prescriptions for his poverty-stricken country. One of the first is for more equitable distribution of wealth in a country where one percent of the population holds 40% of the resources. He also calls for literacy, schooling, guaranteed access to health care (though without much solid detail on how to implement them) and the separation and professionalization of the army and the police. This last reform has been happening since Aristide returned to Haiti, and that holds out hope that the very real horrors portrayed in this book will dissipate and a less repressive society will take root in its place. (May)Library Journal
Dignity presents the political and humanitarian philosophy of Haiti's controversial priest-president. Seeing himself as a "spokesman of nonviolent struggle and of the demand for dignity," Aristide came to power on February 7, 1991, after Haiti's first democratic election, and was deposed and exiled by the Haitian army nine months later. Dignity recounts his exile from Haiti and his struggle to return as the lawful president. More a distillation of his ideas and philosophy of political power than was his Aristide: An Autobiography (LJ 2/1/93), this book is critical of international response to the coup. A moving testimony of one man's and a people's belief in a better world and the struggle for that world, Dignity is highly recommended for most libraries as primary source material.-Cynthia D. Bertelsen, Virginia Tech Univ. Lib., BlacksburgBooknews
Aristide, President of Haiti, tells the story of his three years in exile from September 1991 to July 1994, revealing his doubts as well as his determination. An introduction reviews events in the country from the fall of Duvalier in 1986 through the first months of Aristide's presidency. An afterword provides information on the period since Aristide's return. Includes a chronology from 1986 through 1995. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)Kirkus Reviews
These rambling reflections will be of little profit to those who have not closely followed developments in the former Haitian president's tragic country.Originally published in France as Aristide's exile was ending in October 1994, Dignity was essentially a plea for more of the international aid and support to which Aristide attributes his movement's survival. He expresses particular gratitude to the foreign governments and human rights organizations that condemned the usurpation of power in 1991 by army officers supported by Haiti's oligarchy; he writes movingly of the solidarity he found among Haitians living abroad. His attitude toward the US is understandably critical, given the history of American intervention in Haitian affairs and acquiescence in the corrupt and brutal Duvalier regimes. He lauds President Clinton's sympathy for democratic forces in Haiti but is candid about the deal under which Clinton's efforts to reinstate them were tied to Aristide's agreement to discourage Haitian emigration. For the most part, Aristide is excrutiatingly vague about the American elements that he largely blames for Haiti's problems, citing only the CIA by name. He is more open in expressing his contempt for the Catholic hierarchy, which he finds irredeemably cynical about Haitian democracy, from the pope down. There are fine passages, but they read like segments from oft-delivered speeches adapted for print, and the translation is uneven. A chronology and notes offer some elucidation of the period's complex history, but this edition would have benefited from an introductory essay putting Aristide's recollections and views in context and describing the forces and people at work in recent Haitian history. Strangely, little attempt has been made to update the book.
Should be of use to future historians, but likely to disappoint the contemporary reader.