Protest Music (Haïti)

Verbal communication in Haïti is full of subversive allusion and coded messages—part of a cultural practice referred to as mawonaj. Thus, almost anything spoken in Kreyôl—which Haïti's mother tongue but only was made an official language in 1987—can become a tool of resistance and even mobilization. Speaking or “sending” coded criticism through double-entendre-heavy phrases or messages is known as voye pwen (sending a point), and for as long as anyone can remember, popular music, including religious songs, have been used to send pwen against repressive regimes.

Chan pwen (point songs) are common in rara celebrations—boisterous all-night carnivalesque processions organized to honor Vodou spirits, usually during Lent. Musicians play drums, differing lengths of bamboo, and sometimes the lambi (conch), one of the symbols of the slave revolt movement because its call reportedly mobilized runaway slaves. Vodou believers, rara participants, and fans who just want to have a good time follow the indications of the kolonèl (colonel) and the majon jon (drum major) and dance and sing their way through the streets or down country paths.

During repressive regimes, even though a rara's leader or sponsor or even most fans might not be politically progressive, the mere massing of hundreds and even thousands of Haïti's poor majority in the streets opened up a carnivalesque counter public sphere. And although many rara songs and rhythms honor deities, they are also full of obscene language, which can simultaneously be about political resentment as well as sex. Indeed, a rara procession's songs can turn from spiritual to sexual to political at a moment's notice, and the particular historical and political context can also give traditional songs new meaning.

For example, the Vodou song phrase Kote moun yo? (Where are the people?), which was first recorded in the 1950s by a Vodou-Jazz orchestra, became a chan pwen during the 1991–1994 coup d'état period. When rara processions chanted it through the dark streets in Port-au-Prince, everyone understood it referred to the thousands who had fled the country, or the hundreds of disappeared activists, or maybe even exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Commercial bands—especially the rasin or “roots music” bands whose musical style combines rara music, Vodou songs, and rock and roll—also use pwen in their albums and in Carnival parades. Recycled traditional rara songs create social solidarity and remind the elite of the potential power of the disenfranchised.

In 1990, when a military regime was running the country, Boukman Eksperyans' 1990 Carnival song Kè m pa sote (My heart doesn't leap) caused a major political controversy. Like many rasin songs, it incorporated a Vodou chant—in this case, dedicated to the god of war—and also contained pwen references to “assassins,” “frauds,” “para-noiacs,” and “idiots.” The regime debated blocking the band from Carnival, but eventually allowed them to join the procession. It was a fatal error. The phrase “My heart doesn't leap” immediately surfaced in most street carnival and rara bands and became a defiant proclamation sung and chanted during the protests that brought the regime down only a few months later.

The power of music was to be seen—and heard—again, 2 years later. About 4 months after the 1991 coup, the band RAM added the phrase Kote moun yo? to its anti-embargo song Anbago (embargo). The Organization of American States had imposed an embargo to try to pressure the junta to step down. When the band asked the [Page 425]carnival crowd to sing along, soldiers cut off the electricity, a tribute to the music's power.

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