Bois-Caïman n’est pas un ciment national : Dominique Dupuy aurait mieux fait de convoquer Arcahaie
Bois-Caïman Is Not a National Cement: Dominique Dupuy Should Have Invoked Arcahaie Instead By Patrick Prézeau Stephenson * (Le Français suit) CAP-HAÏTIEN — Some symbols unite, others divide. By calling for “a second Bois-Caïman,” former Foreign Affairs Minister Dominique Dupuy chose one of the most controversial episodes in Haiti’s national narrative to embody unity. It is a bold choice — but perhaps a poorly calibrated one. Because Bois-Caïman, despite its mythic power, has never been a shared foundation for the entire nation. It is a fragmented, disputed, and often instrumentalized story, deeply tied to a religious practice that fewer than one in five Haitians openly claim. By trying to make it a point of convergence, Dupuy risks replacing a national symbol with an identity symbol. A founding myth… but not a unifying one In popular memory, Bois-Caïman is presented as the sacred spark of the Haitian Revolution: a Vodou ceremony, a collective oath, a call to freed...