Helen and Her Sister Haiti: A Theological Reflection on the Social, Historical,Economic, Religious, Political and National Consciousness with a Call to Conversion.

© 2011 by J. Lambert St Rose. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, including photocopying without the written permission of the author.

For permission contact:

P.O. Box 726, Castries, St. Lucia Email: lambert_st@yahoo.com Telephone: 758 451 8179

Cover Graphics and interior layout: Paul Krone Sketches: Gordon Jean Baptiste

Cover Photo: Holy Family, Roseau/Jacmel, Roman Catholic Church Courtesy: Hon. Sir Dr. Dunstan St. Omer

First published by AuthorHouse 07/15/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3537-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3538-7 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3536-3 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011912499

Printed in the United States of America

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

PART I

Presenting Helen

PART II

Welcome

the Ancestors

PART III

Agony!

PART IV

Duplicity

PART V

Hope and

Redemption

PART VI

Values

PART VII

Family andFriends

PART VIII

Emotions

PART IX

Nature

PART X

Hope

Dedicated to: My parents & siblings The St. Rose & Esnard families All my special friends And all who have been a part of my life’s journey

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My most profound gratitude:

To my editors: Nahdjla Carasco Bailey, Loyola Devaux, and Robert Harvey, who also assisted as editor and critic. Robert graciously accepted the responsibility to pen the foreword to Helen and Her Sister Haiti. Thanks a million for your other invaluable contributions, Robert.

To Cora Murris who reignited my passion for poetry and prose when I was invited by her to pen Malfini Rise, Literacy and Iouanalao for literacy month at the Babonneau Primary School.

To Lydia Charlery, who has been a great source of inspiration over the years and has taught me a great deal on the virtues of endurance and perseverance.

To Shanta King and Paul Krone for compilation and cover design.

To the Hon. Sir Dr. Dunstan St. Omer, for graciously allowing the use of his mural: The Holy Family at Roseau-Jacmel as a cover.

To Doctors: Martin Didier and Jocelyn Inamo for journeying with me over the past years without whose medical and professional help and care, Helen and Her Sister Haiti would not see the light of day.

To the entire St. Rose family for their wealth of support and encouragement

To all my family and friends and more so to God the Father, his Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit for all the inspiration and guidance without whom Helen and Her Sister Haiti would not have been possible.

FOREWORD

As a teacher of Caribbean History and a member of the St. Rose family through marriage, it is indeed an honour to have been invited to pen the ‘Foreword’ to this collection of poems by Father Lambert St. Rose, entitled Helen and Her Sister Haiti. Father St. Rose has been a diocesan priest of the Roman Catholic Church in his native St. Lucia for over twenty-five years, and for him this collection of poems is a ‘dream come true’.

Father St. Rose has served as parish priest in Canaries, in the Micoud/Mon Repos/Ti Rocher area, in Roseau/Jacmel and later in Babonneau before becoming disabled on account of an unusual heart condition a few years ago. However, even from his early years in the Seminary, he had begun to express himself through the medium of poetry, and the reader, after going through this collection, will certainly discover a poet of considerable depth, passion and imagination.

Father St. Rose is no stranger to controversy. As a priest, a St. Lucian and a Caribbean man, he holds strong views about our people, the historical events and circumstances which have shaped our past and continue to influence the present and the future. These views are passionately revealed in the poems presented in this book.

The introductory poems portray a deep love for Helen-the beauty of the land, the flora, and most of all, her people. The poet then focuses on the importance, indeed the centrality, of our ancestry from Africa and India. There is much on the agony of slavery and colonial exploitation and the scars left behind by these experiences. Father St. Rose, as a sensitive and conscious St. Lucian and a priest, agonises over the problems of the modern era, characterised by the corruption, hypocrisy and duplicity of the leaders in the post-independence period.

However, there is hope and redemption rooted in the Christian values of love, service and solidarity. There is the soothing memory of family and dear friends, and there is Nature in all its splendour, beckoning and inviting us to a better tomorrow because of the Resurrection of our Divine Lord.

Teachers and students of Caribbean History at both the secondary and tertiary levels ought to find much to identify with and appreciate in this collection of poems. I wish to congratulate Father St. Rose and to recommend this work to all conscious readers who love St. Lucia and the Caribbean region.

Robert D. Harvey

INTRODUCTION

Man, if he is ignorant of his history cannot be part of the discourse and consensus contributing to the formation, substance and sustenance of his narrative. The same applies to persons or communities who are ashamed of their past. In 1995, theologians from the Caribbean met in conference in Port of Spain, Trinidad. The theme of the conference: Into The Deep, Towards a Caribbean Theology. During their discourse the theologians were rudely awakened to the reality: our history as Caribbean peoples did not start in 1492. These words still resonate through my mind every single day of my life. The group of theologians present at the conference unanimously recognized that any attempt towards developing a Caribbean Theology disconnected from the Mother Lands of our ancestors would be bereft of authenticity and a solid foundation on which to stand.

Our narrative as Caribbean peoples does not start in the Caribbean; it must start in the land of our origin. First, two fundamental questions must be answered: Who are we? Where have we come from and why? Only when we are able to answer these questions authentically, will we be able to initiate the process of answering the questions: What are we doing here? Where do we want to go from here? We must return to the traditions and cultures of our ancestors to rediscover the genesis of our narrative. We must be like Israel of old in its profession of faith. The Israelites acknowledged that their father was a wandering Aramaean who went down into Egypt; they were few in numbers but were subjected to harsh slavery. God rescued them and made them a great nation and therefore their ritual offerings were celebrations of this great narrative, from Israel into Egypt and from Egypt to the Promised Land. Put another way, their creed is a summation of their narrative and their history as a people (Deut.26:5-10).

As peoples living in the Diaspora in the Caribbean, historically we share many similarities with the Israel of old. Like it, our narrative cannot avoid that element of a constant memorial. We must hold sacred in our collective memories our fathers’ journey from Africa and East India. We cannot be indifferent, nor can we afford the luxury of forgetting their plight, and their suffering in the Caribbean, when the Caribbean was their Egypt and their Babylonian experience. We must understand that our narrative must embrace our total life’s journey and bring us to the point where we are at present. Unless we do so, we are not showing appreciation for what they endured. This inhumane condition, for which they were not responsible, was imposed upon them. Yet they endured it that we might have a better today and tomorrow.

Memorials take us down through some really deep valleys, up hills and precipitous mountains and expose us to some harsh proverbial desert experiences and conditions, much beyond our comprehension. Such condition forces us to keep looking back, just as Israel of old did. It is as if we are searching for meaning and for a deeper articulation of the journey onward. In comparison, looking back will help us accept and appreciate our ancestors for their contribution in setting the platform for our ongoing narrative. Looking back will help us name where we have come from, and will help us determine how we will get to where we are going. Memorials are an important part of every narrative. For without memorials we forget and lose sight of the vision that we are called to. Without memorials we can become both complacent, self-destructive or be discouraged along the way.

Memorials will help us during the course of our journey. They will sometimes help us measure our success, sometimes our failure, sometimes our freedom, sometimes enslavement of different kinds. Memorials will help us keep our dreams and visions, our traditions and cultures alive. Memorials will infuse a spirit of faith and hope in us through this journey of change and continuity. New narratives, a new consciousness, will be born in the process. New traditions and cultures come to life, yet are not divorced from the contributions of our ancestors. It is through this journey that our destiny is mapped, shaped, and a plan is prepared for us as a way out of the desert, to emerge as a people, a nation, with unique traditions and a culture different from that of other peoples of the world.

No matter how far we may trot across the globe we must never forget that we are bearers of our ancestors’ spirits. We take their spirit with us. In 1993 I attended a Native American Indian festival in Green Bay, Wisconsin, U.S.A. The festival began with the tribal leader inviting the tribe to dance for the ancestors. Then they danced for their fallen heroes and so the opening rite continued until all the dead were honoured through dance. And when they prayed that it would not rain for the continuation of the celebration, they danced too: everything for which they prayed, they danced. It was if this American Indian tribe had never lost sight of the memories of the ancestors and where they have come from. They believe they are bearers of the ancestral spirits and that they live only because of their ancestors.

Jacques Maquet, an anthropologist and author of Africanity speaks of an enculturation process which distinguishes Africans from Africans. Many, he says, are born in Africa but few are Africans. In other words, being an African is more than just being born in Africa or being a national of Africa. An authentic African, he argues, is one who bears the soul and wears the spirit of Africa; one who lives and shares an affinity with the ancestors, and whose journey and narrative in an ongoing journey and narrative with generations past, present and future. Africanity, I gathered, is not about pigmentation; it is a living spirit and a living consciousness. It is for Maquet akin to a living religious experience. A cultural environment, into which persons are initiated, acculturated through life and find redemption within that narrative and its onward journey. How does faith relate to such a conclusion?

Pope Paul VI on his visit to Africa himself recognized the extraordinary rich narrative of the African peoples and begged the Church in Africa to do all in its power to preserve the African culture as God’s gift to the people. Paul VI reminded missionaries to Africa that their mission was not to supplant Africanity, not to Christianize Africa, but to Africanize Christianity. In other words, their narrative, their rich traditions, the Pope recognized as God’s journey with the African peoples. God made them to be African and he will embrace them as nothing else, but as Africans in his presence.

Pope John Paul II, in 1992 in his address to the Latin American Bishops in Santo Domingo, reminded the bishops: If true culture expresses the universal values of the person, what can project more light on the situation of human beings, their dignity and purpose, their freedom and destiny, than the gospel of Christ? The Pope was advocating to the bishops that the people’s narrative must be the starting point for any genuine and authentic inculturated evangelization, since God has been journeying with the people before both the Church and missionaries arrived in Latin America. Therefore the culture, the narrative of the Latin American peoples, must not be supplanted. It must not be trivialized but be purified by means of the Gospel, and the rights and dignity and faith of indigenous peoples must be respected. As it were, this is a God given human and spiritual right which much be respected, provided it is free of superstition, or anything foreign to the sentiment of scripture and the essentials of faith. This too I consider an act of spiritual liberation, a process initiated by the Fathers of Vatican II called inculturation, a process of evangelization of indigenous peoples free of all cultural prejudice.

Both Paul VI and John Paul II were Fathers of Vatican II and both were expressing the need for inculturation, a theological tool through which the Church enters into dialogue with the traditions, culture and narrative of all countries and journeys with them, whereby the mystery of the incarnation becomes their own narrative and their own journey. How does that notion of inculturation interface with poetry? What does poetry have to do with it?

Derek Walcott’s Black Gregorias, The Honourable Sir Dr Dunstan St. Omer created history. He transformed the wall of the sanctuary of the Church at Roseau-Jacmel into the home of the Holy Family at Nazareth. Now Nazareth has come to Roseau-Jacmel, and that Nazareth is not Jewish nor is the Holy Family Jewish either. It’s a life experience completely wrapped in Roseau-Jacmel’s rich cultural experience. For the first time both Afro-St. Lucian and Indo-St. Lucian were able to