This message is dedicated to my fellow Francophiles
who get alarmed or even offended at the thought of eliminating French
as one of the official languages of the Republic of Haiti.
I am speaking today as a Haitian who is
truly madly in love with the French language.
I confess that my fascination for not only the richness
of the language but also for those who master it without boundaries.
However, these days, I reject the language.
I look down on it as much as some of my fellow Haitians
look down on the Creole language.
Thus, I have a lot of trouble expressing myself in French.
Some may even say that I’m losing my French.
I think it is sad how Haitians always think they are able to lose something
that in no way and at no point in time belonged to them.
I say all that and still today I’m pushing to deliver this message in French.
It’s because I’m targeting those of us who would be hard-pressed
to take me seriously if I had chosen to share my ideas in my maternal language.
I want you to understand the damage you are causing to your country,
to be fully aware of this damage and I hope I’ll manage to do that, in French.
What I observed especially from the Haitians living in Haiti is that
French isn’t a tool for communication that allows the exchange of ideas,
the passing of customs and culture or the expression of convictions.
On the contrary, it strips away the most remarkable and precious
of human experiences from us, conversation.
It has become nothing more than one more way
to segregate the Haitian population.
To be able to tell from the get-go who deserves your good manners
and who you will snub, who you will barter with, and who you will charge double.
So it really doesn’t help us to communicate properly.
I’ve also witnessed the mistreatment Haitians receive in Haiti
simply because they cannot speak French; a colonial language,
a language that we don’t even teach to most of our people,
a language that is so foreign to us,
a language that despite the fact that it has dominated our educational system
for over two centuries is still lost among our people who are far from mastering it.
So that is rather deplorable.