RE:J. Christian Sajous - Pluie D'espoir and the true pirates

Pluie D'Espoir is a movie that tries to depict a Haitian story.

That of a young Haitian peasant who leaves the countryside in search of a better life for himself and his family.

A simple story indeed when you consider it is the story of the Haitian emigration.

Whether in the case of the Haitian peasants moving to Port-au-Prince or that of those with the financial means leaving Haiti altogether for the USA or Europe - the story is the same. While in the film Pluie D'Espoir Toussaint returns home, for the most part Haitians of the diaspora have not "returned home".

They remain in foreign countries, indulging heavily in not being truly Haitian, preferring to check "Other" when addressing questions of ethnicity.

When they have a desire to belong to a cause "too cool" to overlook, they quote you Che Guevarra, Edith Piaf and Charles Aznavour while reminding you that they were part of the Hippie Movement.

Yes, the producers, writers and directors of Pluie D'Espoir have not lived in Haiti for the past forty odd years.

They "visit" on occasion to exploit a situation or two and then promptly return to the comforts of foreign lands.

They have told a story of a Haitian peasant with the clear message that Haitians ought to return home and deal with the plight of malnutrition and unemployment, yes they ought to sacrifice is the message here. The producers of that movie and their ancestors have deeply exploited Haiti's people and resources for as long as they could tolerate living there and when the going got tough, the pressure increased, for there were other Haitians who wanted to stop that exploitation - they fled and opted for another nationality.

So one would conclude the exploitation stopped.

Oh no! For forty years they have relentlessly continued their by then much more sophisticated exploitation of the Haitian plight from abroad.

For example: painting in a style that is not Haitian - while claiming to be a Haitian Painter, producing Jazz albums, commercial advertisements (dropping names like Levert to impress) and writing protest songs that do not resemble Haiti but curiously harken back to France (Moustaki and Ferrat); all the while disguising it as Haitian by introducing a Creole phrase here or there.

Today the writers of Pluie D'Espoir will arrogantly tell you how much they care about Haiti...in the hope that you believe it...but carefully avoid the question of what have they done for Haiti that did not somehow benefit them in the process...the answer is simply nothing!!! Like leeches they continue on their quest to suck the blood of the Haitian people and its culture and slap you a quote of "Che" in passing and more cunningly, setup a bogus educational fund for the son of a deceased fellow actor, all as a means of promoting a movie and fooling you once more: the art of deception and that of self-promotion know no bounds.

Think about it for a second and you will begin to unveil the true Pirates of the Carribean and I am not talking about DVDs with "reference copy" stamped on it, boats in the Sea of Yemen or Johnny Depp ...I am talking about subtle intellectual plagiarism, emotional exploitation, deception and downright skillful fleecing of the Haitian people at the hands of those with the means and connections to eloquently deny their true motivations.

Among their tools of deception is making it all rhyme with Miragoane and offering you a choice of languages: Creole, English, French, Spanish or be it "a missing symbolism or two that only 12 more scenes can satisfy".

When derailed off their sly project, instead of quietly going away, acknowledging that the jig is up...they quickly promise P.D. II where we will really get it...no, no, no we got it by now. In closing, my moral dilemma is, when you pirate a couple of pirates does that make you a pirate?

Bernard D.

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Thank You, Ronald Obviously you are among those who...

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RE: Jon Christian Sajous

It is time that I write about Jon Christian Sajous as my friend for a number of years. When I first showed the first...

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Who is this Bernard D.? Is that somebody's name. Why...

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