Stories
The Haitian slave revolt and niversal humanity
Haitian slaves, led by Toussaint Louverture, conducted the only successful slave revolt in the Western Hemisphere from 1790 to 1801, defeating their French colonizers.
…when French soldiers (sent by Napoleon to suppress the rebellion and restore slavery) approached the black army of self-liberated slaves…they heard an initially indistinct murmur coming from the black crowd, the soldiers at first assumed it must be some kind of tribal war chant; but as they came closer, they realized that the Haitians were singing La Marseillaise, and they started to wonder out loud whether they were not fighting on the wrong side. Events such as these enact universality as a political category. In them, as Buck-Morss put it, “universal humanity is visible at the edges.”
- Slavoj Žižek, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce
From the La Marseillaise the Haitian rebels sang : “Liberty, beloved liberty. Fight with your defenders!” And she did.