Thinking about HAITI!!! RARA

“Rara is about play, religion, and politics and also about remembering a bloody history and preserving its face. But at its bare most philosophical level, Rara is a ritual element of life itself and an affirmation of life’s difficulties.”

Elizabeth McAlister was the first to write about Rara in Haiti, a part of the Caribbean that is continuously stigmatized as a fragmented, poor and dangerous culture. The origin of these stigmas is rooted in Haiti’s controversial and tumultuous history and its present day social, political and economic dilemmas. McAlister’s anthropological and ethnographic work in Haiti reveals how Rara gives profound agency to the poor masses and celebrates the tremendous presence of Afro-Creole culture in the nation. McAlister theorizes the concept of work and play under the umbrella of Rara performance portrayed by the peasant masses and the urban poor and rooted in strong Afro- Creole religion, Vodou. She describes Vodou as “a religion of survival, which produces meaning and protective strategies for the poor who cope, on a daily basis, with the traumas of poverty, and insecurity.” However, although she describes in great detail what the festival itself entails, her objective and the focus of my interest is how Rara represents the history of Haiti, the Caribbean and its popular culture.

Rara in many aspects has been clouded with mystery throughout the Caribbean, particularly because its religious element is held secret. McAllister describes it as “…Creole performance par excellence, imbued with historical memories so terrible and profound that they are transmitted not in everyday speech, but through the dancing body and the cryptic texts of song and rituals.” Haiti has been in perpetual crisis for centuries due to their numerous political and social unrests (most notably the coup during 1990 to 1995, the period where McAllister did her field work) and their past international isolation and sanctions that is traced back since the Haitian Revolution in 1804. Overtime, the poor majority has remained disenfranchised and exploited by the elite of the country and global hegemony making it the poorest country in the Caribbean, an interesting notion considering it is also the most racialized being the “blackest” country on the Western Hemisphere as it has an overwhelming majority of people of African descent.

It is no wonder then that Rara takes on multiple dimensions in remembering their history while simultaneously protesting against current social and political positions that perpetuates the disenfranchisement of the majority. This oral tradition becomes their ultimate forum of discussion, of expression through their own cultural lens which sees poverty and constant upheaval. The presence of Vodou adds another layer of meaning to the celebrations as it reveals the enormity or, the importance of identifying their Afro Creole heritage and reclaiming their past. This heritage marks Haiti and the Caribbean as rooted slavery and the African cultures that are preserved from that time. Without Rara, the overwhelming amount of tradition and history that is represented through these groups of poor, black, illiterate, marginalized and disenfranchised majority of people would have no place in a country that is often cast aside and ignored. Rara serves as a reminder of the turmoil and crisis that exists but the tremendous power that is given to them through this form of expression.