Rimu recently started a new rant thread. I copied the response of the person they had targeted and in less than a minute Rimu had deleted the comment.
This is the comment Rimu did not want people being able to see: https://feddit.uk/post/53824748/26875911
This is the thread I shared it on: https://feddit.uk/post/53824747
A genocidal dictator? Do tell, which one? Hitler? Netanyahu? Bush??
Jean-Jacques Dessalines
And then what happened?
And Hitler was a vegetarian and loved dogs.
Personal lifestyle choices are totally the same as the liberation of an entire nation of people from slavery.
This is the least intellegent response I’ve gotten in a while.
Oh so that makes it okay that they rounded up all the white polish etc minority on the island that had fought alongside them. And then exterminated them? That’s some moral relativism right there if I ever heard it.
I differentiate between the people of Haiti and their first self-proclaimed emperor. My sympathies lie with the people of Haiti. After fighting one revolution for their freedom. They had to turn and cooperate with bad faith actors like the United States. To assassinate their own ruler so they could actually have it. Only to then be fucked by France and the United States for the next Century afterwards.
Interesting you’d mention the one white group that was completely spared due to allying with the revolutionaries.
Internet be hittin today, bruh
When one of the lead devs of the Lemmy backend names their online presence after the enactor/leader of said alleged genocide, it’s bound to come up at some point.
And I thought wiki holes were fun. Like I’ve seen that name before on here. I had no clue about the history of it. Lemmy drama is so interesting and tangentially informative.
I’m legit surprised it doesn’t come up more. Yeah, Dessalines the OG is a bit more obscure than Louverture, but the fediverse in general and lemmy in particular run heavy to folks that appreciate revolutionary history.
Hell, I’m not even that into Haitian history, and I’ve read a little bit here and there. Been ages, but still enough to recognize the name when I saw it. When you also consider some of the drama around lemmy dessalines, that nobody looked it up is surprising too
Famously the one group that was spared.
The US and France had fucked over Saint Domingue long before Dessalines was overthrown. It was Dessalines who was forced to sign the treaty which indebted the entire nation as price for their freedom. It came with support from slaveholders like Jefferson who correctly, saw the Haitian Revolution as an existential threat to their way of life.
The point is to highlight the concept of Critical Support. Dessalines isn’t someone to idolize like Toussant, he was a ruthless thug. But Napoleon rejected the alliance that Toussant offered. So faced with the choice of re-enslavement under Napoleon and Rochambeau, I would’ve taken Dessalines any day.
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Kinda weird that you don’t mention the whole former slave who led the resistance to abolish slavery and free his country thing.
Oh that totally justifies his genocide then.
Okay, see? That’s a strawman. Now you know.
Does one thing excuse the other thing, or not? Because if not - why would you have to mention it, when pointing out the other thing?
What.
Wwwhy is it kinda weird, not to mention what you mentioned, when they mentioned what they mentioned?
For what other reason would you expect the positive thing to be included with the negative thing?
Eldritch commented on Desalines’ choice of name without important context, as though to posit the question: Why name oneself after a genocidal dictator? I added context in case anyone else wondered the same thing and hadn’t heard the name before.
There’s no reason to believe I excuse anything.
For everything else, feel free to visit your local library.
Do you even know the history of Haiti and why it is globally relevant? You CANNOT divorce that from the context of this.
Yes. And if he hadn’t slaughtered his White allies. Or been so oppressive to his own people I would probably think he was a pretty decent guy. He wasn’t. Like people in general he was a complicated and morally problematic person. How was slaughtering his white allies winning freedom for him and his people? Or do you view it as impossible to do wrong in pursuit of revolution?
I didn’t say any of those things, I am pointing out you are carrying water for european slavery empires by stripping the context.
If you cannot get over the individual to understand the context, your understanding of people and history will continue to be egregiously broken and myopic.
No explicitly not. I’ve condemned France and the United States in plenty of places elsewhere in this thread for their behavior related to this. My critique of Dessalines is not defense of them. Or their empires.
I don’t really think you have done what you say, and if you have in this thread it has been from a defensive and reactive standpoint that concedes context and nuance rather than willingly invoking them.
Your belief means nothing. Did the Haitian massacre occur or did it not? If it did that is a genocide. And that is wrong regardless of who. That’s like saying I couldn’t criticize George Washington as being a human trafficker and slave owner. Simply because he freed the Americas from England.
The Haitian massacre did occur, but you’re making claims that white allies were killed. You specifically cited the Poles in Haiti who were among the population of whites granted amnesty and citizenship for their role in rejecting the French.
You were categorically wrong and are trying to breeze past it.
Okay so, since you didn’t quite understand it before:
That’s a strawman.