Appendixes 237There are other secret spots which do not have well-known names; these are
the dark caves in our mountains, our steep cliffs and hidden dells in our plains; all
of them friendly and impregnable hiding places for the maroons of former times. We
can include in this context every inch of the tortured and holy land of Haiti, for long
the cradle and bulwark of négritude in America, so often burned, ravaged and bathed
in blood, sweat and tears, but which continued to nourish that mysterious 'tree of
black freedom', the trunk of which, although hacked and scattered to the winds, still
each time grows again from its many deep roots.
Ladies and Gentlemen, participants and observers, we welcome you with
respect, trust and friendship. You will find here surprising survivals from our Mother
Africa in gestures, words, songs, dances and many other significant details. You will
also find kindness which reflects a real wish to please, but which does not exclude
dignity and self-control, a welcome full of the warmth of easy-going human friend-
liness which does not exclude respect for others; a sense of solidarity born of long
suffering which does not exclude independence of character; a way of smiling tinged
with melancholy and dreaminess, the gaiety of laughter clothed in light, music, colour
and dancing which does not exclude clear-headedness and is often a mask behind
which life's aggressions can be challenged. There is also the faithfulness to ourselves
and our values born of our determination to survive, but which does not exclude
openness to human contacts and discussions.
In order to become at last truly ourselves, we know that at the crossroads of
the present we still have to overcome obstacles of a new creeping and insidious kind,
such as land erosion, drought, floods, the slow destruction of our historical monu-
ments, the unsuitability of our educational system in comparison with our needs and
aspirations, underproduction—in a word : underdevelopment.
In this new kind of struggle, applying the development strategy which we have
chosen, we Haitians need sincere, understanding and reliable friends who are able
to avoid wounding our native pride, to accept us as we are, and to give their friendly
co-operation as we tread the difficult path ahead.
Now is the time for thought, joint effort and mutual enrichment. In this connection,
the great migrations and the wanderings of those willingly or unwillingly uprooted
from their native lands are particularly revealing. Man is in himself a whole universe,
and even when he was transported naked, empty-handed and far from his own kin,
he still kept his memories of home, his visions, his dreams, his ideas and his emotions
and, in his new surroundings, his daily acts still reflected the traditions of the past,
imprinted indelibly on his innermost unconscious.
By studying these movements, we get a deeper grasp of the contributions and
reactions of different civilizations, and can discern through the curtain of time our
ancestors kneeling to their own gods in their hidden temples.
The studies which you will undertake on the slave trade in all its aspects,
implications and consequences will be both moving and valuable.
Few terms evoke in us such strong reactions, such an emotional shock, as the
words'slave trade', few terms carry such tragic memories, so indelible that no passage
of time could ever quite efface them.
We, too, following on the original inhabitants of this land, have our eyes