The Construction Of The Race And Nation In The Dominican Republic

The construction of the race and nation in the Dominican Republic

Within this writing, the different arguments that play a role in what is the interpretation of racism in Dominican society are evidence The Trujillo government specifically in 1937 when the massacre of 9.000 and 20.000 Haitians under the orders of military leader Rafael Trujillo.

For the times of Balaguer on the island Racism, anti-haitian and anti-negro was not considered without reason, Balaguer’s speech had many similarities with neo-racist discourse, in which they did not consider immigrants non-blinks inferior, or at least not in an open, neither biologically or culturally, the only inconvenience according to this discourse is that being different cultures and that this is sometimes incompatible with the national culture and therefore any type of aggression or lack of Foreigners is not considered bad, all they are doing is defending their culture, so it is considered a natural defense, since they feel threatened.

We talked about the fact that they did not consider the lower non-bolancos immigrants, since this form of racism was not considered as such, because it does not speak of inferiority but of differences, but it is equally negative.

When the French revolution declared that freedom and equality are human rights, a deficit was evidence. To answer this questioning Montesquieu, he raised two possibilities: to presume that these people are human beings, if one would doubt whether we were Christians, the other approach was from a climatological theory saying that there are countries where heat is so strong that it torments the body And it affects morals that people can only be forced to perform arduous tasks if they are threatened with corporal punishments.

Unfortunately, the arguments used did not matter because the rights of slaves and also of the mulattos were sacrificed with the legislative in 1971. In this colony a debate arose if the Indians had to be considered as Christians or as wild, if they were wild could be enslaved, otherwise it was out of discussion.

Fray Bartolomé de las Casas defended the indigenous people saying that they were descendants of Adam, just like the Spaniards and consistently had to be baptized and treated as the same. After a long controversy, the point of view of this was adopted by the Supreme Pontiff, but it was too late for indigenous Taits because when Cristobal Colón arrived on the island, the majority of the Indian population died because of the Spanish weapons, by The diseases brought from Europe and for the forced labor. Because of this Bartolomé de las Casas proposed the search for African slaves and bring them to the island to replace the Indians who had died and be used in the sugar industry from 1520, it was supposed that African blacks were stronger than the Indians and they did not have aptitude for the Christian faith which was characteristic of the Indians.

Slavery did not matter in Santo Domingo since most of the first colonizers emigrated to Mexico in search of the abundant gold that was presumed and the decline of the sugar industry, meanwhile those who remained in their Spanish of cattle, most slaves were concentrated in sugar plantations and many others worked as domestic slaves, on the other hand the slave trafficking in the 16th century would become the essential element of the national identity of Santo Domingo, slaves They would be owned by their masters and they would not have any right, however they had the possibility of obtaining their freedom only had to accept, at least formally, the Catholic faith.

In the second half of the seventeenth century the country came and invaded the country Buccaneers and French settlers who gradually occupy the western part of the island and named it Saint Domingue, they sowed tobacco, and extended their export production to sugar, coffee and cotton , when the export of black slaves passed, Santo Domingo had grown up, due to this growth, a revolution was carried out by slaves, believing that the victims of this revolt returned to Africa, which represented a radiant future for the slaves.

On the other hand, the slaves were not the only ones who had quarrels with the French colonizers, these blacks released from raped mothers and people of color had managed to be very influential in commerce, agriculture and even slave owners, so they claimed their rights their rights Plenary politicians when the French revolution proclaimed freedom, equality and fraternity, thus forming the society of the friends of blacks, of course those rich mulattos fought for their own rights.

These like others sought their own interests that it was to have rights; But at the time of these making an offer to the colonial assembly, many refused with the argument that by granting the rights to the mulattos they thought that the respect of slaves towards their masters would decrease because it would reduce the social distance between whites and blacks ; As the whites were planned they did not accept and in 1970 they brutally murdered the mulatto leaders Vincent Ogé and Jean Baptiste Chavannes. After this event, the realization of the Haitian revolution was motivated, which owes its success to three factors: the aforementioned struggle among the white slave and mulatto, the declaration of war on Spain and England in 1793 by the French revolutionary government and finally Toussaint Louverture’s brilliant strategic leadership thanks to the discipline imposed on the band of former slaves, deserting monarchical officers and others; as well as the war tactics that he displayed.

This victory forced Governor Santhonax to abolish slavery in Saint Domingue in 1793; Toussaint Louverture was appointed commander-in-chief of the French armies of Saint Domingue and ruled the colony effectively.

The racism of Joaquín Balaguer

According to Balaguer in the message he expresses, Santo Domingo and Haiti should not be mixed and his arguments are that Santo Domingo is a Spanish people, while Haiti is an African town, and that if you want to keep the integrity of the nation, these two peoples cannot interfere. But according to other critics this type of thought is considered neo-racist, since human nature is defined as dependence on instincts, feelings and passions and that in no way can be corrected by reason.

In the arguments transmitted by Balaguer, it must. For example, that Haitian immigrants bring barbaric customs, sexual promiscuity and above all that these procreated children who increased the black population of the country and contributed to corrupting the ethnic physiognomy of the Dominican people.

Indeed, Balaguer’s racism was quite outdated and based on ambiguous and unconvincing arguments and therefore it is easy to refute.

Race

The issue of race follows from the text, which is no secret that the policies on race, racism and cultural differences between nations occupy a central place on the stage of our national consciousness. The breed is real, but it is only in terms of symbolic objective, and it is not in terms of specific objective, since this is seen as a discursive element and only exists in discourse, in turn it is considered as a social historical phenomenon.

In the human species, the race is each of the large groups characterized mainly by skin color: white, black, yellow and coppery. So we could say that the color is considered a breed, since the black color belongs to the African and Haitian race, while for the Dominican nation it is recently referred since it is considered a mestizo race. That is, Haitians for their physical and biological condition are said to belong to Africa, while the Dominican has features of the Spanish race and with this the relationship with the inheritance of cultures is established.

Ethnicity could be said that it is a human community that shares a set of sociocultural features, as well as racial affinities. We can see that the relationship between Dominican and Haitian ethnicity becomes unequal, where it can be noted that Dominican ethnicity becomes a nation, while Haitian in race. It should be said that in this text and the arguments issued by Balaguer is not to express the dominant racist ideology, but that it takes an extremist position on the Dominican racism scale.

There is no doubt that for Balaguer the Dominican physiognomy is entirely Hispanic and is linked to the Hispanic tradition and culture and with the authentic Dominican nationality. Balaguer refers to the indigenous race as purity and that is why he is concerned about the growth of the amount of hybrids or mulattos for considering them mediocre and lower as well as blacks.

To end the roots of racial discrimination in the Dominican Republic they are deep. They can be recognized in various forms of genocide, from mass murders to civil annihilation strategies promoted by racist legislation that denies the right to citizens to thousands of Dominicans and Dominicans. A nation where elites have promoted hatred towards Haitians and towards all those who seem to be; In short: towards the poorest Dominicans and Dominicans. Antihaitianism has thus constituted a brutal form of state racism.

As a consequence, normalization and naturalization of antihaitianism, discrimination and multiple violence towards Dominicans of Haitian ancestry has been generated, towards the immigrants of the neighboring country, but also towards Dominicans whose phenotype enters the category of what racial prejudice Ubica as the "other" dominican. This is how physical, verbal, psychological and symbolic violence is manifested, that today we live and that many times remains in the shadow of silence and generalized impunity in the country.

Finally, it should be noted that, although the racism of the State that is practiced in the Dominican Republic is more obvious against the Dominicans of Haitian ancestry and Haitian immigrants, we also suffer from the Dominicans in other countries, although this is recognized less.