The Japanese Model:
Is Collective Work an Answer to our Language Issue?Nekita Lamour
December 1999Most countries have been looking at Japan as an example of economic development for the last two decades. Industrialized countries, principally the U.S., began to apply Japan's collaborative model in the l980's. As a result, increasing numbers of banks, hospitals, and communication companies merged to facilitate better collaboration and more productivity. The worker is gradually viewed as an associate and expected to make significant contributions to the business or institution.
I was in Japan two years ago with a group of 20 educators from the Boston area participating in a program directed by the Children's Museum/Japanese Foundation program. I learned a lot in Japan and was able to witness the results of a collaborative culture. I learned what working together entails. I found out what the results of genuine love and trust for one's country and one's people can amount to. As the world knows, Japan's major cities were almost destroyed 55 years ago and the country also suffers frequent natural disasters like earthquakes and floods. Despite those natural and man-made catastrophes, Japan managed to rise up to become the second economic power on this planet. It's not solely the work of a minister, emperor or political party. It is a nation that cares about the integrity of its people and the country and every single Japanese works hard at that.
Why can't this phenomenon occur in Haiti, a country that has never been in war with any nation since its independence in l804? There was no war when Boyer occupied the entire island for 25 years. Haitians did not attack the Dominican Republic when Trujillo killed over 34,000 Haitians. The Bahamas, a black nation next door to Haiti that gained independence around l965 has a per capita income of about $11,000 a year, among the highest in the western hemisphere. Why not Haiti?...
In my trip to Japan, I met people from Germany, Canada, the Caribbean, and from many states in the U.S. who came to look at some aspect of Japan, be it art, labor union, industry, schools, people, or culture, to name a few areas. I also went to Okinawa, an island that belongs to an industrialized country which obviously cannot be compared to Haiti, aside from its palm trees, the hibiscus, the beautiful beaches, the people and the slow pace of life.
When I came back from the 20 day Japan trip, I attended a week long Literacy Institute at Lesley College, which addressed literacy from a multicultural perspective. I felt obliged to start collecting literary information about Haiti and Haitians after that course. It was an eye opener. As a veteran pedagogue, I did not know that out of 5,000 or so children's books published every year only 1% are written by and related to minorities. Asians, Afro-Americans, Hispanics, and native Americans are all included in that 1%. Also, the majority of books about minorities are written by Europeans or Caucasian Americans. This is to say minorities have a lot to do.
Compilation of doctoral and master theses related to Creole or Haitian is another needed project, specially those written by Haitians about Haiti. The majority of authors in a Haitian Children and Adult's bibliography that HAPTT( A Haitian Parent and Teacher Training program in City College in the 80's) prepared are non-Haitian. I am more interested in what Haitians say about Haiti, though we should continue to collect, learn, and analyze what others say about Haitians.
A growing number of Haitians have published academic works in English in the 90's, such as Degraf, Chancy, Racine, Desmangles, Trouillot, Fleurant, and myself Lamour to name a few. More academic writings by Haitians should continue in the next millennium.
Emmanuel W. Vedrine is compiling all books, articles and dissertations written in Creole and about Creole, for his book Bibliographic Dictionary Of The Haitian Language. He also posts Haitian Creole related theses on the web. This is a work that I deeply appreciate. Charlot Lucien published an anthology of poets in the Massachusetts area and is working on one of artists. An anthology of Haitian writers in the Boston area would have been a more complete and productive work. I heard there is one anthology of Haitian writers being prepared in Canada. A lot is happening. But Haitians are so divisive, so egocentric that they don't have a vehicle to systematically share this information. There needs to be an anthology of Haitian writers. Laguerre had done some work on that subject, but it is beyond the financial reach of most people. Maybe a smaller version like Bibliography Haitiana can be attainable.
In the mid l990's , "mainstream" U.S. publishers with an elementary and secondary classroom audience entered the Haitian Creole market. Several books and dictionaries were published in the U.S. in Creole such as some Creole-English Children's Picture dictionaries by Oxford University Press and Harcourt & Brace Company, as well as a Creole translation of a primary social studies series by Hampton Books. However those materials do not look Haitian. The words in the Hampton's series are in Creole, but the pictures are not culturally relevant. They contain pictures of noticeably Caucasian children living in single family homes. It's even absurd to have those kinds of books in the 90's in English, let alone Creole .
The non-Haitian child or the Haitian child born outside of Haiti does not learn anything about Haiti or the Haitian's child life in the U.S. in those books. Moreover those Hampton series contain many syntactical errors. If a Haitian decides to work with an American publisher, he/she should demand a Haitian artist or illustrator to do the pictures. Words alone in a particular language do not represent the culture. If the work is collective, the ones who get the contract with the publisher could request that other Haitian educators see the final product before it goes to print. The "I know everything" concept does not work in industrialized societies.
Empirical research and studies about Haiti are also in great need. Graduate and undergraduate Haitian students born in the United States or outside Haiti are constantly looking for empirical research but can not find them. Communication and collaboration among researchers and writers with common topic interests is important. Isolated works have not been proven effective and do not provide solutions to have quality materials available for the next generation.
As we enter the millennium, the Japanese model ,collective work, listening to one another, and "agreeing to disagree" must be imperative in all segments of the Haitian society. The Creole-French discussion, the increasing crime rate, the organized chaos that Haiti is facing can begin to see a solution if Haitians agree to sit together although they have different ways of seeing things.
Louis Joseph Janvier had addressed this approach in 1882. He said that the country will fall into anarchy if Haitians can't work things out democratically. In page 46 "Louis Joseph Janvier par lui-même", Pradel Pompilus reprinted excerpts from Janvier's book "Haiti et ses Visiteurs," p.160-162, ... Mais que les Parlementaires de l'opposition s'inclinent devant l'avis de la majorité, car sans cela il n'y aurait ni securité, ni gouvernement ultérieur possible, et l'anarchie règnerait toujours en souveraine.
Days from 2000, Janvier's l882 predictions and analyses don't seem any different from what one is reading today about Haiti in major newspapers around the globe .
As the millennium begins, let's all of us who are concerned about Haiti put Janvier's ideas and the Japanese culture of cooperation , collaboration, and active listening into application in whatever field we are working on for Haiti's brighter and better future.Nekita Lamour
December 1999