Dessalines and the Haitian Revolution
anecdote · Caribbean/Haitian history ·
retold in 3 talks
Žižek recounts how Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the general who actually won Haitian independence after Toussaint Louverture's capture, proclaimed Haiti a black republic where all citizens regardless of skin colour are 'black', a genuinely universal formula. But then Dessalines ordered the killing of all remaining white people and declared himself emperor, reproducing European authoritarian structures and eventually continuing a form of slavery.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“All people of Haiti, citizens, independent of their color of their skin are black. This is a wonderful formula... But when he did this... exploitation returned with force. He became emperor.”
“Napoleon sent a strong part of his army were polish soldiers... the black army was singing marseillaise and they did something heroic.”
“the greatest event for me maybe greater than French Revolution Toussaint Louverture Haiti Revolution”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Madison (James Madison)1Voltaire1Pétion (Alexandre Pétion)1Jean-Jacques Dessalines1Dan Patrick1Arthur Rimbaud1Kwasi Kwarteng1Valentim1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
Žižek recounts how Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the general who actually won Haitian independence after Toussaint Louverture's capture, proclaimed Haiti a black republic where all citizens regardless of skin colour are 'black', a genuinely universal formula. But then Dessalines ordered the killing of all remaining white people and declared himself emperor, reproducing European authoritarian structures and eventually continuing a form of slavery., illustrating paradox of anti-colonial revolution,universality and particularity,the failure of pure negation
Žižek recounts how Polish soldiers fighting for Napoleon switched sides to the Black army in Haiti after hearing them sing the Marseillaise, recognizing they were on the wrong side. He highlights Haiti’s subsequent payment of 60-80% of its state budget to France for 130 years (ending in 1946) as a symbolic punishment for revolution., illustrating dislocation,universality
1:13:03 Apocalyptic & Post Apocalyptic – pandemic, dystopia, horror, climate change, & so on2021-10-14 · 1:35:56
Žižek calls the Haitian Revolution perhaps greater than the French Revolution, citing Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian constitution's definition of all citizens as black as a supreme example of universality achieved through a particular exception., illustrating concrete universality,particular exception as universal opening,Black Lives Matter logic