"mòde soufle"

In reading Brother I'm Dying, the concept that was most striking to me was the creole term "mòde soufle" which author Edwidge Danticat describes as a Creole term meaning "where those who are most able to obliterate you are also the only ones offering some illusion of shelter and protection, a shred of hope--even if false-- for possible restoration (204). Danticant introduces this term when she is describing the emotions felt by her uncle upon seeing a large amount of UN and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (204). This term is not limited to this one isolated incidence, but I would argue can also explain the entire narrative given in "Limbo." Throughout the family's dealings with the UN, CIMO, and CIVPOL they are told multiple times that these agencies were not here to aid the citizenry, or to aid in ending the war and instead the family was met with multiple instances in which officers would excuse their  lack of empathy with comments such as "we're in a war now... we'll see what happens after the war," as well as "if his neighbors were wounded and killed by Haitian police, there was nothing the UN could do" (201-203). The UN "peacekeepers" were to be seen as an agency that would stabilize a troubled nation undergoing political transition. However, the officers of these institutions offer the citizenry of Haiti no aid, and in fact re-enforce the war zone that the nation has become by rivaling the gangs in the streets forcing all of those within the area to walk around their own streets and alley ways as if crossing a mine field in which they could be shot and killed on either side by the gangs or the UN task force that had done little more than to further tensions with the gangs.

Throughout this reading, while probably obvious, I noticed a lot of the same instances of "mòde soufle" that occured in Taking Haiti. This was especially prevalent to Mary Renda's depiction of the role of paternalism in the act of colonizing Haiti. Renda explains the process of fostering a paternal relationship from one nation upon the other as "the relation of power implicit in the father-child dyad. In the paternalist framework, the relation of father to child was not only marked by the care, guidance, protection, and affection of the father for the child, but also by the father's proprietary claims to, and mastery over, the child" (104). This mirrors the actions taking place in Brother I'm Dying in that the UN and other international "aid" organizations were merely there to reap the economic benefits of a nation riddled with violence and the confusing construction of institutions that accompany a transitioning government. These western international communities were willing to be the executive policing agent in Haiti with the appearance of being dominant (by carrying guns and their uniforms), but were unwilling to aid in the political, economic, and domestic improvement that they had so bravely ensured the global community, was their primary objective.