Chapter 17: Soufrans Ayisyen: An Emerging Theoretical Construct of Haitian Suffering and Resilience

COVID-19, a virus that is now ubiquitous globally, is the light at the dawn of the 21st century that lays bare the putrid maladies that we have known and felt for a very long time lurking deep inside our collective consciousness. We have resisted. Still, the ferocity and scope of the coronavirus is no match for our denials and the desperate need to pretend that all is well in a diseased body. COVID-19 is a triple pandemic revealing blatant racism, the unrelenting and disproportionate impact of the virus itself, and the unique suffering of Haitians. This chapter will address a conceptual framing of suffering that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic specific to the Haitian people’s historical and multigeneration suffering. In Haitian parlance, the suffering which will be addressed is called Soufrans Ayisyen. Suffering holds a dubious distinction in Haitian life. In a sense, it is ubiquitous; it’s so common that it seems to fill the air. We have learned to coexist with it like an unfriendly neighbor. Molefi Kete Asante’s foreword in former president Jean Bertrand Aristide’s Haïti-Haiti? Philosophical Reflections for Mental Health Decolonization captures Haitians’ coexistence with suffering. Asante says of Aristide’s goals during his first presidency of Haiti, “Indeed, he [also] balanced the federal budget for the first time that anyone could remember. In his [Aristide] words, his goal was to move the country from misery to poverty with dignity” (Aristide, 2016, p. 2).