Haiti – 220th Flag Day : Message of reflection from Lesly Condé

Haiti – 220th Flag Day : Message of reflection from Lesly Condé18/05/2023 10:04:00 As part of the celebration of the 220th anniversary of the creation of our national bicolor, Lesly Condé Ex-Consul General of Haiti in Chicago (August 2004 – May 2018), gives us as every year a message of reflection that we invite you to read and share.

Message from Lesly Condé:

“Dear compatriots and friends everywhere,

I appreciate the enormous privilege of being in your company, again this year, for the Haitian flag day. Our dear two-tone has been around for two hundred and twenty years. We know that no other flag in the world has a prouder, more eloquent and more heroic history than ours. Today, we are forced to recognize that our flag has seen better days when it flew more sovereignly in our beautiful firmament. We will therefore not speak of a celebration, but we must take this opportunity to reflect on the importance of our national emblem, the place it occupies in the history of humanity, and how it can still inspire us in this dark moment. For having inspired other peoples, and served the cause of freedom far beyond our borders, the Haitian flag makes us a proud nation. He must accompany us in all our battles.

This year, we need to focus, in a special way, on the importance of the symbolism of our two-tone. In its most difficult moments, a nation always retreats to the most glorious aspects of its past. The story of this flag is so eloquent that we would like to tell it to the whole world. There is so much symbolism in these two colors. Today, we Haitians have a duty to look proudly at this symbol of our identity, this two-tone which also belongs to the heritage of humanity. The story of the creation of the Haitian flag speaks not only of the bravery and determination of our ancestors, but also of their pragmatism. French slaveholders had skillfully exacerbated the conflicts that existed between blacks and mulattoes, slaves and freedmen. This is the kind of division that slavery thrives on. However, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and our other ancestors understood that it was necessary to unite to defeat the common enemy. The birth of our flag on May 18, 1803 in Arcahaie sealed this historic union.

Indeed, on May 18, 1803, what happened in Arcahaie, was going to alter the course of the history of the human race because, all amazed, the world was going, shortly, to witness the birth of the first black state in the Americas. It is appropriate to pay tribute to the bravery and pragmatism of our ancestors who managed to unite despite their disagreements, and by defying the wrath of the most powerful slavers of the time.

Our Nation, which was born on January 1st, 1804, less than a year after the creation of the flag, does not know its most glorious moments. It is not even necessary to list all the threats, all the derisions and all the injustices to which our country and our flag have been subjected in a downright hostile world. Even today, our setbacks continue. Quite often we even admit that we are the architects of our own misfortune while we are the eternal victims. There are also compatriots who go so far as to say that our flag was created too soon, and that our independence should have waited. The truth is, the world has never changed, and constant struggle is our manifest destiny.

If the rest of the world looks at our dear Haiti with an indifference that borders on contempt, if our neighbors and our so-called friends believe that our constant setbacks can be explained by an intrinsic incompetence or quite simply by a cruel irony of fate, so they did not capture the greatness of our ancestors, and their attachment to well-being that always accompanies freedom. The creation of this flag was a vibrant declaration of love for freedom and well-being. If our proud bicolor who put an end to the world order of slavery, also made us a solitary nation, it is because, I repeat, this world really needs freedom.

Thank you for your attention, and wish you a happy Flag Day. »

Reflection messages from Lesly Condé in 2023: https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-39348-haiti-national-day-of-the-haitian-diaspora-message-of-reflection-from-lesly-conde.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-39261-haiti-easter-2023-message-of-reflection-by-lesly-conde.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-39222-haiti-holy-week-2023message-of-reflection-from-lesly-conde.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-39124-icihaiti-social-international-day-against-racism-message-from-lesly-conde.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-39116-icihaiti-international-francophonie-day-message-from-lesly-conde.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-39016-haiti-social-message-of-reflection-by-lesly-conde.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-38747-haiti-black-history-month-message-of-reflection-from-lesly-conde.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-38592-haiti-earthquake-2010-message-of-reflection-from-lesly-conde.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-38507-haiti-history-message-of-reflection-from-lesly-conde.html

All Lesly Condé’s reflection messages in 2022 : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-38451-haiti-christmas-end-of-year-message-from-lesly-conde.html

All Messages from Lesly Condé in 2021 : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35584-haiti-social-wishes-from-lesly-conde-on-the-occasion-of-the-new-year.html

HL/ HaitiLibre