The Red Hour of Miracles: And the Dogs Went Silent by Aimé Césaire

The Haitian Revolution was the first successful anti-colonial war waged by the slaves of the settlers in the New World. The battle against the slavers and their empires was long and bloody. The kings and republics of Europe fought and lost. In doing so, the latter revealed their colonialist and white supremacist similarities to the kings they had overthrown in the name of republican freedom. It is fair to say that the nation of Haiti continues to suffer from this. Beginning in 1791, the war lasted until 1804. The anti-colonial forces maintained a general cohesion throughout the years of struggle, occasionally aligning with different European powers for arms and other support. The lessons that can be learned are the advantages and disadvantages of seeking and accepting support of this nature. This war can perhaps be best understood in terms of its inspirational meanings. The most important of these is that a revolutionary struggle can defeat a more powerful and richer power, even against all odds.

Aimé Césaire was a citizen of the Caribbean island of Martinique, known internationally for his writings. Two of his works are considered international classics of anticolonialism. One, entitled Speech on colonialism He explored European colonialism and its destructive effects on the culture, politics, and economy of the colonized. The other work that continues to occupy an important place in anticolonial and postcolonial studies and movements is his adaptation of Shakespeare’s play The Storm. This work, entitled A Storm Césaire redefined Shakespeare’s drama in what professor and critic Helen Scott calls an “irreverent rewriting of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, with Caliban, portrayed by colonialist writers as the natural savage, transformed into a defiant freedom fighter.” Césaire was a political activist until his death in 2008. One of his last publicized acts was refusing to meet with future French President Nicolas Sarkozy because of his support for a French law that required teachers and textbooks to present a positive view of French colonialism in the classroom.

In addition to the two works mentioned above, Césaire published several other works and helped found and edit the journal Tropics. In addition, there were other works that were not published (at least not in English) during his lifetime. One of these later works, entitled And the Dogs Were Silentwas recently published by the University of North Carolina Press. It is a drama about the Haitian Revolution. The publication includes the French version and an English translation by Alex Gil, which keeps the rhythm and style of the French intact. Written in 1943 during the Vichy (Nazi) regime in the French department of Martinique, the play was published in a different version in 1946. It disappeared a few years later. Alex Gil discusses this and subsequent history in his introduction to this text. Suffice it to say for this review that this 2024 version is a different work than the 1946 version.

The play itself is a fairly linear account of the Haitian Revolution. Toussaint L’Ouverture is the main protagonist, with the Haitian people playing the main supporting role. A mixture of historical fact and fantasy, the myths of Haitian spiritual practices and the practical exigencies of war and politics are integral to the story that unfolds within the pages of the work. Dramatically, the style is reminiscent of Bertolt Brecht, the dramatic works of Amiri Baraka, and the play of Peter Weiss. Marat/Sade. The policy is clearly anti-imperialist and represents the concept of Négritude, which Césaire championed and is considered one of the “fathers” of the concept. Borrowing the words of the Senegalese poet and politician Léopold Sédar Sengho, Négritude is “the sum of the cultural values ​​of the black world as expressed in the lives, institutions, and works of black men.” When combined with Césaire’s leftist politics, And the dogs became silent is by definition a revolutionary and subversive work.

Indeed, it is a rallying cry and a call to arms. The struggle for freedom from slavery and empire is the essence of this drama. The battle that is waged and the calls to keep an eye on the prize are in the text of the work and in the understanding of it. Neither Césaire nor his characters—from the Overture to the Chorus—pretend that the path to freedom that he describes and that his protagonists embody on stage is simple or straightforward. This honesty is what helps maintain the revolutionary understanding that is the foundation of the work. Likewise, it is also the real story of the revolutionary struggle from which the text was created. At once beautiful, brutal, inspiring, and frightening, And the dogs were silent This is a tragedy that must be reckoned with.