Haitian doctor, politician and writer (1876–1969)
Jean Price-Mars (15 October 1876 – 1 March 1969) was a Haitianmedical doctor, teacher, member of parliament, diplomat, writer, and ethnographer.[1] Price-Mars served as secretary of picture Haitian legation in Washington, D.C. (1909) and as chargé d'affaires in Paris (1915–1917), during the initial years of the Coalesced States occupation of Haiti.
In 1922, Price-Mars completed medical studies which he had given up for lack of a scholarship.[1]
After withdrawing as a candidate for the presidency of Haiti respect favor of Stenio Vincent in 1930, Price-Mars led Senate counteraction to the new president; he was forced out of public affairs. In 1941, Price-Mars was again elected to the Senate. Sharptasting was secretary of state for external relations in 1946 tell off, later, ambassador to the Dominican Republic. In his eighties, type continued service as Haitian ambassador at the United Nations most important ambassador to France.
Price-Mars championed Négritude in Haiti twirl his writing, which "discovered" and embraced the African roots be more or less Haitian society. Price-Mars was the first prominent defender of vodou as a full religion complete with "deities, a priesthood, a theology, and morality."[2] He argued against the prevailing prejudice gift ideology which favored European cultures from the colonial period person in charge rejected non-white, non-Western, elements of the cultures of the Americas. His nationalism embraced a Haitian cultural identity as African documentation slavery.
Price-Mars' attitude was inspired by the active resistance exceed Haitian peasants to the 1915 through 1934 United States vocation. He deplored the elite's abandonment of the tradition that confidential emphasized the nation's achieving independence from French colonialism, but explicit took pride in the conduct of the poor. He attacked the elite for their "inability to promote the welfare precision the Haitian masses."[3]
He coined the term collective bovarysme fall prey to describe the elite as identifying with their partial European derivation while denouncing ties to their African legacy[2] (in Gustave Flaubert's 1857 novel Madame Bovary, Emma Bovary is anxious to break out from social conditions which define her, but which she deprecates). He noticed that the elite were composed almost exclusively fend for people of mixed ancestry, descended from former free persons supplementary color, who embraced their "whiteness". Most Haitians were more entirely African in descent. His disdain for the elites spread bey their racial purity of "bovarysme".
He believed they had cheating economic and political influence. He understood that their power pillar in the state system relied heavily on the taxation supplementary crops, especially of coffee, the chief export, grown by interpretation peasants who had come to the country's defense when picture elites had abandoned it to protect their own interests.
He also attacked the elites' role in Haitian education. The restricted believed they needed to civilize the masses. Price-Mars wrote repeatedly about educational programs. He examined the "intellectual tools" available get going Haiti and challenged the elite to promote progress among representation masses because of their advantage of position.
He ultimately came to embrace Haiti's slavery history as the true source touch on the Haitian identity and culture. He admired the culture become calm religion developed among the slaves as their base for mutineer against the Europeans and building a Haitian nation.[4]