One year later, on April 24, 2024, the Green Sofa self-defense movement took hold. Control of local territory and practices of community vigilance are internalized and shared among the population. The population is still on alert and the extension of the movement to other points is diverted. Support from police units is mixed. But the planning of the local territory is done exclusively according to the immediate needs of self-defense and security to the detriment of any integration of existing urban infrastructure.
April 24, 2023 recalls the attempted incursion of attackers into the 1st municipal section of Turgeau, in the middle of the night. This was countered by the vigilance of the population followed by practices of expeditious justice from residents of Canapé Vert to around ten people presumed bandits and suspected of reinforcements for the attackers. The incursion occurs as a common practice of destabilizing the population and then reinstalling it as a human shield, under the influence of a perverse community integration led by bosses.
Since then, the city has been stripped of its security shell to guarantee the right to life. He sets out to race to ensure the watchfulness of the city, not even its survival. A city stripped of its joys that citizens are trying to rediscover by building self-defense oases on shifting sand.
The settings of Françoise Choay in her book entitled “Urbanism, utopia and realities. An Anthology” (1965) have already surpassed themselves. They paraded at the cost of blocking urban islands in regions of an immense desert which evoke fear. This is innovation on April 24, 2023, as self-defense of the population. It is much more than the “Utopia” of More (2003) or even the communities promoted by Las Casas to protect themselves from threatening contacts and prone to vices and corruption born of damage. It is the advent of “Spider Villas”, trapped in the free movement of people and goods. This extends the list of types of cities defined by the late Dr. Jean Rénol ELIE, which we take advantage of to salute his living scientific productions, in particular his contributions to understanding the question of decentralization and citizen participation.
Dr ELIE spoke of towns that became towns such as: star towns, round towns, long towns, port towns, ford towns, dormitory towns, trading towns, site towns, refuge towns or cities and towns. refuge villages, camps or tent villages (Elie,2012:21-68). It is the primacy of urban planning disguised under the influence of “spider cities” after April 24, 2023.
Tents erected after January 12, 2010 are palaces in “El Dorado” compared to properties formerly decorated according to model architectures.
It is the anticipation of a city in self-sufficiency with the closure of its main international airport landlocked by perverse urban integration. Alternative land use planning aims to preserve self-defense oases by doing without any other complementary infrastructure for community services. Also in certain cases decomposed grass and waste of all kinds are used to erect entrance gates to new miniaturized cities. There is no shortage of counter-projects from more than one who exploit ravines, drains and sewers as refuge. It is the presence of the architecture of a disguised city, which serves as a stratagem in hidden and unrecognizable hiding places of all kinds.
Leaky sewers connect the urban blocks. Like communicating vessels, the rainy scenes in Port-au-Prince defy all plans and confuse the urban planning disguised here and there. Because road signs and urban planning objects have other functions at the cost of the pragmatism of active self-defense of the population. What about the traffic of vehicles which must use urban roads otherwise we see them divert in their movement. It is the appearance of a “spider city” of fiction that is emerging. Everyone takes detours in the corridors of the new disguised city.
The curfew is already in place before its officialization by the authorities since the political vacuum on February 29, 2024. We believe we are in a battle of the traditional game of hopscotch to reach the main access routes. We are blocked on our way by carpet-simulacra. Behind the curtains are accesses; There are many that line up and intersect in which architecture when behind curtains run along and turn away from paths that could be exploited for self-defense and to camouflage oneself against the stranger. In the meantime, counter-projects ruin walls, sections, facades, fences and any other obstacle.
From the leapfrog of the invaders to stand out and get lost in the immediate space facing the police. Everything is then molded in the wake of attacks on the infrastructure of schools, hospitals, churches, libraries, public squares, bus stations, bistros for dancing, restaurants. All that remains are oases built in the shadow of crimes, bludgeons and threats that put everyone on alert under the eye of mayors and ministers of the interior and local authorities.
It is this shell which envelops the new “spider city” which creates the fear which spits and hides an engulfed landscape. Self-defense has masked itself here and there to ward off repercussions and murderous attacks from one side or another in their shameful projects. What about aesthetics, decors, flowers, pets!
Building oases on shifting sand in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince since April 24, 2023 is like putting yourself in Christmas lanterns, not even an abandoned stable.
In the somnambulant city, the homes remain only for the new museums. The clanging of pots and pans replaces the sound of vehicle horns, church bells and the sirens of deserted boats in the wrecks of the international port of Port au Prince. Searches all night long, sentries at the barriers of urban blocks ready to face the fear of those who hunt the populations settled and defeated from their living environment. The daily commute to contemplate the rubble and the skeleton of homes leaves the well-off, the housed, and tenants everywhere to mourn.
There remain garrisons occupied by valiant idlers practicing their first occupations. The village is not indifferent in the call for a mechanical solidarity which imposes affectivities without making allowances for the various roles and their complementarity. The city is swallowed up in the meanders of a diverted urban culture. The city is deprived of its members who liven it up as a place of entertainment, civility and social attractions (Laborit, 1977: 175) under the surveillance of local authorities close to the citizens in their neighborhood.
The oases open onto dead ends linked to the concentration camps in the rest of the landscape. Do we not talk about open-air prison to describe the chaotic security situation in the city of Port-au-Prince?
Bibliographic references
CHOAY Françoise (1965), Urban planning, Utopia and realities. An anthology, Seuil, Paris.448p
ELIE Jean Rénol (2012), “housing in Haiti: evolution, deficiencies and risks in Revue les Cahiers du CEPODE NO 3, Editions CEPODE, Port-au-Prince.
LABORIT, Henri (1977), Man and the city, Editions Flammarion, France.214p.
MORE Thomas (2003), Utopia, I Read. 124p.
PIERRE, Hancy (2023), “Haiti, from rebellion to the appropriation of the right to active and responsible self-defense: the Canapé Vert movement of April 24, 2023 “in the National of May 11, 2023.
PIERRE, Hancy (2023) Haiti-Canapé Vert rebellion and self-defense movement of April 24, 2023: shocks and special effects in the National on July 18, 2023
