mr jan, what constitutes an elite for you? by what standards are you defining an elite? if an elite is by functional definition a group with the best attainable qualities, then what you have presumably called an elite must be a misnommer.
i cannot in all conscience conceive of a man such as mr apaid,in a modern world with a technology-based global economy, who merely posseses a 5-million-dollar textile industry in a non-competitive market, being the pinnacle of our human potential.
by the way, i have accidentally come upon a tentative argument forwarded by an author on this thread that has somehow used the following as the core of the his pro-baker stance: "..as a young man baker used to drink and speak with the peasants on his farm, and even ate their food and so on.." it is as if such anecdotes can attest to a man's humanism and deep respect for human dignity.
such arguments are fallacious, and this is why:
during jim crowism in the american south, the guardians of this white supremacist system were most generally nursed and reared by black nanies, and their first true friends were naturally the sons and daughters of those same black nanies until the day their society severed such a friendship with a near-fatal dose of comtemporary reality-check_either after an innocent kiss or after not being allowed, to their dismay, to be accompagnied to school by their darker-skinned friends; but such encouters did not in any way prevent those kids from becoming racist judges, abusive sheriffs or imperial wizards of the kkk. in other words, one cannot use superficial encouters between a plantation-owner and his peasants to prove a great sense of humanity.
it is worth noting that i am not claiming mr baker to be a racist but rather that the anecdotes proudly mentioned by our author cannot be considered proofs of excellent character and human empathy on the part of mr baker.
it would be much more impressive and substantial if that author were to say the following:..
as a young man, mr baker saw on his plantation a very bright little boy(or girl) of a particular peasant family.
recognizing that a goog brain is a terrible thing to waste, mr baker took it upon himself to ensure that this young boy does not waste his very capable brain on the farm.
today, the kid is a successful doctor and both his primary and secondary education were made possible due to mr baker's financial help and moral support; or i would be very impressed indeed if the author were to say that a young baker had set up a rudimentary school on his farm to teach the very basics of literacy to the ignorant peasants; or that he was present with antoine izmery on that fateful day in the church of sacre coeur paying respect to the memories of the victims of the jean rabel massacre.
*one is not necessarily a hero just because one has defeated one's arch-enemy.
in fact, mr aristid has strangely become a super-reflective screen upon which are being projected
the failures of a two-hundred-year history.
this is a pathological phenomenon for it only serves as a fallible shield of self-rightiousness, and consequently will continue to prevent us from making the critical self-assessments and the examining of our own personal failures.
the self-defeating logic seems to be the following:..
as long as we have one national scapegoat to blame, we are okay; that is hardly the way to move a society forward.
