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Critiques of how Black people protest are couched in the language of “law and order” that have nothing really to do with public safety, but rather about repression.

On December 10th, thousands of Haitians took to the streets of Port-au-Prince to march for life. They deplored the staggering number of kidnappings that have happened in 2020, the state backed massacres of the past few years, and overall failure by the Moise administration to take its responsibility. I found myself liking many pictures and videos on social media, particularly those of burning tires. An act that previously used to fill me with fear, filled me with pride and hope that day as I scrolled through the photos of countless Haitians demanding to be heard.

I started attending protests a few years ago as an adult. Some have had burning tires and some have not, and I’ve come to accept them as a sign of righteous resistance. There is beauty in marching down a street with strangers who you know are your brothers and sisters, and burning tires is often part of that scene. 

President Jovenel Moise’s latest decree on security defines erecting barricades and burning tires as acts of terrorism that can be punished severely with up two years in prison. This is the latest in a series of unconstitutional decrees, including one setting up an intelligence agency that is beyond the reach of the justice system. This begs the question of what objective does this decree have in mind. Is the practice of burning tires really what is making Haiti unsafe? 

If the Moise administration was concerned with people’s safety, they would stop propping up gangs that kidnap young and old and massacre Haitians in poor neighborhoods that will prove important during elections. Coupled with this terror, such measures are just another attempt to quel citizen participation–to make us sit at home in fear.  The latest decree, like the police violence against protestors, is the Moise’s administration’s latest moves to quell dissent. Showing once again that Moise’s government seems to seek to protect itself and its desperate hold on power rather than the lives of any regular citizen. 

Haitian courts do not function as they should. The investigations into crimes that do happen are farces. The courts are filled with corrupt judges, loyal to the government, establishing a pervading climate of impunity. Elections in Haiti are neither free nor fair and are often manipulated by external actors. For those who have not chosen yet to completely disengage from public life, protest is one of the only levers left at their disposal. One such performative act is burning tires. 

My relationship to roadblocks and burning tires has changed in recent years, although these acts remain largely commended by Haitian society. I used to find the practice scary. Hearing adults talk of it as trouble when I was a kid, along with internalizing messages of Haitian protestors as menacing people senselessly erecting walls of fire in the international media shaped my fear of it subconsciously. 

Burning tires is the most aggressive form of nonviolent protest, in that it is a form of property damage, but one that is contained. It disrupts and creates dramatic images, serving as an expression of grievance and political statement that onlookers will not be able to ignore. It also has a tactical use of drawing the eye of the media, both local and international. The spectacle that the fire presents helps to mobilize the fourth pillar of democracy that is able to carry the message further and hopefully garner more support, even beyond our shores.

Activists use tactics like burning tires to create spectacle, at the risk that the white gaze of the international media might ignore the message being conveyed. This influences the public discourse on the issue and the movement, at large. We see examples of this often when Black people protest. The prevailing narrative often is stuck on whether the protest is peaceful or not. These critiques of how Black people protest are couched in the language of “law and order” that have nothing really to do with public safety, but rather about repression. This is the same law and order ideology that Moise’s new security law seeks to exact. 

While it is true that people are sometimes paid to burn tires and protest by powerful players behind the scene, many organizers utilize burning tires to obstruct traffic and signal that a genuine grievance is being expressed. Most political protests begin with a Vodou ceremony, recalling the ceremony of Bwa Kayiman that signaled the beginning of the Haitian revolution. With this ancestral heritage in mind, any act of protest, including the burning of tires, is considered a sacred act for some organizers.

George (his name has been changed for this article), an activist I spoke to said the following, “Burning tires is a symbolic act. Many people who burn tires do not understand it that way, but for some of us, we always take into account the spiritual meaning of fire, although not always the fire of a burning tire. But we perform our ceremony, and we recite Boukman’s prayer. All of this comes directly from the ceremony of Bwa Kayiman. I will keep burning tires until life is better.” 

Because, more than anyone else, a burning tire poses a threat to the government ignoring the pleas of the person enraged enough to set it on fire. George explained, “the people fighting for a better life are not the terrorists. The real terrorists are the powerful people who continue to destroy lives.”