Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 3, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2018 | Page 20

A Psychological and Political Analysis of a Twentieth Century “Doctator”
who preferred his own company” (Marquis 2007, 91). Ultimately, there were no
indicators up to this point in time that Duvalier would transform from a community
doctor into a ruthless dictator.
Les Griots, Voodoo, and Haitian Politics
An integral portion of Duvalier’s development into a politician began before
his training as a physician and continued well past his post-graduate medical
education. Duvalier attended the state-owned Lycée Alexandre Pétion
for his primary and secondary school. At Lycée, Duvalier became close with
two teachers who exercised a profound influence on his life: Dumarsais Estimé,
a noirist who would become the first black Haitian president since the U.S. occupation,
and Dr. Jean Price-Mars, one of Haiti’s leading ethnologists. Noirism was
a black pride movement that came to also be known as the negritude movement.
Both individuals are important figures and helped shape Duvalier’s worldview and
political outlook. Price-Mars’ work would come to captivate Duvalier during his
formative years as he would regularly gather with two others, Lorimer Denis and
Louis Diaquoi, to discuss Price-Mars’ position on the black middle class and the
budding ethnological movement (Smith 2009). Originally held at Denis’s house,
“Les Trois D,” as they referred to themselves, formed the “Berceau de L’École Historico-Culturelle
des Griots,” where they focused their discussions around cultural
issues, including the attack on Haiti’s Voodoo culture (Smith 2009, 24). Later Duvalier
drew from his knowledge of Voodoo and its importance in Haiti to manipulate
the peasantry and Voodoo leaders into supporting his political pursuits.
As so-called nouveaux Haitians, Duvalier and his associates played a role in
shaping Haitian historical and literary culture. It is during this time that Duvalier
further solidified his worldview of Haiti in its current state, and Haiti as it should
be. Under Les Griots Duvalier further explored his political perspectives and built
upon his past literary contributions at Action Nationale, a daily nationalist newspaper,
where he wrote “under the pen name Abderrahman, ... eighth emir and first
caliph (912–961 A.D.) who founded the medical school of Cordova” (Diederich
and Burt 1969, 38). In his writings as Abderrahman, his publications included topics
ranging from literature to politics. He severely criticized the American occupation
and the elite mulatto ruling class. Duvalier demonstrated a “great bitterness
and discouragement about Haiti’s fate ... but he also expresse(d) hope that ‘a man
will come’ to correct injustice and set things right” (Diederich and Burt 1969, 39).
A chilling self-prophecy predicted his future reign.
In 1933, together with Lorimer Denis and Arthur Bonhomme, Duvalier
published Les Tendences d’une Génération, or “Trends of a Generation,” which
called for the development of a Haitian literary base (Marquis 2007). The writers
presumed that this declaration would help Haiti come out of the shadows of
foreign influence and into its own cultural enlightenment. By 1938, Les Griots
19