Achephie And Chuchou Analysis

Suffering is often the result of structural inequalities built upon deep histories of oppression and discrimination. Suffering proliferates itself when these structures remain unchanged. This can be seen with examples from Paul Farmer’s article, On Suffering and Structural Violence: A View from Below, and Neill Blomkamp’s film District 9. However, these two pieces not only reveal how suffering proliferates itself but how people survive in a world where suffering is a constant cycle.

People often construct suffering through statistics and facts. Many institutions divide the world into percentages through rates of indicators such as homelessness, unemployment, poverty, hunger, and live expectancy. In a way we live in a world where statistics

and facts legitimatize claims and arguments. Among this collection of figures and numbers, are there important aspects of suffering that are lost? Paul Farmer argues that the experience of suffering cannot be entirely communicated through the use of figures or graphs. Instead, he claims that narratives are important to share experiences of occupying the bottom of social hierarchies. Facts and figures may reveal how many people are hungry, are in poverty, are inflicted with a disease, or are dealing with violence. Though this is important statistics do nothing to help the audience to empathize with those who suffer and understand what it means to be living in a community of suffering. Statistics lack the emotion and the understanding of human dignity that is required when diving into a world so separate and different from our own. It is only when there is stark juxtaposition of narratives, statistics, and our own experiences that a more holistic and complex understanding of a people’s suffering can be achieved.
Paul Farmer brings to table the narratives of Achephie Joseph and Chouchou Louis. The first narrative revealed the struggles of Achephie, a woman from a poor rural village. She would often walk long distances to attend to errands such as fetching water or going to the market. She would eventually catch the eye of a military officer and they develop sexual relations. This relationship would only go on for a month before the officer died of unexplained fevers. Falling on hard times, Achephie was forced to move to the city where her good looks allowed her to become a maid for a middle class Haitian woman working for the U.S. Embassy. She soon attracted the attention of businessman and after three years became pregnant with the businessman’s baby. She soon found herself unemployed, abandoned by the businessman, and diagnosed with AIDS.
Farmer’s second narrative came from Chouchou Louis, a man that shared similar background with Achephie. Dropping out of school to help his family bring in income and attend to gardens, Chouchou endured through a harsh childhood. On a truck heading to a neighboring town, Chouchou criticized the government and made remarks about the recent coup. An out-of -uniform soldier heard this and proceeded to beat Chouchou in front of passengers leaving him a large scar on his right temple. A time later, on a trip to visit family, Chouchou was arrested, tortured, and left to die in a ditch. He was found by family and upon examining the body they found bruises, lacerations, broken bones, mutilated genitals, lash marks. It took three days for Chouchou to slowly and painfully succumb to his wounds.
The narratives of Achephie and Chouchou reveal very different institutional forces, social factors, and belief systems that shaped their experiences.

The first noticeable difference is gender and gender roles. Being a female, an especially beautiful one by Haitian standards, Achephie is faced with circumstances that Chouchou cannot experience. Her sexual relationships with the officer and the businessman reveal the harsh decisions many women in Haiti face. Amidst poverty, one of the only ways to rise above poverty was to marry into a family that was already well-off. Officers were the only salaried men in the region which limited Achephie’s choices. The officer that she engages with in sexual relationships was already married and known to have many partners. It was not uncommon for men to have multiple concubines and so Achephie found this to be an opportunity. Her relationship with the businessman mirrors this exact dilemma. A well-off business owner that is capable of providing her with a steady income. However, her attempts to move up to social ladder the only way she can came with extreme risks of contracting AIDS as well as abuse, abandonment, and violence. Unlike Achephie, the officer and businessman are not limited to partners nor are they stuck in poverty. They have power and control over Achephie in a way that forces her to choose between a risk and hopeless poverty. What else can she

do?
In the case of Chouchou, he faces structural violence from institutions more frequently than what women may experience. It is because he is a man that he is faced with so much violence when criticizing his government. Though women are capable of agency and action, men are more often seen as potential threats because they have been socially constructed to be more prone to action and aggression. Men are more often the ones who take up arms and fight. Men are more often in positions of power and can organize armed resistance. This has already been proven with the recent military coup organized and put in action by men. The best strategy would be to diminish the power men have by instilling a fear so powerful that it causes a nation’s male population to fear even voicing their opinion. Because of this Chouchou loose tongue marks him a potential threat. A threat that must be eliminated.
To explain the forces that form structural entities that allow for suffering to proliferate, there must be a deep understanding of history. Paul Farmer explains that, “analysis must also be historically… deep enough to remember that modern day Haitians are the descendants of a people kidnapped from Africa in order to provide us with sugar, coffee, and cotton and to enrich a few in a mercantilist economy”. A key component to understanding suffering that Farmer points out is identifying and understanding the groups that profit and the groups that are exploited and the historical relationship between these groups.
Farmer brings to light that Haiti’s history does not solely include the recent political unrest and military dictatorships.

Framer points out that the history of Haiti begins with colonization and the slave trade. What happens to a people who are taken captive, moves thousands of miles away from their ancestral home, and forced into labor? It creates a relationship of power imbalance that leaves a people traumatized and this trauma is passed down from generation to generation. Despite winning its independence in a revolution, Haiti still carries the inequities of colonialism. Framer explains, “A wall between the rich and the poor is being built, so that poverty does not annoy the powerful and the poor are obligated to die in the silence of history”. No longer subjugated by white powers, the group that benefits is the one that can rise to the top of the social and economic ladder. Haiti shifts from having a relationship of ethnic power imbalance to a relationship of economic

imbalance.