SARGASSO


to island--and most of these differences have to do
with particular histories, the fact that Martinique
and Guadeloupe are now an integral part of France
whereas Haiti has been an independent republic since
1804--yet depreciated attitudes toward Creole remain
widespread in most areas.

 Thus, both in Haiti and in the French D.O.M. one
finds a "legitimate," authoritative language, French,
being constantly reinforced by a language of compromise,
Creole, which most people want to, or seem to want to,
be rid of as soon as possible. But while it is
certainly true that authoritative discourse only ever
governs with the collaboration of those over whom it
exercises its authority, in the case of the French West
Indies the alternate discourse has functioned and
continues to function as an act of defiance as well.
So even though Creole, like any new language, was
originally fashioned out of the materials of the past,
that is, out of what was perhaps constituted to serve
completely different ends at another time and place,
something else happened, too, somewhere along the way--
and that something else was that the rules of the game
changed.

 French sociologist Jean Baudrillard has made some
very interesting observations about the logic of the
game and the order of the rule. The liberating thing
about the latter, he writes, is that rules don't
require us to believe in them--this is irrelevant--rules
only need to be observed. Playing the game means
entering a ritual system of obligation where the choice
of rule frees us from the authority of the law precisely
because we don't have to interiorize the rule but only
be faithful to it. This means, says Baudrillard, that
we are not required to transgress the rule in order to
defy it. Operating within such a logic, true defiance,
linguistic or otherwise, does not proceed as a
confrontation between two terms or as a transgression
of meaning but rather always works to exterminate the
structural position of both terms. It is more a process
which reverses and destroys meaning than one which sets
up new meanings in place of old meanings: "Defiance
always comes from that which has no meaning, no name,
no identity," writes Baudrillard, "it is a defiance of