June 24, 2004
Bill Clinton Escapes the Zombies
"There are some revealing complaints about missteps at the FBI under Louis Freeh's watch, but there are also dozens of pointless digressions about matters like zombies in Haiti…" -- The New York Times
I hadn’t planned to read Bill Clinton’s memoir, but when I found out that there were zombies in it I knew I'd have to check it out. I wasn't dissapointed. It turns out that in 1975 Bill and Hillary traveled to Haiti where a friend introduced them to Max Beauvoir, an influential Houngan, or Voodoo Priest. In Beauvoir's company, the young couple witnessed a ceremony in which two dazed and seemingly mindless people were animated by an unknown force.
On page 237 Clinton recalls the experience:
"The man proceeded to rub a burning torch all over his body and walk on hot coals without being burned. The woman, in a frenzy, screamed repeatedly, then grabbed a live chicken and bit its head off."
Taking pains to be sensitive, Clinton describes the zombie's behavior as a kind of religious ecstasy, but this explanation smacks of liberal expansiveness; a reader can’t help but to wonder if something more sinister was afoot.
Clinton is no stranger to Voodoo Zombies, and in My Life he cites the findings of Wade Davis, a Harvard professor who developed a pharmacological theory of zombiefication, and published a popular book on the subject. In The Serpent and The Rainbow Davis concluded that zombies were a kind of walking vegetable, bound by powerful poisons to serve the whims of secret societies, and Clinton seems to subscribe to this theory.
The afterlife was clearly a major concern for Clinton and motivates most of his actions. What if these zombies were in fact reanimated corpses? Is it possible that in 1975 Bill Clinton was in the company of the walking dead? If so, is My Life the first documentation of the zombie influence in American politics?
In Haiti Clinton confronted the possibility that that the grave might only be a way-stop for the body; that after death the corpse might rise to wander the earth -- a mindless husk in which consciousness would amount to little more than the insatiable hunger for flesh, bones and brains. It is unclear if the zombies he witnessed were spiritual, pharmacological, or undead, but it is clear the encounter had a lasting impact on him. "By the time we got back from Haiti," he writes, clearly shaken, “I had determined to run for attorney general."
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(I’ve been out trying to coax the oxen across the river. I think they are mostly across, so I hope to get things going around here again. I also changed my email – so if you’re inclined, write to me at brokentype at gmail – and if you need an invite let me know, apparently they are hard to come by and I have a few.)
