Haiti: Orphan of West

Rushing to the aid of earthquake devastated Haiti is a no-brainer. The out-pouring of grief and support for the poorest of the poor in the western world is as it should be. It is only right, despite what the ilk of Pat Robertson or Rush Limbaugh might say. But what happens after we have delivered water, food, and medical help during this emergency? How do we really help them long-term? Is it possible? The knee-jerk answer is yes, but what do we rebuild, and for what reason, really? This is a much more difficult question.

Haiti represents the worse of all that went wrong with the Atlantic Slave Trade. Displacing these people from their African birthplace a continent away, enslaving them under a sketchy government – the French – only to abandon them to their own limitations on a tiny island. And finally, saddling them with a cost of their freedom which guaranteed a bad start and no-win future. This is Haiti.

At the base of the country’s economic tale of woe is a population size that slams its diminishing agricultural base. The population density of the country is 10X that of the US. Ten million is too many people, half of them illiterate! Haiti is a prime example of ‘ecoside’, or suicide by a plunder of one’s living environment. The country has been deforested, over the past 200 years, to the point where living off the land is impossible, and they have no other means of trade. With no exports to trade for petroleum as fuel, they have consumed their forest for heating and cooking, and left themselves no escape route.

So, the world can respond to the current devastation, but only via an indefinite emergency-type aid scenario, where we provide the basics year after year. They are wards of the industrial world, orphans. There is no infrastructure to rebuild, no economy to repair, no confidence to bolster. If the reparations-extracting French had any moral backbone, or true patriotism, they should be ashamed for this mess of a country created in the wake of their colonial exploits. But hey, they are the French.

Anyway, what to do? Our thinking needs to get crazy. Haiti needs to be recognized for what it is, a malnourished ecological/economic/political orphan of colonial Europe and the west. The G7/8 need to collectively take it over, install a provisional government, tear it down and build it back, as if they were freed just yesterday. The French and US - those who blockaded the fledge-ling nation for nearly 60 years, owe them and need to pay up first, and pay big, including paying French-speaking Africa to accept, voluntarily, as many of the ‘too-many’ inhabitants as possible. The population density must be reduced immediately. This may all seem heavy and nut-zo, but drastic is called for, otherwise we should get ready to continue witnessing, from our top-side front-row seat, their annual devastation, punctuated by disaster, accompanied by expensive, high-tech, band-aid rescues.

James C. Collier

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