Grace Independent

The news can be a very funny thing.

I think we have had numerous conversations through this blog about the nature of the news that we see being careful constructed to promote and support the advertising placed around it. Last summer, when I was reading that book and posting excerpts about how newscasts are designed, was an education for all of us.

Sometimes the news we see is skewed to get us fired up about nothing in particular in order to feed on our emotions to “keep us coming back,” or to sell us something that promises to make us feel safe and good.

Sometimes the news is real and void of economic influence but it is …inadequate…in helping you understand the totality of something that happens because it is out of practice with the art of informing without ulterior motive.

Disasters are one of the few things that can happen that money can’t touch when it comes to the news, at least in the beginning.

The reporting on the earthquake in Haiti brought a world together as we witnessed the almost total destruction of Port-au-Prince and bore witness to the staggering death, property loss and human grief caused by the disaster.

People and governments moved to help Haiti with a speed rarely seen (and partly learned from the abysmal response to Katrina) to give aid.

It was a moment of shared humanity that moved many to a feeling of hope for the world at large beyond just being able to respond to need in times of disaster.

And then…

the news stories began to change…

American Missionaries were arrested trying to take 33 Haitian children from the country as orphans without proper paperwork and despite the fact that 22 of them had living parents. Some of the parents of those children said that they willingly gave their children to the missionaries because the missionaries promised they would be educated.

One of the world news stories that has not been reported much in the US is that Aid groups in Haiti are estimating that half of their efforts in distributing the food coupons is spent spreading false information about distribution locations in order to distract gangs of men that have been attacking and robbing women of them. Camps are being set up for women only to try and protect them from increasing levels of rape and robbery attacks by these gangs. The men are complaining that they are being treated like animals.

The Haitian lawyer for the American Missionaries was fired for trying to extort $60,000 dollars from their families for what is believed to have been bribes to have them freed.

All adoptions from the country have been halted, whether begun before the disaster or not.

Aid agencies have released a list of priorities that name food, shelter, water and medical care as the sole priorities.

Haitians struggling to survive on the streets are skeptical of the tents and tarpaulins for one very practical reason – June 1^st is the beginning of the hurricane season.

In Haiti there is a grim recognition that the almost complete destruction of Port-au-Prince has cost many not just their family members and homes, but also the very means with which they identified themselves within the culture. The Haitians who emphasize their French heritage lost just as much as the Haitians who emphasize their African descent.

Everyone has been reduced to survival. Yet, there is also a strong urge to grab whatever one can to rebuild a sense of place and prestige which for so long has been a part of their identification in a society divided by race and economic class. This has led to behavior by some Haitians that is unfathomable to aid providers (such as the selling and trading of food and coupons).

Oddly enough, the one area of the city that survived the earthquake the best is the Citi Soleil, or Sun City, one of the most notorious and violent ghettoes in the Western Hemisphere. Populated by gangs made of mostly orphans loyal to (and trained by) Aristide, this ghetto is so lawless that it was considered a major step forward when Haitian police, backed by armored UN peacekeeping troops, were able to walk one block into Citi Soleil and remain there for one hour in 2006.

These gangs, who were promised money and prestige (social power and acceptance) by Aristide and then betrayed by him, have spilled out into the devastated city; a city that spurned their cinderblock and sheet metal shanties, the sole surviving structures of the earthquake.

The lost children of Haiti are what roam its streets now, preying on people because these children have never known anything different. A world without is the kind of world they know how to prosper in and the rest of Haiti, who has spent so long clinging to race and class divisions, does not know how to go on without a concept of us and them. There is not one Haiti, but three: the French-Haitians, the African-Haitians and the Lost Children.

But make that four Haitis, for there is still the peasants in the countryside to consider.

(Just as an aside, it is 7:11pm on the 7^th as I write this, I just checked the news and the reporting on Haiti has slid to the bottom of the top ten list. A story about a prostitute getting a degree is now #3.)

More and more Haitians are fleeing the city and going to the mountains, returning to families that neither have the agricultural means to support them or the market of Port-au-Prince to sell their crops and goods in to provide differently for them. But the city has become a place of the ultimate betrayal for them and they are reluctant to stay and face rebuilding, reluctant to stay and risk the violence that is increasing. Yet their flight threatens the few areas of Haiti that were not devastated by the earthquake.

Where aid fails is in considering what will be the next step.

(it is 7:16pm on the 7^th as I write this, I just checked the news and the story about a prostitute getting a degree is not about a prostitute, but the child of a prostitute who benefited from a charity that allowed him to leave the brothel and study in America.)

It is hard to understand the statement “when aid fails” in the midst of a response to a great tragedy, it seems cruel and cynical to talk about it; but it is realistic. Aid fails more often then it helps because although the intent is good, the integration of the effort with the reality of the situation prevents the aid from being more than minimal survival and going towards helping rebuild something stronger.

Kind of like right hearted missionaries blasting off to save children and not having a grasp of the reality of documentation. In their right hearted ignorance they have shut down an entire process that could have continued to help and place children with relatives and instead has become such a political hot bed that the welfare of orphaned children is not even on the list of priorities any more. One of the Haitian Americans I spoke to for this blog, who has been trying to adopt the children of her deceased sister for over a year, was informed that the process is now stopped. What should have been the easiest of aid to give is now prevented.

Haiti’s history is rife with aid from Western countries that was offered (or forced) without the necessary follow-up thought that examined if the aid was going to make matters worse. Now, while that may sound like Haiti has been constantly rescued by the Western World it is also fair to note that the Western World, primarily the US has been the primary responsible party to creating the original economic despair in Haiti and then performing in such a way that Haiti has had little chance to recover from it in the ensuing almost 100 year history of the two countries interactions.

Every time Haiti has begun to recover itself - something has happened and the US has been there with a form of aid that was not that well thought out in the long run. Like the epidemic of African Swine Flu that USAID demanded be solved with slaughter, not considering that this removed the sole source of income and wealth from the peasant population that was just rising out of a destitute poverty and provided no inclusion in the aid package for rebuilding herds.

Like focusing on tents and tarpaulins and wanting people to stay and rebuild damaged buildings in an area that is 2 and ½ months away from Hurricane season.

Most westerners are not that familiar with Haiti’s history. It was originally occupied by the British, French, and Dutch. These countries introduced a large slave population from Africa to the island. After a revolution, Haiti bought their independence from France for 90 million gold francs. Money they were loaned by other countries at what can only be described as usury rates.

Haiti paid that debt back.

It took them almost 150 years but they paid it off and began to build and thrive. There was a constant race struggle between Haitians who considered themselves French and Haitians of African descent but no more or less then any other country with a racially diverse population encountered in their inception.

What disrupted the balance of it all was the beginning of the World Wars and America’s discomfort with 200 Germans who lived in Haiti and had a lot of economic influence over the island. America invaded and occupied Haiti, first through gaining control of their national Bank through investment and then with military force. Being that Haiti only had about 3 miles of road on the island the Americans then began to build over 470 miles of roads to help with the military maneuvers of the occupation.

When the depression hit, not surprisingly, FDR saw fit to end the occupation – however, the USA retained control of all of Haiti’s external finances until 1947.

The various regimes that came into being were dealing with a country suffering like all other countries during the depression. To solve problems like covering the cost of maintenance on the infrastructure built by the Americans, they brought back laws that originated in the 1800s and were based in the original Code Noir law (which regulated the treatment of slaves) in order to press peasants into forced road labor in order for them to “pay-off” their road usage tax.

Slavery returned to Haiti.

Slavery is defined as a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation (such as wages).

There are more people today in slavery then at any other time in history with the numbers estimated to be at 27 million. Most slaves today are considered debt slaves, working with no compensation and no rights to pay off a debt. It is almost a given that they suffer from gross violations of even the most basic human rights.

In Haiti, as their governments rose and fell and moved from democracy to dictatorship (and all somehow supported and helped to be placed by US policy due to economic entanglements and strategic issues) the move from governing to abuse of power was always swift and sure. This is not surprising given that the culture of power that was in place was the culture of slavery, the culture of using. Whoever had the power made the rules to suit their desires. People were merely the tools to acquire wealth and to expand influence.

This culture of slavery translated into the fabric of the Haitian family where for a long time children were viewed as mostly a means to expand the families well being. These were not “legacy” children or children brought into the world with ideals of contributing to the future but tools to provide for the families survival.

Children that - as they became lost, abandoned or orphaned - became the armies of dictators and despots because they were told they could be the originators of their own destinies.

Haiti, a mostly Roman Catholic country, struggled to reconcile obedience with abuse and a constantly disintegrating economy. It was the words of Pope John Paul II, condemning Baby Doc, that roused Haitians to revolt in 1986. However, as with all things that seem to occur on Haitian soil, the Pope in his criticism of the regime did not have any concept of what was there to replace it.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was waiting. By the time he and his army of lost children (the Famni Lavalas) were through with Haiti, he was airlifted out by US forces only to be returned to power by the US in 1996.

Aid comes in two packages – immediate and long term. Immediate aid is survival based. Long term aid is that which is designed to help a country rebuild itself in a manner that will best withstand a disaster of this kind from destroying it again.

Aid comes in two packages – the one we think people should have and the one they need.

The most significant change in Haiti has been the transformation of their attitude toward their children. While still seen as the providers and guarantee-ers of the success of the family, education is now recognized as so important that Haitians in the midst of absolute devastation are willing to surrender their children – not to promises of safety and shelter – but to promises of an education. Education is what they have seen is the only way to combat tyranny, corruption and poverty.

Haitians are not reacting to the devastation of the earthquake with a PTSD zombified state. They are, in the midst of their absolute despair, doing whatever they can think of that will rebuild their country and move them towards resolving decades long problems of poverty and oppression.

Unless the countries racing to provide aid can tune their services in a way that emphasizes and encourages this, then the aid offered will only get Haiti ready for their next round of loss. Haitians have survived so much that they know that the time for grieving is not now, but when you can look back to what has been from a different place. That is something that the foreigner seeking to provide aid and relief must understand and integrate into their approach.

(it’s 9:18 and Haiti is no longer in the top ten news items)

The earthquake of 2010 did more than destroy the lives and homes of 100s of thousands of people in Haiti; it has torn apart the very cultural structure that has for so long housed many of Haiti’s worst and sometimes, most subtle problems. The endemic culture of slavery, discrimination and abuse in Haiti is not solely their responsibility but also the responsibility of countries that have contributed to its creation through the pursuit of their own goals via Haiti’s people and economy and their well meaning but not well thought out attempts to help solve problems.

While we cannot undo history, we can take steps to change our thinking and approaches to avoid repeating it.

In the rush to provide aid, the world-at-large runs the risk of reinforcing the very problems that have plagued Haiti for centuries when many Haitians see that for the first time they have an opportunity to rebuild their country and heal it of its ills.

Aid that does not take into account the nature of the culture of slavery can resurrect the hierarchy that allows such a culture to exist. Aid that does not recognize that it is the new commerce and economy in a devastated area will fail to see the divisions it creates in a nation even as it helps them survive. Recovery is dependant on more then meeting basic needs. Culture and society must be included from the very onset. But this is hard to see because a culture of debt-slavery exists in almost every country offering aid to Haiti and to help them we must become willing to face our own ills.

The Great Aid Rush, while realistic and necessary, will provide nothing more than a means of survival until the next established disaster unless thought is given to how types of aid and dispersal systems are integrated into the complex cultural structure of Haitian society. Aid providers must work with Haitian leaders from all sections of the population to create a structure that feeds and supports a growing nation and does not recreate a one that suffers from the best of intentions.

Time is running out, Haiti is falling out of our news swiftly for there is little to be sold on disaster so complete and so far away. Our fervor fades quickly for complicated things, yet resolving or even beginning to try to approach resolving this hugely complex situation is something that is key to a global understanding of the nature of not only how things have come to be, but how to begin to effectively implement change.