This weekend, President Obama asked former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to coordinate the American relief effort to Haiti. The irony of this duo's selection troubles me deeply. First, though it was George H. W. Bush who was in office when Aristide was first overthrown by a US sponsored coup in 1991, Clinton delayed Aristide's return, and then only authorized it once an agreement was reached on economic policy reforms - e.g. capital and trade liberalization - which led to the proliferation of sweatshops in Haiti. Secondly, George W. Bush was President when the US overthrew Aristide for the second time in 2004 and forced him into exile, where he remains today.
Aside from their personal histories of authorizing breaches of Haiti's sovereignty, both Clinton and Bush have notable blemishes on their development and relief records. Again, I'll start with Clinton. In an interview with Foreign Policy this past December, Clinton said one of the "smartest, most penetrating thinkers" he knows is David Brooks, a NYT op-ed columnist who this week has written about Haiti's "progress-resistant cultural influences", advocating a development strategy predicated on "locally led paternalism". For me, that Brooks's writings, full of hubris and racism, are guiding Clinton is more than a bit disconcerting.
And George W. Bush an expert on relief efforts? There's one word that I cannot get out of my mind: KATRINA
If you are personally moved to help, I commend you. But please do not do so without a basic assessment of the agencies through which you are attempting to do so. Being an informed donor is absolutely critical. For some direction, this guide is terrific.
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It would be helpful to understand more of the historical differences between Haiti and Dominican Republic. The former, a French colony, and the latter, a Spanish colony, both imported slaves to work the plantations. How can Brooks cite cultural distinctions as the prevailing cause of Haiti's problems when the two countries share at least this common social ingredient? Perhaps he is really saying that the French are inferior to the Spanish...LOL.
ReplyDeleteIt does appear that the French made a mess of things in Haiti before and after independance and that the reparations the French demanded (and which international pressure supported) consigned Haiti to nearly two centuries of oppressive debt and grinding poverty. This appears to be a deeper hole from which to emerge than DR, although both have suffered from political instability and corruption. These however are common to developing countries, though, so they alone cannot explain the outcome. The DR has had a least a decade and a half of greater polital stability (and no US supported coups). This is one important component to attracting foreign investment.
I read somewhere that for Haitians who are employed (what's the employment rate I wonder), the average hourly wage is $.38. This does not pay for food and transportation to and from work. Once an net exporter of coffee, run, and sugar, Haiti's rural agriculture has been decimated and the country must now import these things. Most of that population has apparently moved to the cities where they are met by few jobs and concentrated vulnerability to things like this earthquake.
The DR by contracts appears to still have a substantial percentage of the population living (and owning land) in the countryside along with a viable level of small farm ag production. Subsistence agriculture seems to contribute a lot to poverty alleviation when it is does destroyed by structural adjustment policies. So how did the DR avoid this? How much is the legacy of French colonialism responsible for today's failures in Haiti?
None of the data collecting development agencies seem to have unemployment statistics on Haiti. I suppose they're near impossible to collect with over 80% of the population below the poverty line. I read an article that estimated around 85% unemployment but I don't know the grounds on which this was made. Davis discusses Port au Prince in 'Planet of Slums,' specifically concerning domestic child labor (p.188). 90 hour workweeks for 7-8 year old girls is common according to Davis. Other accounts highlight the occurrence of myriad informal economic transactions which seem to surface in pockets of poverty, the exploitation of children (in the workplace and in prostitution networks) being one particularly egregious example.
ReplyDeleteIt was in Davis's "Planet of Slums" that I became aware of the extent to which the entire populations of the new megaslums are squeezed out of the formal economy and consigned to the permanent poverty and insecurity of the "informal" economy. Davis's example of Kinshasa in the DRC is the one that stands out in my mind. There, beyond the chaos and absence of hope, exists a "shadow" economy based on exploitation and patronage in which the weak exploit the weaker, and things like workplace hours and child labor laws become unimaginable luxuries, the myths of another world. Haiti may have been made such a place.
ReplyDeleteJust read a Bill Moyers piece that aptly dovetails the discussion you're having here. This message is beginning, just beginning,to surface. Check out: http://www.alternet.org/world/145388/bill_moyers:_haiti%27s_problems_are_rooted_in_its_colonial_legacy
ReplyDeleteSince the movie Food Inc. has hit the Blockbuster community, it's yet another lens through which a broader audience can better understand the devastation that is Haiti. I wonder if folks are making the connection...
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