We've already had the extremely generous and highly contentious suggestion from the President of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade offering Haitians free land to relocate to Senegal, this sparked off a rush of other African and Latin American rulers offering free land to the displaced and damaged victims. However president Wade's offer was first and best, not just repatriation but free, fertile land and if many come, a region...
Senegal, despite widespread poverty and unemployment, is one of West Africa’s more stable economies... and regards many Haitians as long lost brothers and sisters lost via the slave trade. If poverty stricken African countries are lending such a generous hand, what exactly are we doing? Look at the wealth throughout the UK, the ostentatious buildings in our major cities financed by the toil of the slave trade. Liverpool, Glasgow, Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham and London how different they would look if we hadn't been in the business of slavery.
I'm intrigued by Africa's offer of assistance, is it Africa's responsibility to look after Haiti and make offers that Europeans and North Americans would blanche at? Look how many Haitians die every year trying to sneak into the United States. Stories abound of Haitian-Americans trying to pay to fly injured or dying relatives into American hospitals and being denied access. If there is a responsibility to Haiti, to ensure that those who don't head off to West Africa, have a proper attempt at reconstruction, then surely that lies with the Americans and Europeans who have shafted them since the birth of their nation? I was horrified to discover that Haiti only stopped paying compensation to the French whose companies lost out after the slave revolt in 1946. Imagine, paying an indemnity for profits lost from the slave trade, or making those who paid with their blood pay twice.
Look a little closer to Haiti to see how reconstruction and regeneration can somehow benefit a people in the oddest of ways. The venerable Scottish poet and my old friend, Alastair Reid, writes in his collection of poems and prose 'Oases', of his life in Haiti's neighbour, the Dominican Republic. In his wonderful languid style he describes how in the run up to the Quincentenary of Columbus arriving in the Americas, the then repressive dictatorial President Balageur was keen to capitalise on the Dom Rep as the place where Colombus first set foot on the Americas. Balageur despite being nearly blind ploughed untold tens of millions of dollars into a gigantic lighthouse, in the shape of a cross, lying flat on it's back. 120 feet high and half a mile high, beams of light would illuminate the skies, visible as far away as Puerto Rico some 200 miles distant. Balageur was undeterred, modern navigation doesn't need lights, the infrastucture of health, education, transport was far more important. All criticism was dismissed. 1992 finally came around, the massive edifice was complete, evening fell, the lights were switched on beams of light illuminated the sky for 60 seconds, then the entire electricity system collapsed. In his haste to build a monument to his own vanity, Balaguer missed the opportunity to work on the really important parts of reconstruction.
We have to ensure that Haiti is not dismissed as a vanity project by the NGO's and our ever so concerned western governments. We have to ensure that the USA have simply not colonised this island with the business end of an assault rifle, that democracy is respected and the people of Haiti have the right to live in the relatively similar prosperity of their neighbour's in the Dominican Republic. As it currently stands, I have my doubts.
Rather ironically, I've just noticed on the BBC that Brown government has purchased all the UK's available corrugated iron sheeting. So these 5,700 sheets will fit in quite nicely with the illustration above.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8489308.stm
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3 comments:
Mark
Have you been to the Dominican Republic?
It would probably be better to relocate to Senegal (with some investment from the west)
looking at 'the ostentatious buildings in our major cities financed by the toil of the slave trade'
and compute how much unwilling blood and bone built them is not a very capitalist thing to do.
Nikos, yep, although the Dom Rep is riddled with corruption, unemployment, poverty and crime, it's still in a heck of a lot better condition than Haiti was before the quake. Their infrastructure works, the economy gets by on minerals, and agriculture. Tourism is a relatively new industry, it's fast becoming one of the top destinations in the Carribean.
As long as we live within the global capitalist sytem then no one has a right to prosperity. That's just a fact, although I admit I am still struggling for an alternative, so this shit will just go on and on and on.
What we need to do as individuals is think of our interactions with countries like Haiti when they don't have disasters.
If we go to the Dom Rep as an example just try not to go with a company that exploits the workers too much. When you go shopping don't buy from shops that sell you stuff too cheap - you know there's a wean at the end being paid in shiny buttons.
We all have power here but sadly most people don't use it.
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