#3625: Poincy continues with Blanchet

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Jean Poincy <caineve@idt.net>

We have been pounding on the Ayitian government for so long while
shielding Ayitians from blames for failing to take in hands their own
responsibilities as citizens toward the country and as rational
individuals toward themselves. That's a patriarchal approach that will
make them less responsible rather than raising their level of
consciousness about the necessity to improve their conditions of living
through cooperation. 

Their inertia is entirely psychological. They have the land and most
parts of Ayiti do not suffer from severe drought otherwise cases of
famine would be very frequent. I strongly believe that if the will is
there and they were entrepreneurial, they would not be sitting there
waiting for the government to import their bread of life. If the
government does not they will sell all their possessions to venture the
sea. 

Furthermore, knowing that there are the so called human right advocates
that will be ready to defend their defeatist cause, they bound to play
the mind game to show that they are victims of political instability
whereas they are not. Knowing without really knowing that they are
pacts/agreements established among nations in their favor and human
rights activists will use to defend their case, they are bound to take
their chance at sea. 

However, what they don't really know is these pacts are wide open to
violations by those that initiate them out of guilt for their past
viciousness. They don't know that their countries did not have any say
or had no power of having any say in determining these pacts. Hence,
they are powerless in making them respected as violations occur. We know
that there are numerous occasions where these international agreements
have been violated at will once they put the rich countries at a
relative disadvantage. 

If you folks think that helping the refugees or Ayitian as a whole is to
tie their fate to some hollow altruistic motives on the part of the rich
countries, you are in lalaland. Respectively, this is doing greater
harms to these economic refugees by reinforcing their absence of
responsibility toward themselves.  Your endeavors, which I believe to be
genuine, if successful, will not bring long time relief or sustained
well-being.

Every economic decision Ayitians make is irrational. Where we would
think that satisfying an immediate need is rational regardless the
course taken, it is in fact very irrational due the high cost involved
in terms of risk and the near impossibility to attain what they aim at
when they make their decisions. I would consider them rational only if
they allow themselves to go beyond the immediate satisfaction which
presents to them a shaky easy solution or a very remote one that is
solid, but with great sacrifices along the way. 

In most cases, they refuse to think so far either by their inability to
engage themselves in rational thinking for situations that don't exist
yet or they are too weak to sustain immediate lack of things for long
term benefits. Although opting for a remote solution which is less
favorable than an immediate one is associated to human beings (the
irrational ones), but it is very strong and raw among Ayitians. 

I have a more objective and practical approach in trying to understand
the nation's dilemma and identify the means to resolve the issues at
stake. Blanchet, Dorsinville et al can fall for international principles
as they please.  Nonetheless, the attempted meaning for a just and one
qualifier for refugees does not change the nature of what props Ayitians
to leave the country today through legal or illegal means or the way
they do. They are simply economic refugees. Economics is what motivates
them to leave rather than politics. Those who could truly be called
political refugees left under the Duvalier's regime and were mainly
intellectuals and political opponents. 

What we have today is a bunch of people leaving their fertile land if
not sold to embark on a "paper boat" in the hope of landing to the US;
better yet to see the well lit shoreline just to say they saw it on
their return as the odd for them to be returned is .99, again if not
turned into shark's food.  This is a people looking for status in a land
where there is none to gain by simply living there. Hence, anything that
is external of very poor quality can be a source of social status.
That's quite sad, but it is a fact we should not delude ourselves on. 

Folks, think with me. They are not subjected to political persecution.
If they were, they would not have the time to flee since it takes them
some times to plan their departure to everyone's knowledge. Further, if
they really had solid economic interests that would make them live well,
while the country were in complete chaos, they would never pack and go.
They would stay and fight the violence perpetrators to their last breath
rather than leaving. 

Considering these factors equating political refugees with economic
refugees is an aberration. We need to keep in mind that agreement among
nations are just conventions and does not change the nature of both
terms. With such subtleties the terrain is wide open to those who
conceive the agreement in their own term to violate it at will and the
victims have no say.

Myself, I am for resolving the problem and not bending by what's
established and is not respected by nations and expect to alleviate a
whole nation's misery. I don't want to fool myself. Effective measures
ought to be taken to resolve the matter. For we can revisit Papa doc's
rule on emigration and Boyer's rural code on in-migration to refine and
adapt them to the current situations. 

1) An automatic return of the economic refugees regardless their
circumstances. That would be done in coordination with both foreign and
Ayitian authorities. 2) Ayitian authorities should enact laws to first
grant exit visa to whomever wishes to leave the Ayitian soil and second
to make any violation of such punishable by a fine of ten thousand
Ayitian dollars along with five years imprisonment; 3) all convicts
should be forced to perform public works during their terms to rebuild
the country and conduct farming activities; 4) these above can be
applied in case of in-migration with less severity, but with relative
measures. That would enable Ayitian authorities to control the horde of
people from rural to urban regions. 

Along with Ruckle's suggestions as some of the possible means to bring
economic empowerment and that of Jude laying out the psychological drive
for competition with no intent to destroy those that are doing good (as
it is the case in Ayiti) but to emulate them in doing as well or better
in the same domain or in different ones, the stiff measures that I
outlined above would help the authorities in eliminating slums with all
their evil derivatives in the urban areas. At the same time, they would
be able to revive Ayiti's agriculture, the people's self-esteem and
entrepreneurship, and the country's identity. In coordination their
application would bring a sense of responsibility and spur the people's
imagination to transform their environment appropriately, work with what
they have, do it small patiently and wisely as they would accumulate
technologies (know hows) to create wealth but not money.