9123: On benevolent dictatorship: Chamberlain comments (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

> From: MKarshan@aol.com

> To my surprise, and probably to the others sitting at the table at that
time 
>(and you all know who you were) I remember a couple of years ago, not long

> before the U.S. Ambassador Carney left Haiti, his wife met with a few
foreign 
> journalists at the Olaffson and she expressed her views that Haiti needed
a 
> benevolent dictator!  It was quite shocking and obviously in direct 
> contradiction to official U.S. policy, although I guess everyone is
entitled 
> to their own personal views.


Now then, now then, Michelle...  the ambassador's wife ain't the ambassador
and the Oloffson ain't the floor of Congress (the Haitian or the US).  If
all politicians'/diplomats' spouses (men or women) were taken seriously,
then we could all have a right old festival of indignation.  Mrs Thatcher's
drunken "flog 'em all" husband, astrologer Nancy Reagan, Pierre Trudeau's
flower-child wife and plenty of others in more recent years.

That said, mebbe Carney did, in private, share his wife's exasperation. 
Who wouldn't in the farcical scene that's been driving Haiti into ground
zero for the past few years?  Indeed, you, I and many others (Haitians and
foreigners) have, in our more relaxed moments together, allowed our
exasperation to express itself in similar terms, though usually
half-joking.  Even Haiti Progrès' Kim Ives has been heard to utter
politically rash remarks.  But we are all forgiven because we're normal
human beings with a right to express impatience (in private).

So don't hold Mrs Carney (who I don't know) up for sacrifice like that.  If
it'd been the Cuban ambassador or his wife saying such a thing in
exasperation, I bet you wouldn't be pointing out how hypocritical that was
when Cuba has all those prisoners of conscience in clink (all officially
"non-political" of course...).


        Greg Chamberlain