13451: Mambo Racine - What have whites done to help Haiti? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Racine125@aol.com

Someone asked this question, and I'd like to say a few words on the topic.  The answer lies somewhere between "nothing" and "a great deal, but with a great deal of harm done in the meanwhile".

Let's start by looking at only those whites who are in Haiti presently.  There are a few broad categories of "whites" currently in Haiti - there are white missionaries and white journalists and white development workers and white teachers, plus white diplomatic corps people, those are the main groups I think.

The diplomatic corps, in my view, do much more harm than good.  They contribute to the economy, they tend to be on the high end of the rent scale and so on, but they represent governments and businesses whose policies in Haiti are harmful.

Now, I am sure the missionaries want to believe they are helping.  Foreign journalists were very helpful during the coup years and during the UN intervention, in the same way that journalists exposing abuses and scandals here in the USA are helpful; and they took tremendous risks.  One Reuter's cameraman was shot in the head by a FRAPH member while filming a memorial procession in 1994, though he survived.  Michael Norton is still on the beat, I think, and no one can deny his contributions.

Development workers... well, the stereotype is that they aren't really aware of what their own countries are doing, but one subset of this group, human rights workers, certainly were aware, and this group comprised some of the most courageous folks I ever met.  I have seen white human rights workers in Haiti hide fugitives from the Haitian Army in their own homes, risk their lives documenting abuses, get beat up by filthy vulgar attaches in churches at the funerals of murdered dissentors.  No one can tell me these folks did not make an important contribution.

Teachers, well... overworked and underpaid in Haiti as everywhere else, but as everywhere else, teaching!  That is an undeniable contribution no matter how you slice it.

I am sure other Corbetteers can come up with better examples than I.  This does not mean that the "white presence" in Haiti has on the whole been beneficial.  But to suggest that whites have done "nothing" to help Haiti at all is false.

Peace and love,

Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen

"Se bon ki ra" - Good is rare
     Haitian proverb

The VODOU Page - http://members.aol.com/racine125/index.html

(Posting from Jacmel, Haiti)