14839: Sanba: Re:14817: Knowles: Re: 14793: Haitians Living Abroad - Knowles ques tion (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: sanba@juno.com

First, let me take the time to acknowledge and appreciate that your phrasing have set the tone for a dialogue we are hampering so easily either knowingly or mistakenly.
That eases my intent to underline the fact that in terms of result, and consequences it appears to be less abusive to interpret a financial boycott as an embargo than a situation of “laisser grennen” (permissiveness) from a weak government cornered into concessions after concessions to its opposition as dictatorship. In fact even equating them may be viewed as disingenuous in context, because it is well known that tolerance is alien to Haitian history, and the mere fact of taking exception, let alone declaration of opposition to the government used to be a cause of death. Hence the advice from parents to be careful with politics.
In case we may be tempted to give in to the argument that such practice is of the past, let us remember that not even a decade ago, the de facto regime (the real one, this time) made the case. People had been tortured, savagely killed for calling a name or other ludicrous reasons such as looking at the sky and say “me l anlè a” (here he comes from the sky), which have no common measure with the nowadays bashing and disparaging practice against the President by the media.
In comparison, while an embargo is more spectacular than an hold up, you call withholding of half a million dollars -we should mention earmarked for health, education, and other infrastructure work- the results are the same: there is an unlawful deprivation of means to the holder who is badly hurt.
Worse of all, our intellectuals are lured into spreading the confusion about the dictatorship notion but fighting that of the embargo that effectively aggravates the situation of the majority made of “have not” as much as it is gnawing at the nation’s future and understanding. Oh Lord!