19649: Esser: Jean Bertrand Aristide: Humanist or Despot? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: "[ISO-8859-1] Margaret Féquière" <mfequiere@joimail.com>

Jean Bertrand Aristide: Humanist or Despot?

By Lyn Duff, Pacific News Service
March 2, 2004

The Jean Bertrand Aristide I know is markedly different from the one
that is being portrayed in the media.

In 1995 when, I was 19 years old, I traveled to Haiti to help set up
Radyo Timoun, a radio station run by street children in the capital,
Port-au-Prince. Over three and a half years I worked and often lived
with the children of Lafanmi Selavi, a shelter for some of the
nation's quarter of a million homeless children.

It was there that I came to know Jean Bertrand Aristide, not just as
the president of the poorest country in the western hemisphere, but
also as a father, teacher, a friend, and a surrogate dad for hundreds
of parentless street kids.

In his private life Aristide was very simple and, in many ways,
unaffected by the power and prestige that went with being president.
He lived in a beautiful but rather small house near the airport where
he seemed to be oblivious to the deafening sound of airplanes taking
off at all hours. He took piano lessons, played with his children,
read books in a myriad of languages, and spent hours in meetings.
After his first daughter was born, I often saw children from the
neighborhood playing with the toddler under the mango tree while his
wife Mildred watched.

The only time I saw their small swimming pool used was when groups of
children - usually street children, or kids from our radio station,
or children attending literacy classes at the nearby Aristide
Foundation for Democracy - came over for a swim. One time, on the way
home I asked the boys what they'd discussed with Titid after lunch,
and one of them volunteered, "We talked about dating girls and how
you should be respectful, and about how to be a good man."

Our conversations were not frequent but when we did chat, he always
treated me with respect and love in a very real way. Whether I
struggled with algebra or with the Bible, he always took time to talk
about equations or his own faith.

When I faced life after college with trepidation, he listened
attentively to my fears and concerns before asking if I wanted
advice. When I said yes, he helped me sort through my options. During
a speaking tour in the south of Haiti, I accompanied him. To the
impatience of his staff, he insisted that we drive slowly over the
rocky and rutted roads. "It's not worth it to go fast if someone gets
hurt," he said.

How then to reconcile Titid the humanist with what the media calls a
despot of Haiti?

I don't know, and frankly, I've been struggling with that question.
When I spoke with Haitians working for a few pennies an hour sewing
clothes for American companies, I was frustrated that Aristide
insisted on following a democratic process to raise the minimum wage
knowing that the process would be slower and result in a lower
minimum than if he just unilaterally raised it himself.

Aristide said, "Change takes time, Lyn. Some people have spent years
paying Haitians very little. When I wanted to raise the minimum wage
in 1991, they had a coup and you know what happened." He reminded me
that he had gone to parliament to raise the minimum wage in 1994,
though it was still very low. "Of course people should be paid more,
but in a democracy we have to share power and this is what was [voted
on.]" he said.

When a major American daily paper published an article that portrayed
Aristide as a despot, I was aghast. "Don't you care that they're
saying this about you?" I asked him. As much as I disagreed with some
of his politics, I was hurt when I saw him so maligned.

Aristide always had an answer: "What is important is not journalists,
it's to make democracy real. How can we say we love our brother but
we let him starve? How can we say we want democracy but we do nothing
when people have no home? How can people have peace in their hearts
when they have no peace in their stomach?"

There are, he added, "Larger forces at work here than you or me,
forces that have a big stake in our small country."

Knowing President Aristide, I would guess that his staff was much
more concerned with how the international media portrayed him than he
was personally. Perhaps in the end that was one of his bigger
mistakes, failing to focus on winning over the world's opinion.

My opinion about Titid hasn't changed, however. I will always know
Titid as a humanist over the failed politician. And during this
chaotic time, I remember him and his family and wish them peace.

Lyn Duff is a freelance writer currently based in Jerusalem. She is
writing a book on Haiti.
.