20777: Manning: RE: 20765: Goodman: Re: 20758: Manning: RE: 20739: Mason Re 20718 Goodman; Re: 20690 Esser: Haiti Human Rights... (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: VenusKarly Manning <venuskarly@hotmail.com>

From: Brian Goodman <bdgoody2002@yahoo.com>
>
>There you guys go again ..putting yourselves down.  Yeah..you are
>right...Haiti had and has nothing going for it.  Every time there is a
>positive comment made about Haiti through history.....people only see the
>negative part of it.


From: VenusKarly Manning <venuskarly@hotmail.com>

There goes that word again Pearl
Haiti wasn't the peoples Pearl, the people of Haiti were slaves.  The Pearl
was France and her peoples.   Enslaved people did not benefit from the
wealth of slavery.  Haiti is not a Pearl it is the Land of the Mountains,
which created places for the enslaved people to hide.   Please remember that
when you use the word Pearl.

-- Nowhere in my statement am I putting Haiti down.  Instead I'm redefining
what the a word that was used not by Haitians to define Haiti.  Haiti has
and will always have a lot going for it just ask the women and men who sell
the crafts of Haiti, or the man that leads the trips up to fortes in the
mountains, or the people who live in other countries but long for Haiti, or
the Vodou or Catholic or whatever religion they may be who celebrates in the
church or open air churches of Haiti.  This is not a idealistic writing, but
of someone who understand Haiti you must lie down in trenches and ride
standing of seating in a Tap Tap on the hot sun and know that we would not
have Haiti if not for the slaves who fought for independence.

Regardless of how much money one pours into Haiti it will be her people who
define what Haiti will become.  Therefore, as her sons and daughters it is
our responsbility to redefine the language with which we regard her and make
it our own.  Words have power.  Haiti will only benefit from not backslide
if we accept the truth, Which is we are the descendants of slaves and the
leaders who fought to free them and that is nothing to be ashamed or afraid
of claiming.   With or without money Haiti future is in our hands;
therefore, her past is and will always be a part of the story.   I would
rather define myself as a Mountain or a land of mountains, because pearls
regardless of their beauty can wear thin.  Mountains are strong and one can
see them from miles and miles away.


Goodman states:
Haiti was a "Pearl" and still is.  Pearl does not mean wealth all of the
time.  It also means beauty.



-- Finally, if you reexamine the texts that refer to Haiti as the Pearl of
Antilles it also is in reference to the wealth that Haiti brought to the
French tablem, it does not reference to her beauty.  Haiti's beauty in this
statements is usually refered to separatly.

You are right in the one statement that :  Haiti does not have the wealth of
other nations but its strengths are other coutnries' weaknesses.

Because culturally and historically Haiti's history defines her as an
original and a leader who regardless of how poor she is will rise up and
make mountains rise.