24125: (sylvain) (reply) RE: 24120: Beckett (discuss) social contract in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: patrick sylvain <sylvaipa@hotmail.com>


In the current social and political context of Haiti, the persistency of underdevelopment combined with the absence of
independent social and judicial institutions, mean an increase in the existent level of repression and social
division. Such social division has been intensified since the “Déchougaj” 0f 1986 and subsequent movements. While
people in both post-industrial and developed societies are euphorically celebrating the triumph of the “free market”
under the umbrella of democracy and capitalism; people from the exploited “Third and Fourth World” are battling
dominant social forces that are further exasperating conditions through economic, cultural as well as political
repression. Here, for further analysis, one should include the drug cartels as part of the power equation for both
social and economic dominance. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />



Concomitantly, the push for more efficient, productive, and competitive economies contributes to the creation of more
controlling and authoritarian governing structures, resulting in decreased degrees of freedom for the population. The
state, once the supposed guarantor of protection, is itself under attack, both in economic and political terms, and is
unable to extend its sovereignty in any meaningful manner to protect those in the weakest sectors of society.



The reality of oppression within the Haitian context may be understood from various levels of analysis, from the
macrolevel of global economic and political structures, to the microlevel of internalized psychological images of
inferiority (a psychology of poverty, if you will). A comprehensive analysis of oppression will emerge only from an
interdisciplinary approach that integrates the political with the psychological. Otherwise, efforts to reduce
conditions of oppression will be inhibited by limited perspectives that neglect either the internal or external
domains.  While economical factors are quintessential, we must deconstruct the paradigm of power relations and its
produced consequences.  Then and only then we will be able to fully understand why collectively Haiti is a failed
state.  Interestingly, Haitians, individually, are relatively successful people abroad. So, what dynamics (internal
and external) that are causing the society, the state to be a failure, thus failing its people?