25687: Anonymous (reply) Re: #25653 Ferdinand (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Posted anonymously by request:

Anna Ferdinand (Corbett 25653) writes:

   Point the finger at Aristide, but the opposition has been
   a negative one from the start and deserves equal blame in
   what is taking place.

She's got that right.  One can only despair at the short-sighted
intolerance displayed by so many of the Haitian elite who ought
to know better.  Classic example was many months ago when
President Boniface Alexandre humbly called on ex-President
Aristide to help stabilize the country.  A modest effort that
was probably going to be ignored by Aristide anyway, but the
shock and outrage expressed by your garden-variety Haitian elite
was indeed disheartening.  One would have thought that Alexandre
was denouncing the Haitian Revolution and re-instituting
slavery, given the outcry.

In fact, it was about that point that Haiti's moderate middle
should have should have recognized that the only road ahead for
Haiti was all downhill.  Those with visas have certainly caught
on now, and most are heading for the exits.

Meanwhile, the knee-jerk, left-wing response of Brian Concannon
and friends is even more disheartening.  It would be nice to get
Concannon's personal reaction to last weekend's funeral of
Emmanuel "Dread" Wilmé in Cité Soleil.

It had been many months since we had last visited Cité Soleil,
and our first observation was how few people there seemed to
be-- not surprising as the place IS dangerous these days.  Most
residents have families in the countryside, of course, and have
abandoned the Port-au-Prince slums, just as the wealthy elite
are now abandoning Haiti.

So who was left to greet us?   Children are the first line of
defense since they are hard for troops to fire on, and pretty
soon we were confronted by a couple of youngsters with some
serious firepower.  After a threatening inquisition, we were
permitted to attend the "event".  And a strange event it
was--more of a pep rally for the disenfranchised, many of whom
vowed to follow the perceived footsteps of the fallen hero, lots
of promises to "coupé tête, brulé kay" of any stray bourgeois
left in-country, etc, etc.  A pathetically small gathering
really, but the conscious effort to foment class hatred was
troubling.  Young children and teenage men, posing, cursing,
positing their claim to the Great Revolution of 1804.  None with
any kind of future in a country that wants to forget their
existence, and all of them highly susceptible to demagoguery.
It was an altogether frightening experience for two casual
observers.

It is a shame the the Interim Government of Alexandre and
Latortue has proven so tragically incompetent.  A minimum effort
to reach out would have been so welcome.  Instead, we have
nothing but the usual excuses of a lame Haitian government
bureaucracy.  In the hour of need, when Haiti needed George
Washington and Teddy Roosevelt, it got stuck with a Calvin
Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.  How sad.