Editor's note: In the aftermath of the January 12th earthquake that ravaged (and continues to ravage) Haiti, as we witness the bravery and dignity of survivors and relief workers, we are wise to examine the deeper outlines of the historical roots that created the conditions for such a massive loss of life. We must simultaneously, however, begin to ponder what lies ahead for the people of Haiti as they emerge from the immediate calamity of the quake. As Naomi Klein meticulously revealed in her 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine, we understand that disasters of this kind can be moments of great upheaval and uncertainty, and that in these moments space is created that paves the way for new policies and new realities to emerge. In the following excerpt from her book, Klein explores those who were able to resist the worst inclinations of "disaster capitalism" - in this case Thai villagers whose homes were decimated by the India Ocean tsunami - by harnessing the power of community and solidarity to supplant the role that financial interests and neo-liberal elites sought to play in the aftermath of crisis:
Despite all the successful attempts to exploit the 2004 tsunami,
memory also proved to be an effective tool of resistance in some areas
where it struck, particularly in Thailand. Dozens of coastal villages
were flattened by the wave, but unlike in Sri Lanka, many Thai
settlements were successfully rebuilt within months. The difference did
not come from the government. Thailand's politicians were just as eager
as those elsewhere to use the storm as an excuse to evict fishing
people and hand over land tenure to large resorts. Yet what set
Thailand apart was that villagers approached all government promises
with intense skepticism and refused to wait patiently in camps for an
official reconstruction plan. Instead, within weeks, hundreds of
villagers engaged in what they called land "reinvasions."
They marched
past the armed guards on the payroll of developers, tools in hand, and
began marking off the sites where their old houses had been. In some
cases, reconstruction began immediately. "I am willing to bet my life
on this land, because it is ours," said Ratree Kongwatmai, who lost
most of her family in the tsunami.
The most daring
reinvasions were performed by Thailand's indigenous fishing peoples
called the Moken, or "sea gypsies." After centuries of
disenfranchisement, the Moken had no illusions that a benevolent state
would give them a decent piece of land in exchange for the coastal
properties that had been seized. So, in one dramatic case, the
residents of the Ban Tung Wah Village in the Phang Nga province
"gathered themselves together and marched right back home, where they
encircled their wrecked village with rope, in a symbolic gesture to
mark their land ownership," explained a report by a Thai NGO. "With the
entire community camping out there, it became difficult for the
authorities to chase them away, especially given the intense media
attention being focused on tsunami rehabilitation." In the end, the
villagers negotiated a deal with the government to give up part of
their oceanfront property in exchange for legal security on the rest of
their ancestral land. Today, the rebuilt village is a showcase of Moken
culture, complete with museum, community centre, school and market.
"Now, officials from the sub-district come to Ban Tung Wah to learn
about 'people-managed tsunami rehabilitation' while researchers and
university students turn up there by the bus-full to study 'indigenous
people's wisdom.'"
All along the Thai coast where the
tsunami hit, this kind of direct-action reconstruction is the norm. The
key to their success, community leaders say, is that "people negotiate
for their land rights from a position of being in occupation"; some
have dubbed the practice "negotiating with your hands." Thailand's
survivors have also insisted on a different kind of aid-rather than
settling for handouts, they have demanded the tools to carry out their
own reconstruction. Dozens of Thai architecture students and
professors, for example, volunteered to help community members design
their new houses and draw their own rebuilding plans; master boat
builders trained villagers to make their own, more sophisticated
fishing vessels. The results are communities stronger than they were
before the wave. The houses on stilts built by Thai villagers in Ban
Tung Wah and Baan Nairai are beautiful and sturdy; they are also
cheaper, larger and cooler than the sweltering prefab cubicles on offer
there from foreign contractors. A manifesto drafted by a coalition of
Thai tsunami survivor communities explains the philosophy: "The
rebuilding work should be done by local communities themselves, as much
as possible. Keep contractors out, let communities take responsibility
for their own housing."
Uniting all these examples of
people rebuilding for themselves is a common theme: participants say
they are not just repairing buildings but healing themselves. It makes
perfect sense. The universal experience of living through a great shock
is the feeling of being completely powerless: in the face of awesome
forces, parents lose the ability to save their children, spouses are
separated, homes-places of protection-become death traps. The best way
to recover from helplessness turns out to be helping-having the right
to be part of a communal recovery. "Reopening our school says this is a
very special community, tied together by more than location but by
spirituality, by bloodlines and by a desire to come home," said the
assistant principal of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in
the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.