Our Ethical Obligations to Haiti

What to say about a disaster as horrific as the earthquake in Haiti?
An earthquake that destroyed Lisbon in the 18th century led Voltaire to
satirize Leibniz's claim that "this is the best of all possible
worlds." Unexpected, agonizing death on a mass scale inevitably evokes
questions as to the meaning of life, human beings' place in the cosmos,
and even the power and justice of God.

Vast natural disasters also bring out the best and the worst of the
mass media. The scale of disaster is conveyed with an immediacy that
evokes immediate empathy for populations and cultures often treated as
inferior.

The same media, however, both perhaps out of its own anxieties or
commercial and governmental expectations, persistently convey the
impression that "we are in charge here." Our values, practices and
institutions will ease suffering and put the victims on the road to a
new order. Thus alongside the footage of desperate suffering we see
heroic images of massive aircraft carriers and Coast Guard ships
steaming toward Haiti. Little mention attends the role that Cuba,
Venezuela and even China played early on.

Though some early
reports pictured Haitians digging others out of the rubble, there was
no discussion of the positive role of broader Haitian culture. Mark
Schuller, professor of African American Studies at York College, City
University of New York points out "Haiti has a thriving tradition of
youn-ede-lot (one helping the other) and konbit (collective work
groups)."

U.S. media often seemed intent on ugly stereotypes of Haitians. On
the Saturday after the quake, an NBC "Today" show anchor, absent any
strong evidence, asked a World Vision spokesman if he was concerned
about Haitians rioting if food was distributed before orderly
distribution systems had been established by the military. He responded
that in his experience that was not a concern. Yet as the World Vision
spokesman responded, NBC flashed a few seconds of murky background
footage of jostling in a relief line. No context or commentary was
given. No one asked if withholding water and food out of distrust of
Haitians might increase desperation and lead to the very behavior that
was feared. Nor did anyone ask if Haitians had any reasons - historic
or current - to distrust their rescuers.

During many natural disasters, media commentary seems designed as
much to prepare us for the notion that absent a top down order provided
by U.S. authorities there is no alternative but chaotic disorder. In
the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the media reported as
facts crimes and violence in the Superdome. Most were later
discredited. Newspaper photos captioned whites in search of food as
"foraging," while similar pictures of African-Americans were captioned
as "looting."

Haiti, we are told, is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
This simple intransitive verb hides context, the history, of how Haiti
has from its inception been imagined as dangerous and thus consigned to
the very poverty for which it is criticized. Born of a successful slave
revolt against both their masters and their colonial oppressor, the
nation has long been reviled by much of the West.

Following the themes with which Christian slaveholders berated
slaves, New York Times columnist David Brooks has provided a more
polite version of Pat Robertson's crude effort to blame Haiti's plight
on a pact with the devil. Haiti, says Brooks, "suffers from a complex
web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence
of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is
capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social
mistrust."

Apart from whether Brooks understands indigenous faiths and whether
a religion that acknowledges the capriciousness of life may have merit,
Brooks omits a century of U.S. domination of Haiti. U.S.-backed
dictators

stole vast sums. Haitians today labor for 28 cents an hour under
U.S. trade policies and an undemocratic government imposed by the U.S.
and the United Nations. Did this history slow its economic progress or
foster distrust of authority?

Though some NGOs have exacerbated Haiti's problems, others offer
positive assistance. Schuller highlights several, including Partners in
Health co-founded by anthropologist Paul Farmer, to which my family has contributed. Their long-term effort involves training Haitian
medical professionals and working with the community. Please consider
donations to this or any of the comparable efforts Schuller documents here.