Haiti's earthquake in the
context of decades of forced poverty
Bob Thompson
Peter
Hallward noted in yesterday's Guardian (London, January 13, 2010): "Along
with sending emergency relief, we should ask what we can do to facilitate the
self-empowerment of Haiti's people and public institutions."
One possible
bright side to this disaster, as we saw after the 1985 Mexico City earthquake,
might be that civil society, in the face of government inability to respond to
such a major disaster in the first few days, can come through and realize that
communities are able to organize themselves, without the help (or interference)
of a corrupt or inept government and the international institutions that
support it. In Mexico, this set the stage for a flowering of community,
neighbourhood, regional and national organizations which eventually played a
major role in the overthrow of a 70 year old institutionalized governing party.
Even the
distribution of emergency aid, before community reconstruction begins, if put
into the hands of people and communities themselves, can develop democratic
capacities and strengthen people over a corrupt government. It could also, if
so directed, strengthen the hands of the few people in government who might
want to tip the old historical imbalances in favour of the people.
Hallward
adds: "Haiti's poverty is the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal
system of colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of
systematic post colonial oppression. ...The noble 'international community'
which is currently scrambling to send its 'humanitarian aid' to Haiti is
largely responsible for the extent of the suffering it now aims to
reduce." Tracy Kidder in the New York Times says: "While earthquakes
are acts of nature, extreme vulnerability to earthquakes is man made."
Does they
sound harsh? Having worked with Haitian NGOs and human rights groups, I can
assure you they're not harsh.
One can only
hope that the Canadian and other UN troops in Haiti are not used to stifle
independent community rescue and rehabilitation initiatives, and that
assistance in the aftermath is directed at building community and civil society
capacity, and not toward reinforcing the undemocratic government installed in
the 2004 coup d'etat.
Think before
you give. Research who your donations will go to, and ask which side of the
balance you want be on when the evaluations are done next year. It might be
worth waiting a few hours or days, to be sure you know which side you're going
to be on. Charity is a political as well as humanitarian act.
Bob
Thomson is an Ottawa consultant who has carried out evaluations of Canadian NGO
and government rehabilitation and construction projects in the wakes of
earthquakes in Mexico, Colombia and Chile.
Background
articles*
"Country
Without a Net", by Tracy Kidder
(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/opinion/14kidder.html?ref=opinion)*
"Our
Role in Haiti's Plight", by Peter Hallward
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/13/our-role-in-haitis-plight)
Monitor reports on http://www.margueritelaurent.com/
America's Historic Debt
to Haiti Robert Parry
Aid Workers Scramble Amid Haiti's Chaos by Liz Robbins, The
New York Times