Could argue that to understand the want of relative deprivation necessitates the acknowledgement, acceptance of relative privilege.
"Pat Robertson told his audience in the wake of the earthquake the "true story" that Haiti "swore a pact to the devil" to get "free from the French" and "ever since, they have been cursed." You heard that right. According to Robertson, the Haitian people are cursed and were hit by this horrible disaster because they made a pact with the devil for their freedom." - Media Matters
Kind of makes the Xmas day "underwear bomber" not seem so terror-fying. If there is a god, to quote a friend, "what an asshole."
UN guy: "Exactly what Haiti doesn't need, after all it's been through."
The really fucked-up thing is this might be the only thing that might make the city better. The chance to rebuild seemingly more significant than New Orleans, after Katrina. There will be more resources pouring into the place than ever have, or would, before now. The hurricanes, weather-related or political, of Haiti haven't brought out such an apparently immense response. This seemingly could be on par with a full scale invasion. If the government, only hanging on by a thread before the quake, is undone, the US/UN will have to take over. Martial law could be instated, suspending the country's constitution. This could be parlayed into calls for a constitutional convention of some sort that would be a proxy for installing an even more international friendly government, with US/UN troops remaining for some time.
Nation building anyone? We're doing a bang up job in Iraq and Afghanistan (that's only half sarcasm, and half hope). Though, to my knowledge there's no insurgency in Haiti--yet. And like Katrina, there's a mass exodus of the, presumably, poorer residents of the city.
Some semblance of normalcy, says Clinton. But maybe their normal shouldn't be returned to them, why not make it better?
IMF dude seems to agree, he says "something totally new...at the national level" is needed and the "piece meal approach...is not enough to get rid of the problems of the country."
Last time US troops in Haiti on this scale?
Don't quite get the bodies in the road to protest a slow response, almost ironic.
2 comments:
The truth is that they did make a pact with the devil.
Now the significance you put on that pact I guess has to do with whether you believe the devil is real or not.
But it is one of Haiti's founding myths.
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/small_axe/v009/9.2laroche.html
According to Haitian national history, the revolutionary war was launched on the eve of a religious ceremony at a place in the north called Bwa Kayiman (Bois Caiman, in French). At that ceremony on August 14, 1791, an African slave named Boukman sacrificed a pig, and both Kongo and Creole spirits descended to possess the bodies of the participants, encouraging them and fortifying them for the upcoming revolutionary war. Despite deep ambivalence on the part of intellectuals, Catholics, and the moneyed classes, Vodou has always been linked with militarism and the war of independence and, through it, the pride of national sovereignty.
So, yeah if there is a devil, Haiti made a pact with it. Might explain why even though Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island, the Dominican Republic has been far more successful.
it's just like when that fiddle player from georgia, johnny, sold his soul, except eviler because voodoo is worse than fiddles. something to chew on when you're all out of prarie oysters.
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