In tragic circumstances such as those being suffered by the Haitian people, it becomes very difficult to think and talk about anything else. But thinking –before talking- is something that is strikingly absent in the daily information we receive about the crisis in this country.
The entire world is being bombarded with “news” fed by an army of journalists competing among each other as to who disseminates the “best” horror article or video or audio about the suffering of countless people.
Each journalist appears to feel obliged to inform us that Haiti is “one of the poorest countries of the world”, though not one seems compelled to tell us about how this happened. As with the earthquake, poverty would seem to be an “Act of God”.
At the same time, the media appears to be unaware that the “news” it feeds us about malnutrition, lack of drinking water and sanitation, homelessness, absence of adequate health services are not in fact “news”. Most Haitian people have for decades been suffering all that, and more –including dictatorships, foreign invasions, imprisonment, torture and death. The earthquake has substantially worsened what was already a very bad situation. But it was certainly bad.
And of course the media does not tell us a word about Haitian history and the role played in the country by European-led slavery, or about the successful African slave revolt against Napoleon’s France that led to the country’s independence in 1804, or about the French trade blockade after independence and the more recent (starting in 1915) direct US intervention in the country.
Journalists won’t tell us that Haiti has been pushed into poverty and environmental destruction through the historical looting of its resources and exploitation of its people for the benefit of European and US corporations. Which easily explains why the US has been imposing and bringing down governments in the country for so many years.
In short time, the media will decide that Haiti is not “news” anymore and will move into another more profitable blood-filled scenario. Everything will be “back to normal” and the US will continue imposing on Haiti –with the aid of the IMF and the World Bank- the same “development” model that has proven to be so useful … for the US.
Within this context, we would like to express our support to the Haitian people in this moment of grief, and particularly to the many Haitians that continue carrying out a difficult, long and silent struggle for independence and social justice against all odds. As their forefathers Toussaint-Louverture, Dessalines, Christophe and others successfully did against none else than Napoleon!