Why is Haiti so poor? Is it because Haitians are dimwitted or incapable of getting their act together?
Haiti isn’t impoverished because the devil got his due; it’s impoverished partly because of debts due. France imposed a huge debt that strangled Haiti. And when foreigners weren’t looting Haiti, its own rulers were.
The greatest predation was the deforestation of Haiti, so that only 2 percent of the country is forested today. Some trees have been — and continue to be — cut by local peasants, but many were destroyed either by foreigners or to pay off debts to foreigners. Last year, I drove across the island of Hispaniola, and it was surreal: You traverse what in places is a Haitian moonscape until you reach the border with the Dominican Republic — and jungle.
Without trees, Haiti lost its topsoil through erosion, crippling agriculture.
To visit Haiti is to know that its problem isn’t its people. They are its treasure — smart, industrious and hospitable — and Haitians tend to be successful in the United States (and everywhere but in Haiti).
Thanks for this.
This was a comment on another blog I read, on a post about Pat Robertson's comment:
"Haiti did make a pact with the devil. This is a well known historical fact. Unfortunately, it's not the devil depicted in the movies.
The French showed up with 500 guns and "negotiated" a payment of 21 Billion dollars in today's terms. In exchange for independence, French bankers were happy to re-enslave the country with debt. The French aren't the only bankers who profited from this arrangement, they were just the first.
"Haiti was the only country in which the ex-slaves themselves were expected to pay a foreign government for their liberty."
— Haiti: the land where children eat mud [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_an…
Since the "devil" in this pact was us, perhaps this should colour our response."
Thought that was great. Robertson's comment probably made lots of people justified in continuing to not help — and this one does just the opposite.
Wow, I had heard a little about this, but not those details.