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PDF versionHaiti: Time for a new Marshall Plan
by Maureen Fiedler on Jan. 14, 2010
Since I first heard new of the earthquake in Haiti, I could not get the people of that island nation out of my mind. I try to imagine what it must be like to be injured and bleeding – with no doctors in sight, and the hospital collapsed.
I think about wandering streets without a home, only in this instance, I’m joined by hundreds of thousands on the same journey. I hear the screams of those still trapped under rubble. I wonder where to find drinking water, food, a place to lay one’s head. And I fear the next shaking of the earth.
These musings, this prayer, have convinced me that the United States -- in concert with the developed nations of the world -- needs to launch a Marshall Plan for Haiti. We can’t be satisfied with a patchwork of aid that will slowly dribble to an end once the most pressing needs are met and disaster passes from the headlines.
We cannot aim for simply a return to the “status quo ante” in Haiti. Catastrophic destruction makes it imperative to start anew. It is time to join with the people of Haiti to help build a new Haiti, a society where the structures of education and economic opportunity are as strong as the new building construction must be.
From your mouth to God's ear
From your mouth to God's ear (and everyone else's). This is the opportunity for the people of Haiti to begin anew and for the global community to come together to assist in every way possible. Infrastructure, construction policies, etc. Not to do it for the people, but with the people. If Catholic social teaching means anything to us, now is the time to live by its principles.
U r right! I doubt it that
U r right!
I doubt it that will happen, the Marshal plan should be to most of Latin America.
A plan should be launched for
A plan should be launched for all poor countries.
However, I think that the title for this article is wrong. The Marshall plan was designed, specifically, to impede the spread of communism in Europe. It was in America's national interests to protect Europe from falling under the yoke of the Soviet Union. Haiti is a small poor country, by comparison.
They need our help and we should give them our help generously. But to say a Marshall Plan is needed shows ignorance of what the Marshall Plan really was all about.
I always find it interesting
I always find it interesting to read the comments of those who, on the one hand, will condemn US "imperialism" when it is a matter of national security or the best interests of the US's citizens; and on the other hand, almost in the same breath, loudly proclaim how essential it is that the US take the leading role in transforming a society. I suppose the defining question for them is whether or not the US derives any benefit from the "imperialist" policy in question. If the US does, then it must follow (based on their dubious logic) that the US is a bad guy. If the US does not, then we must be doing the right thing.
Understand that I have no real issue with providing aid to the people of Haiti, though I do feel that the most important responsibility of the US government is to its citizens. I just find it humorous to see the hypocrisy of the Left in a moment like this.
I agree with your insight
I agree with your insight that a type of Marshall Plan is needed. Having worked in Haiti, one understands that when we say buildings were destroyed, we are not talking American style architecture! By and far we are speaking of shanties and half built edifices. Homes stopped midway because there was no money to finish.
I have images of Haiti that will never leave my mind. My immediate thought: bull doze it all into the ocean and begin anew. Plant trees and other foliage to help with the pollution.
Haiti is both beautiful and horrible. They need our help and not our judgments. TJ
Dear Sister Fiedler, By the
Dear Sister Fiedler,
By the way
What have you heard lately from Honduras?
I read in the Mexican daily El Diario (de Juarez) that less than 50% showed up to vote, and that Lobos took it, who has a long history with the right wing regimes and who supported the coup d'etat, and who now calls for both presidents to step down and recognize him, or something like that.
I realize this is way out on the back burner now, but you seem to be the only one in the English language following it capably and intelligently.
Thank you for your excellent coverage of Haiti as well.
Perhaps if we had not destroyed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide back then, things would not be so bleak now. I still revisit his In The Parish of the Poor, and his Eyes of the Heart.
And Pat Robertson stills gets it horribly wrong, then as now.
thanks for getting it right . . .
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