The Independent News Source
NCR on Kindle - NCR classifieds - YouTube - Twitter - Facebook - Email Alerts - RSS
Printer-friendly version
PDF versionGrieving for Haiti
by John Dear SJ on Jan. 19, 2010
With you, I grieve the loss of life from last week’s earthquake in Haiti. And, with you, I grieve the survivors’ suffering and the slow pace of relief. Most of all, I grieve the injustice and poverty that has plagued Haiti -- and much of our world -- from its early colonizers to its U.S.-backed military juntas and dictatorships.
Haiti has weighed on my mind many times before. This past October I joined President Clinton and various U.N. staff members to celebrate our friend Dr. Paul Farmer, who has given his life to help the people of Haiti (see: www.pih.org). And this fall I’m to join Food for the Poor (a leading charitable organization) on a fact-finding tour there.
I’ve been to Haiti before, in the early 1990s, just after an earthquake of another sort -- the U.S.-backed coup that ousted President Aristide. Our delegation interviewed and observed and later testified before a U.N. panel about rampant poverty and human rights violations. We met at the very hotel that turned to rubble last week.
Our delegation returned home after nearly a month, and by then the people had won my heart. The Haitians, I saw at first hand, have lively spirits, tenacity, resilience. I came away understanding why Paul Farmer had given his life to them.
I thought then that Haitians were Beatitude people -- poor in spirit, grieving, meek, hungering and thirsting for justice, merciful and pure in heart, peacemaking and persecuted for their struggle for justice. Theirs is the reign of God.
But now the earthquake. Out of its fury descended not just tragedy but bitter irony. Haiti was standing on the eve of a new day. Plans were far along, through the work of President Clinton and Paul Farmer, for a mammoth aid program and development projects, all of it on sound financial ground thanks to considerable corporate backing.
“This coming week was to have been a banner week for Haiti,” Jennie Block of the U.N. Special Envoy’s office, wrote me after the earthquake. “A dozen investors from Haiti were flying in, ready to make business deals. Seventy-five members of the Clinton Global Initiative were meeting in Port au Prince developing all kinds of projects in education, health, industry and energy.
Those projects, of course, are now on hold.
Mine is a double identification with Haiti. I’ve seen its pain; I’ve suffered the terror of a 7.1 earthquake. It was in the Bay Area, October 17, 1989, during my theology studies. I was sitting in a massive house in Berkeley with five Jesuits studying a text on the sacraments, when the rumble began.
Preview NCR's Family Life Issue
Watch this video from NCR Editor Dennis Coday for highlights from our annual Family Life special section.
You won't find these articles on our website. Subscribe now to receive all the content from each biweekly issue.
The floor under our feet began to shake. Then it intensified. Pictures and dishes clattered to the floor, and panic rose in my chest. The others, all Californians, sat patiently and calmly. But I decided enough was enough. And I made a break for daylight, as the floor heaved and lurched upward and, more than once, threw me off my feet.
That night, I stood in the Berkeley hills and watched the fires in nearby San Francisco. I thought then, and think now, what a waste to pound massive amounts down the rat hole of war and weapons, and on consumer goods that prove our status. The world is a tough place as it is -- people everywhere trying to survive storms and quakes and floods. Why compound the pain? Why not direct the trillions of dollars to ease suffering, instead of increasing it?
The Bay earthquake shook my complacency. I realized anew the brevity and preciousness of life. And I resolved again to spend my small space of time working for a new world of nonviolence. Then after all have been fed, housed, and taught, we together can take on the job of protecting one another from natural disasters. To choose this road is a spiritual decision. It requires that we understand deeply that we are all one -- all sisters and brothers, all of us mortal, all of us responsible for one another.
Now with Haiti in rubble, the evil of our wars, weapons and greed are exposed -- if only we have eyes to see. The U.S. funds hundreds of thousands of troops around the world. We’ve stockpiled billions of dollars of weapons, and squirreled them away in bunkers across the globe. Death has become big business, and all the euphemisms in the world -- “security,” “defense,” “bringing good things to life” -- can’t conceal the fact.
Life isn’t served by erecting fortress U.S.A. Life is served when the poorest are served, when global justice is established. Life is served when we lavish on victims, not just money out of our surplus, but out of our “operating” funds, as if the victims are from our own community. As indeed our faith has long said they are.
In other words: Iraq, Afghanistan, death row, nuclear arsenals, corruption on Wall Street, the suffering of Haiti, Gaza, Darfur, Peru, Congo, Malawi, and Bangladesh -- these are all connected.
We need to ask, why are the Haitians so poor? Why so many shantytowns and rickety public buildings? Why the lack of social services? As we get beyond the TV coverage and study the history, we learn that it has to do with the dictatorships, backed by the French colonizers and more recently by the U.S. The catastrophes and suffering will continue until we learn a new way of relating in the world, from Haiti to Afghanistan.
Right after the quake, several friends managed to get in, and many grassroots groups have intensified their creative work. For instance, Partners in Health (www.pih.org) and Fonkoze, an alternative bank and the largest micro-finance institution. Fonkoze offers a full range of services to Haiti’s rural poor (see: www.fonkoze.org).
As for me, I’m working to raise relief funds. I’m partnering with Catholic Relief Services (CRS), one of the leading relief organizations in the world, which has been in Haiti for 55 years and has over 300 staff there. CRS has set up a fund in my name, The Father John Dear Haiti Fund. My goal is to raise $50,000, and all of it will go immediately for the relief effort.
And so I invite you to join me. Please make a donation. It will help with the relief effort, and help publicize CRS’s work. Make whatever contribution you can -- $10, $25, $100, or even $1000.
You can pay in several ways. The easiest is to go to the page for the fund on their website: http://donate.crs.org/goto/fatherjohn and pay on line with a credit card. Or you can donate by phone by calling CRS at 1-800-736-3467 (mention it’s for the Fr. John Dear Haiti Fund).
You can also send a check by mail to: “Catholic Relief Services,” P.O. Box 17090, Baltimore, Maryland 21203-7090. Checks can be made payable to “Catholic Relief Services” (and write on the memo line, “For the Father John Dear Haiti Fund”). Please feel free to invite others to join me. And thank you for whatever you can give.
Most of all, let’s continue to offer regular prayer with the suffering people of Haiti, for immediate food, water, medicine and shelter for them, for those assisting the needy, and for the longer term Haitian struggle for justice and peace. Let’s stand in solidarity with them during their suffering and work for their healing and liberation, and continue our work for justice and disarmament. May the God of peace bless the people of Haiti and us all.
****
John’s new book, Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings, has just been published by Orbis Books. With other recent books, A Persistent Peace and Put Down the Sword, along with Patricia Normile’s John Dear On Peace, it is available from www.amazon.com. This week, he will address the Canadian Catholic Youth Ministry network on Prince Edward’s Island. For information, or to schedule a speaking event, visit: www.johndear.org.
Yesterday I saw footage of
Yesterday I saw footage of Haitians in Puerto Prince getting on buses and heading blind into the country to find some way to live and begin again. I believe we should do everything to support individual farms and small communities. I think the corporations are death to Haiti as they have been elsewhere. I am very afraid that we will do a soft invasion, making Haiti a place to support corporate expansion at the expense of human dignity. I am very afraid for Haiti.
It is noteworthy that we as a country have done little to help poor Haitians even now 8 days after the earthquake. We are driving around in tanks.
like Katrina (see: when the
like Katrina
(see: when the levee broke)
"It is noteworthy that we as
"It is noteworthy that we as a country have done little to help poor Haitians even now 8 days after the earthquake." I wonder where one gets one's information from.
According to a Fox News report, private individuals and corporations from the US have donated $110 million so far and have pledged an additional $146 million. According to the UN, $507 million has been donated so far, so American citizens and corporations have given over 20% of the total donations. (By the way, dear socialist nations like China and Venezuela have thus far donated $4.4 million and 616 tons of emergency relief materials and 116 tons of emergency equipment respectively. How generous.)
The US Army, Navy and Coast Guard are busy trying to repair the capital's only industrial pier, essential to bringing in large-scale emergency supplies and to the nation's future recovery. Further, the military has opened up and is operating airports in Haiti, again to land supplies and to evacuate thousands of orphan children (many of who already have foster homes waiting for them in the US). The military is not just "driving around in tanks", but rather is patrolling "nearby to protect aid convoys, but were leaving policing to Haitian and U.N. forces," (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cb_haiti_earthquake). In addition, the USNS Comfort and teams of doctors, nurses, surgeons, etc are sailing to help with medical situations in the nation. Presidents Obama and Sarkozy are organizing an international donor's conference to help funnel aid to the nation.
So, in other words, what else would you like the US to do? Perhaps we should draft doctors and all sorts of other folks into a service corps of some type and send them, without pay and without their consent? Would you suggest increasing taxes on the US taxpayers, already struggling to recover from an economic crisis of our own, to help send more money and supplies?
Come now. Even emergency situations have to take a backseat to common sense.
I am so glad that someone
I am so glad that someone else remembers this good man (the grave injustice against whom is also a grave injustice against the whole Haitian people, an injustice amplified much more greatly even now, a fruit of the inequity and violent oppression), and remembers him far better than I ever shall:
"I’ve been to Haiti before, in the early 1990s, just after an earthquake of another sort -- the U.S.-backed coup that ousted President Aristide."
Please read as I still do his books In the Parish of the Poor, and Eyes of the Heart, and weep for what glory, nonviolent peace and joy might have been, and work hard even now for justice and for peace.
Thank you for writing all
Thank you for writing all this. This information I have known for quite a while. It makes the pain greater all this time.It's quite painful to realize we're all brothers and sisters.If only every American household could offer hospitality to one person or a couple, or a family, what a dream ! I live in a small apt. that does not allow such kindness. My kindness however small, has to be focused on people around me.
I sent my contribution to MERCY as I live in Seattle, so close to that wonderful organization.
Someone once said,"You can no
Someone once said,"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." Haiti proves that. Let's take the money out of the wars and direct the money to those most in need. Let's fight the war on poverty with the tools of justice!
The US military is also in
The US military is also in Haiti helping out.
Some observers, including
Some observers, including France, see that the US military is now more directly invading and occupying the island for its own ends, rather than through imposing brutal puppet military regimes.
Yeah, Frace is one to talk
Yeah, Frace is one to talk about brutalizing Haiti... If they took my advice, they wouldn't bring that up. They're history is a little of an embaressment for them in this case...
For all of you with an apparant phobia of anyone that is wearing ACUs or MARPAT, a little persepctive:
The US military is one of the few organizations in the US large enough to do anything that can mobilize fairly quickly. Not only can they provide aid, but they also have the means to move it and provide for the security of those that are caring for the injured.
I think you're getting paranoid, charles. As cruel as it sounds (and I DO NOT intend it to be), nobody wants Haiti. Whoever took it would have to fix it, which is a herculean task.
I know there are many
I know there are many powerful people, like Bill Clinton, trying to help Haiti and other countries from their own perspective on what is necessary. Yes, Clinton helped restore Aristide, but only on condition that he accept harsh neoliberal conditions. I am wary whenever I see initiatives with strong "corporate backing." Rarely have they resisted the temptation to eventually either extract, or re-concentrate rather than redistribute wealth. In the rebuilding of Haiti, organizations like Fonkoze are our best hope, insisting that the power of decision-making stay close to the people affected by the decisions taken. For-profit corporations, of their nature, exist principally for their own benefit and that of thier shareholders/owners. As institutions, they help poor people when it is in their interest. Yes, there may be many "good" people managing these interests, but history has shown us that institutions are oft-times more powerful and resistant to ethical considerations than are the good people who work in them. Beware the reach of corporate power in the rebuilding of Haiti.
"We need to ask, why are the
"We need to ask, why are the Haitians so poor? Why so many shantytowns and rickety public buildings? Why the lack of social services?"
The reasons the Haitians are so poor is very simple. First is the fact that there has not been a stable government in Haiti for decades. The absence of stable government, along with the presence of a strong Communist party (a party that former president ((and former priest)) Aristide belonged to), discourages investment and discourages the development of businesses. After all, why would anyone in their right mind invest money in a country, build a business, knowing that, any time the government changes, their business might be nationalized, their money taken, and them left with nothing? If the Haitian government could be made stable, democratic and friendly to business and investment, the people would benefit enormously.
Secondly, there is the serious problem of corruption in Haiti (which is not an unusual situation in third world nations). Pope Benedict XVI addressed this in his encyclical letter "Caritas in Veritate" when he spoke on the need for markets to be governed by ethical and moral considerations, not just pure profit. Government and business are both susceptible to the evils that inhabit the human heart. Absent moral and ethical considerations, absent a moral code, corruption seeps in. In Haiti, we find a very small and extremely rich minority, holding all economic and political power, and a huge and crushingly poor majority held down by those who are very rich. A stable democratic government will help to overcome this situation. If any benefit might come from this earthquake, it could possibly be that the US government and her allies might have the opportunity to refashion the Haitian political landscape along the lines of the democratic West.
Third, the US does bear some blame in allowing the Haitian people to remain in the poverty that they have suffered under for so long. Our complacency in allowing the corruption in the Haitian political system, in allowing instability and in not intervening more often to help the Haitian people form a government that is stable and democratic, a government that would be strong enough to resist the temptation to corruption and dictatorship, and to resist the evil of Communism, have led to unnecessary suffering for the Haitian people.
Right next door to Haiti one finds the Dominican Republic, a nation of 10 million sharing an island with Haiti. The Dominican Republic has adopted economic liberalism and open markets. The Dominican Republic, with a fairly stable government and a business and investor friendly economy, has the second-largest economy in Central America and a 2009 estimated GDP of $8,672 per capita (according to the IMF). The DR is a major tourist and travel destination. The DR is not without its problems, including government corruption and a rift between rich and poor, but it also enjoys dramatic economic growth and a significantly higher standard of living of any other nation in the region. By contrast, Haiti, with a population of 10 million, had a per capita GDP of $790 (according to the IMF). The difference? The DR is a nation of a relatively stable government and an strong and business friendly economy. Haiti is not.
The solution is obvious. In Eastern Europe, in former Soviet nations, the embrace of democratic capitalism has led to dramatic increases in standards of living and the creation of wealth. The US and her allies helped these nations move away from Socialism and Communism, philosophies that create nothing and destroy the human dignity and creativity of those who suffer under them, and helped guide these nations toward democracy. The US and her allies did the same thing following for the former Axis powers in the West and Japan following World War II. We continue to do attempt to do so in Iraq and Afghanistan (granted that will be a long-term project). There is no reason at all why we cannot, or should not, help guide the people of Haiti away from chaos and corruption, greed and instability and toward prosperity, freedom, open markets and democracy.
Our faith as Christians and our identity as Americans demand nothing less.
Until Haiti and other
Until Haiti and other so-called Third World countries are allowed to create a economic structure which is best for them and not for the first World corporatocracies, the problems will conti8nue. Corporate "capitalism" is as much of a scourge as Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist "communism" or bureaucratic socialism. Why? Because the wealth accrues to those who actually produce nothing. True capitalism is the solution - proprietary capitalism for small businesses and cooperative(solely employee-owned)capitalism for larger economic entities. The present state of capitalist is a fraud, pure and simple, just helping the rich get richer, the greedier more greedy and the poor poorer....not to mention the gradual elimination of the middle class, which many seem to blind to....even in the U.S.A.. The only shareholders in a major corporation should be the employees of that corporation, and not investor speculators, who produce nothing.
Yeah, Thomas Jefferson speaks
Yeah, Thomas Jefferson speaks again!
Thanks in advance for your
Thanks in advance for your cooperation with the above conditions. I hope you find it useful.It helped me with ocean of knowledge so I really believe you will do much better in the future I appreciate everything you have added to my knowledge base .
Regards,
emergency kits
Post new comment