Haiti

It has been interesting to watch the world’s response to the earthquake in Haiti. I get a vastly different viewpoint here than I would be able to get in the United States. The Caribbean countries are very interconnected. They share similar histories and cultures, and are connected politically through Caricom. Although I was in Tobago without much access to newspapers or the internet when the earthquake took place, upon arriving back in Trinidad I saw the immediate response by Trinidadians to the earthquake. Caricom held emergency meetings, and supplies and relief workers were sent to Haiti. While I know the U.S. responded quickly to this disaster, the Caribbean countries responded with a sincerity I don’t think the U.S. will ever be able to match. In addition, much of the Caribbean has criticized the U.S. involvement in Haiti since the earthquake. Many people are worried that the U.S. will try to occupy Haiti again as it did for almost 20 years in the early 20th century. It’s just interesting to get a completely different viewpoint on that disaster than I would be getting at home.

I also learned more about Haiti in my theology class. I’m taking Theology of Creation, which looks at the relationship between God, humans, and nature (in the first class we watched An Inconvenient Truth, and I’m going to do a small presentation on Silent Spring). During class I learned about Haiti is down to just 3% tree cover for the country. If you look at a picture of the Haiti-Dominican Republic border, the contrast in vegetation is striking. In all the newspapers they keep mentioning that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, but they never mention why it is so poor. Haiti gained their freedom through the successful slave revolution in the early 1800s, becoming the first island in the Caribbean to be free of their colonizers. However, France refused to accept the loss of their colony. Eventually Haiti agreed to pay 60 million francs in reparations to France in order for France to accept their freedom. They finally finished these reparations payments in 1922. This is a large reason for their current economic situation. Many people around the Caribbean completely blame France and the U.S. for Haiti’s poor economy. Some are even advocating for France and the U.S. to pay for much of the repair for Haiti now, as kind of a refund for Haiti’s payments to France and reparations for the U.S. occupation of Haiti. Part of the reason for the limited tree cover is because after the slave revolution in freed slaves started using slash-and-burn techniques to farm the land, which had huge environmental repercussions. Later, Haiti experienced a swine fever (as in a disease in pigs, not related at all to our current swine flu) and all the pigs in the country were slaughtered. However, for many poor families their entire savings were tied up in pigs, so when they lost them they had to use the only resource available to them, which was the forest.

Anyways, I just thought I’d share with you the perspective I’m getting on this disaster.