Maybe the most sobering appraisal I've read of the Haiti disaster was the one in today's NY Times written by my favorite columnist, David Brooks.
He points out that while this earthquake killed as many as 50,000 people, one of equal force that hit the Bay Area of Northern California in 1989 killed only 67. So many more people died in Haiti because of flimsy buildings and other results of poverty, he says.
He talks about the "hard truths'' of a place so poor despite a dense concentration of aid agencies. "We don't know how to use aid to reduce poverty,'' he says.
We also don't know how to reduce corruption and also don't know how to change a culture that apparently contributes to the misery of its people, he says.
He draws a far different conclusion from Tracy Kidder, a writer who published a best-selling book, "Mountains Beyond Mountains,'' about an American doctor who has done much to improve health care in Haiti, Paul Farmer.
In a Times op-ed piece Thursday, Kidder looked at Haiti's history - and sees it as a country of former slaves first victimized for throwing off cruel French rule in 1804, then suffering under American occupation from 1915 to 1934 and American meddling in its politics since. He also complains that many of the 10,000 aid organizations performing humanitarian missions in the country haven't done enough to strengthen Haitian institutions.
Kidder's solution is giving Haitians more say in how their country is redeveloped. Brooks has a different but related slant: he wants us to help find "self-confident local leaders'' who will create a culture "of middle-class assumptions, and achievement ethos and tough, measurable demands.''
They both agree that whether Haitians themselves are more to blame for their plight than the outside world, or vice versa, a tragedy like this does present an opportunity for change. Neither seem optimistic that it will happen, though.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
I'm in the middle of Mountains Beyond Mountains right now! And about three other books. It happens.
ReplyDeleteI sometmes wonder if it wouldn't be better to let the people in an impoverished country leave the cities and go back to being farmers, or whatever they lived as 100 years ago. When I was in Bolivia a few years ago it was so clear that what us well-intentioned people wwere doing was ruining a way of life. Clearly it isn't great to live in squalor without clean water, but maybe there is clean water in the country that is not available in the city. Yes, education is the key, but maybe living in the 21st century isn't all it's cracked up to be. Since my family has basically no money and no health insurance, I see subsistence farming as my next life - like in the next 10 years.
ReplyDelete