A nation’s disasters, natural and manmade
The fact that recovery is still limping along 10 years after an earthquake devastated Haiti is a depressing commentary on deeply ingrained political and policy failures. And it requires a history lesson of sorts. Haiti’s internal woes have always been inextricably linked to a longer legacy of external oppression.
The first black independent nation in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti emerged in 1804 as a republic of black citizens who defied French colonialism and racial slavery to stand as a symbol of freedom and dignity. This frightened America’s slaveholding politicians, including President Thomas Jefferson, who issued an embargo against the new nation.
He and others in the ruling class feared the contagion of revolution might reach U.S. shores.
The new black republic authored in the blood of Haitian revolutionaries experienced a rough road to renaissance, one marked by onerous debts from France, the rise of an unethical and largely French-speaking Haitian elite willing to exploit the labor of the peasantry, violent debates over a series of revised constitutions and the occupation of the American military from 19151934.
Natural disasters have produced generational catastrophe in Haiti both before and after the 2010 earthquake, with 2016’s Category 4 Hurricane Matthew adding insult to an already injured nation, collapsing bridges and razing roads in a country already grappling with an infrastructure crisis. That long legacy is part of the reason why the decade after the earthquake, Haiti’s progress may be described as uneven at best, with too little pledged for rebuilding and too much of what has been pledged never materializing or misspent.
Former President Bill Clinton, deployed by President Obama to serve as point man on reconstruction, promised to help build new infrastructure on a vast scale that has scarcely been achieved.
It doesn’t help that a series of Haitian governments, corrupt and dysfunctional, have struggled mightily with the granular details of rebuilding the capital, providing adequate and affordable housing, relocating displaced Haitians from temporary camps back to their neighborhoods, and proving clean water and sanitary quarters for more than one million displaced citizens.
While Haiti boasts more nongovernmental organizations per capita than anywhere on Earth, Haitians continue to experience heartbreaking levels of sickness, poverty and disease.
Speaking of insult and injury, President Trump, who as a candidate vowed to champion the Haitian people, reversed course in office by ending Temporary Protective Status for thousands of Haitians who came to the U.S. in the earthquake’s aftermath.
Such policy rebukes continued the longstanding double standard against Haitians, who have never enjoyed the benefits of being allowed to flee oppressive regimes in the same manner as their Cuban neighbors.
The 2010 earthquake registered 7.0 on the Richter scale and global concern, from celebrities to presidents and prime ministers and ordinary people, seemed to register even higher in the initial aftermath.
Since then we have witnessed a few genuine successes, such as the victorious battle against the cholera outbreak that killed thousands right after the earthquake but more than our share of failures.
It is tempting for Haiti to want more help from the rich, powerful United States, but largesse is a double-edged sword for the small, proudly independent nation.
As a proud Haitian-American whose parents came to the U.S. both inspired by potential new opportunities and fleeing violence and civil strife, I am painfully aware of the complicated relationship between Haiti and the United States.
America, at its best, remains liberty’s surest guardian for the oppressed the world over, even as it is implicated in Haiti’s halting efforts to construct a government as good as its people. Haiti, in turn, basks in a revolutionary history that at times masks the country’s inability to create democratic institutions capable of reflecting the profound wisdom, strength and courage of the Haiti people.
An earthquake devastated the small island. More powerful, more complicated human forces continue to hold it back.
Joseph is a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is founding director of the center for the study of race and democracy.