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#216 – Dick Bernard: “Wherever you go, you must find your own Calcutta”

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Sunday one of my favorite Catholic Priests, Fr. Joe Gillespie, was recalling a 1994 visit to Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity in Calcutta.

At the time, he was a university professor in the United States, and he came by unannounced during a heavy monsoon rain. He knocked on the door and a Nun answered. “Would it be possible to see Mother Teresa”, Father Joe said. “Yes, she’s been expecting you.”

So, off the street he came, and face to face with Mother Teresa for a 35 minute conversation, puzzling all the while at the “she’s been expecting you” comment.

Visit nearing an end, she said to him, you should come here and work. “I can’t”, he said, “I’m under contract at the University”.

She understood, but as he departed, she said, “wherever you go, you must find your own Calcutta”. No more needed to be said.

This particular Sunday we had a visitor, a Priest from the Parish of Ste Catherine d’Alexandre de Bouzy, about 60 miles and four hours west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on the north side of the long peninsula. We had expected this visitor, Fr. Claude-Renel Elys’ee.

After Mass Fr. Elys’ee met with those of us who were interested, talking about the usual things one would expect when talking about Haiti: their infrastructure was damaged, not destroyed, needed to be replaced. What they need is actual money – they can get the materials and they have the people who can do the work. They need medicines and school supplies. It was good to have him there, as it was a chance to reconnect directly with Haiti which has, six months after the quake, essentially gone invisible to most of us.

Fr. Ely'see at Basilica of St. Mary Minneapolis July 25, 2010

“Wherever you go, you must find your own Calcutta” came to mind often during his talk (in French, with interpreter).

We each can do much. We just need to exercise our imagination, and have the will and determination to follow through.

The question kept nagging at Fr. Joe after he left Mother Teresa. “How did she know I was coming, when I had done nothing beforehand to announce my visit?”

Back home in St. Louis he asked an older colleague about this.

“Oh”, he said, “she tells everybody that.”

But what a neat, neat, neat idea of a welcome.

And what a doable concept: “Wherever you go, you must find your own Calcutta”.

Posted in Community, Haiti, Peace & Justice | No Responses »

#210 – Dick Bernard: A Farm Freezer, Haiti, the Oil Spill and US

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Monday, July 12, was the six month anniversary of the catastrophic earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince and area in Haiti.

That same day, I spent a few hours helping my Uncle and Aunt, out at their now-empty North Dakota farm. (They’ve lived in a nearby town for several years – an option they don’t like, but the only reasonable option they have. They are at an age, and their medical conditions are such, that they could no longer survive independently on this place where they lived as brother and sister for over 80 years. My uncle is 85, his sister, my aunt, turns 90 a week from today. Their house remains much as they left it, but they don’t live there, only frequent visits.)

One of Monday’s tasks was to empty their freezer which included frozen produce from their garden, some of it ten years old. They knew it had to be done: my uncle, in fact, brought up the idea. That produce in that freezer would never be used by anyone, including themselves. But the notion of wasting this food was reprehensible to him. He was nine years old during the worst year of the Great Depression in ND, 1934, and he knows what it is like to have nothing.

We unloaded the freezer, and put its contents on the back of his old pickup truck, and drove down to the family garden – a one acre plot, used by the family for many years. The garden is still used by the couple, but only a tiny portion of it is planted. They don’t have the energy to garden more, and even if they did, the produce would go to waste: for them, it is unusable.

During the Depression and other bygone years, there were eight people or more who depended on that garden, but the prospects of even a small crop to harvest and process for the winter were not always good. Once experienced, one tends not to forget such experiences.

Those bygone years, the normal process was to pressure cook and can the food, in sealed glass jars. There was no electricity and thus no freezer; there were no plastic bags – a product of the petroleum industry. Kids now-a-days would be hard-pressed to even imagine the planting/growing/harvesting/preserving process which people of my generation grew up with. Forced to live that way again, most of us would not survive, literally.

Down at the garden we emptied the plastic bags which had held the frozen produce of the farm: spinach, corn, beans, peas, broccoli, onions, apples, and on and on and on. Considering it was ten years worth, it really wasn’t a lot of, as my uncle would say, “wasted food”.

While he was sitting on the tail gate of the truck, opening and emptying the bags, he was lamenting the waste, here, while so many people were starving elsewhere. No, he didn’t think that frozen bag of kernel corn should be sent to Haiti; more so, the notion of waste was on his mind. He wants to help, but how? People his age get endless appeals for funds from all manner of agencies. My advice to him: throw them away unless you know the group is good. So many are simply scams.

I doubt that he – or I, for that matter – thought about the amount of electricity that had to be consumed to keep that food frozen….

Haiti, and that waste at the farm unexpectedly came together for me a little later in the day. Back at my temporary home in the local motel, I flipped on the television, and happened across a CSPAN program recorded earlier that day: a panel discussing Haiti six months after the earthquake. The program is well worth watching. It had not occurred to me till that moment that July 12 was indeed the six months anniversary of that humanitarian disaster.

Back home in the Twin Cities the next day, there were several e-mails with varying perspectives six months after the quake in Haiti. Mostly, though, Haiti is out of sight, out of mind, even for people like myself who have a great interest in Haiti.

More on our minds, currently, is the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico: hundreds of millions of gallons of crude oil befouling the Gulf: oil which was to be used for the fuel that got me out to that North Dakota farm, and back; and which was used for to manufacture those plastic bags we had just emptied.

Mostly, for most of us, life goes on. “Don’t worry, be happy”. We’ll always have it all.

Don’t count on it.

From the garden, back to the garden

The farm garden, before an acre, presently only a small plot.

Posted in Community, Economics, Environment, Family History, Haiti, International Relations, Peace & Justice | No Responses »

#190 – Dick Bernard: Four Films

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

Someone looking for me would not start at movie theaters: movies are an infrequent destination.

Still, in the past seven days I viewed four films in four very different venues. Each of the films had (and have) diverse messages…beyond the films themselves.

Last Sunday, the destination was The Minneapolis Film Festival showing of a documentary, “The Unreturned” by a couple of young filmmakers. Nathan Fisher, one of the two who made the film, was in attendance. The film covers a topic essentially untalked about: the fact that 4.7 million Iraqis, largely of the middle class, and representing perhaps a sixth of Iraq’s population, were displaced by the Iraq War, mostly to neighboring Syria and Jordan. (Iraq, before the war, was roughly the population and geographical size of California.)

The Unreturned views the world through the lens of several of these refugees, who didn’t want to leave Iraq, and would have wanted to go home to Iraq, but cannot for circumstances beyond their control. At the end of the film, one person in the audience noted that 4.7 million refugees was essentially equal to the population of Minnesota (5 million). This is a huge number, with equivalent impact: like the entire population of Minnesota uprooted and ending up in Wisconsin….

I think the 200 or so of us in the theater last Sunday would agree with the later assessment of this film, ranked among the best in the entire festival.

Monday night, a friend and I hosted a meeting at a south Minneapolis church for 30 representatives from 22 twin cities groups which have an active interest/involvement in Haiti. We showed the film “Road to Fondwa“, which can be watched on-line for free. Road to Fondwa was filmed a couple of years ago by university students. Its theme is rural life in Haiti. Since it was filmed before the earthquake of January, 2010, it shows how life was before Fondwa was devastated (Fondwa is near the epicenter of the quake). I was particularly taken by the notion of “konbit”, a Kreyol work meaning gathering, cooperation, working together. We could use a lot more of that!

Friday afternoon I attended a showing of another Minneapolis Film Fest entry, Poto Mitan, yet another young film makers entry. The Director of this film, a young professor at New York University, concentrates on five Haitian peasant women struggling to survive Haiti’s harsh economic realities. Each of the five women tell their own stories in their own language. Filming began in 2006, and the film was released in 2009. Like all of the other films, this one is subtitled. At this showing, the Director, Dr. Mark Schuller, was with us, and led a discussion afterwards. He’s a very impressive young man.

Then there is the fourth film, actually a 12 hour documentary over a period of weeks on the History Channel. It is called “America: the story of us“, and I was really looking forward to it when the first episode played a week ago Sunday night. My anticipation turned rapidly to disappointment (though I intend to watch the whole thing) because it became obvious that the intent of the film was to portray America’s history in the image of some old conservative politicians and big business and entertainers. The politicians have, so far, been regular on-screen “experts”, and the production apparently is underwritten by a major U.S. bank. It is too early to judge the entire production, but my guess is that this America will be portrayed as a heroic place with few warts, won by free enterprise, guns and military prowess. So be it. I’m waiting to see how the Iraq War will be spun, and the Obama era. Google America the Story of us and find lots of reviews of this epic….

The first three films do one thing that the fourth film does not: they allow the real people to do the speaking about the reality. In the last one, so far, it is only the experts that have the say.

If the youth of this country are represented by the first three filmmakers, we stand a chance.

Posted in Haiti, History, International Relations, Media, Peace & Justice, Politics, War | No Responses »

#186 – Dick Bernard: Haiti today and tomorrow, as viewed by Dr. Joia Mukherjee of Partners in Health

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Less than two months after the devastating January 12 earthquake, Haiti has become old news.

Dr. Joia Mukherjee, native of Bengal and graduate of the University of Minnesota Medical School, and for 11 of her 17 years as a physician part of Partners in Health, brought Haiti back in sharp focus before a large audience at St. Paul’s Macalester College Tuesday evening. Here is a recent commentary about Haiti written by Dr. Mukharjee. Her remarks on Minnesota Public Radio on April 6, 2010, are here.

The awful remains obvious in Haiti: according to Dr. Mukherjee, 250,000 died in the quake, roughly one of every ten Haitians in Port-au-Prince and area. 300,000 more were injured, mostly orthopedic and neurological injuries requiring surgery. And 1.7 million Haitians were displaced, one of every five Haitians.

Some of the worst problems – basic mental health issues as a consequence of the Quake and displacement, and the upcoming rainy season – are less obvious now, but are major. Haitians are resilient, but this catastrophe stretches the national and individual psyche to the breaking point.

In a country with essentially no government, and no funds, with the rainy season fast approaching, and hurricane season not far behind, it is hard to see any silver lining behind the abundant misery in Haiti.

But Dr. Mukherjee conveyed a message of hope, most dramatically through the voice of an old woman who told her not long after the tragedy, near neg maron, the statue of the free man in the ruined Presidential Palace area, “The free man will never be defeated”. Through all of the tragedy which came along with independence when Haiti’s slaves threw off their shackles in 1804, Haitians have an enduring pride and resilience and it is that spirit which holds them in good stead even when hope seems an impossible dream.

We were given a brief lesson about Haiti, and with the lesson an encouragement to learn more about this place and its people. Kreyol is thought to be primarily French, but the richest parts of the language come from its African Bantu roots.

There are immense challenges ahead for the Haitians, Dr. Mukherjee said, but with assistance they are equal to the task.

Given the immensity of the disaster, and the slowness of recovery efforts, it is remarkable how little violence there has been. Encampments have quite effectively organized themselves into communities with de facto leaders, “mayors” in a sense. Partners in Health believes that true accompaniment – walking with the people – is absolutely essential in the recovery efforts. Rather than telling, ask the people what they need. They know. Work with the people and with the Government as it exists, then do what can be done to help the people fulfill the needs, and have them rebuild their own society. Basic rights for all people are education, medical care, water, food and shelter.

Partners in Health, which began in Haiti, but now works throughout the world, has an important sense of what works for Haitians in Haiti. The vast majority of PIH’s staff is native Haitian.

A particular and perhaps paradoxical dilemma in Haiti is the massive number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In Rwanda, we were told, there are 200 NGOs; in Haiti, about 10,000. And these are countries roughly similar in size and population. NGOs are essentially governments unto themselves, and represent their own particular problems. They are a mixed blessing.

Haiti’s government essentially ceased to exist after the quake, and recovery has been slow and difficult. The government has no money. Of every dollar in aid, only one cent goes to the Haiti government. The standard excuse for this is “fear of corruption”. The doctor retorted that this is a misplaced fear. If we wish to view corruption, all we have to do is to look at the Wall Street collapse of 2008. Most corruption occurs long before the money reaches any one in Haiti.

Dr. Mukherjee feels we all have a very useful role to play in Haiti’s recovery and future. We need to keep seeing Haiti, and there needs to be a movement of solidarity for Haiti. Such movements against Apartheid in South Africa and more recently the AIDs initiatives resulted from people working together over a long period of time. In all the many ways that we can, we need to make our own government aware that we are watching, and we are concerned.

Dr. Mukherjee at right, visits with Joelle Vitello and Laura Flynn Apr 6 10

After-talk conversation April 6, 2010

NOTE: My personal website on Haiti is here.

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#164 – Dick Bernard: Haiti, an Anniversary

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Six years ago today – actually it was February 29, 2004, Leap Year – Haiti’s President was loaded on a United States aircraft and removed from Haiti. The United States called it a “resignation” by Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Aristide – who should know – said it was not a resignation. Whatever the case, President Aristide was history, and the six subsequent years have not been kind to Haiti, not the least of which have been the natural disasters visited on Haiti by four hurricanes in 2008, and the earthquake of January 12, 2010.

Whatever problems Aristide and his government supposedly had were not solved by the coup/resignation. Haiti’s continued problems and even acceleration of those problems the last six years have simply been “disappeared” by our government and the media.

In a very sad way, the collapsed Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince symbolizes Haiti today. Places like the Palace are symbols. Haiti’s symbol is in ruins….

Presidential Palace, Port-au-Prince, December 7, 2003

Elections which were supposed to be held in February or March, 2010, have been postponed, and in any event, the major party, Lavalas, which was Aristide’s party, was to have been kept off the ballot due to some technicality or other. Lavalas represented the poor constituency in Haiti. The poor apparently deserve no representation or right to select their own candidates. That is my “spin” of how elections are managed in Haiti..

Two personal insights come to mind this day:

1) In November, 2003, a month before I left for my first trip to Haiti, I was seated next to a Catholic Priest from Port-au-Prince at a dinner in Minneapolis. I knew next to nothing about Haiti at that point, and made the (apparent) mistake of commenting favorably about what I had heard about Aristide. The Priest, who I did not know, “bobbed and weaved” his way out of having to comment. He was very uncomfortable. It struck me as curious, then, but not for long. I entered my experience with Haiti, trusting U.S. Government sources for honest information about Haiti. Within a year I completely lost that trust. I came to find that I was either lied to, or ignored, when I asked questions.

2) Most recently, within the past two weeks, I was at a session where an American survivor of the quake spoke. The speaker had arrived in Port-au-Prince just a few hours before the quake, and a few days later was evacuated from the country. The individual had stayed in the U.S. Embassy prior to departure.

During the session, I asked about that new United States embassy in Port-au-Prince, which is a new structure, and is by all accounts one of the largest U.S. embassies anywhere in the world. It was observed by someone in the audience that photographs of the embassy are all but forbidden around the Embassy; further that while the Embassy was built to withstand earthquakes, and in fact was basically undamaged, everything in the vicinity of the Embassy, outside its walls, had been severely damaged or destroyed in the quake.

It was then I remembered an exercise in frustration during 2004-2006, when I tried to find out where a purported $50 Million in U.S. Aid for Haiti had gone. It was listed in a December, 2003, news release on the U.S. State Department website, and I had simply asked the question “who got the money?” I thought it would be an easy question to answer. But two years and a Freedom of Information Act request later, I had gotten no further than learning that the people who could answer my question were at U.S. AID and Department of Defense. It became very clear that neither one wanted to answer my question, and in the summer of 2006 I finally dropped the quest.

I wondered, sitting in the meeting room a couple of weeks ago, if some of that money – that supposed “Aid” to Haiti – had gone to build that Embassy in Port-au-Prince, that edifice that neatly survived the 2010 quake that killed well over 200,000 of its neighbors.

I don’t know.

Keep seeing Haiti.

RESOURCES: Perhaps the most comprehensive and thoroughly documented book I’ve read on the recent history of Haiti is Peter J. Hallward’s “Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment” (Verso, 2007). Another is “Mountains Beyond Mountains”, by Tracy Kidder, the biography of Dr. Paul Farmer, long-time physician to the poor in Haiti and currently Deputy U.N. Envoy to Haiti.

My web reference to Haiti is here.

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#159 – Dick Bernard: “We are the World”; the “Kin[g]dom of God is yours….” Luke 6:17, 20-26

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

It’s Valentine’s Day 2010.

Overnight came the new release of the 25th anniversary version of Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie’s We are the World. This years rendition, recorded after the earthquake, is dedicated to the people of Haiti (Ayiti). It is powerful. Do watch it.

Back home, today’s Sunday paper had not a single word about Haiti – at least none that I could see. It is now 32 days since the earthquake, and as I anticipated, Haiti has officially been disappeared from the radar screen for most Americans, even though the task of survival will remain job one for Haitians, and the matter of long-term recovery is far in the future.

It is how it is. With the exception of 9-11-01, which is still flogged into our conscious memory at most every opportunity to keep us fearful about the enemy, the ordinary life span of a life altering event is, roughly, a month. And a month has now passed since the earthquake.

It has been decreed that it is time to move on, or so it seems. Except for Haiti, where moving on will take lots and lots and lots of years, and continuing outside support.

This morning at Catholic Mass, the Gospel for the day was the scripture text noted in the title of this post. This text is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes (“Blessed are the meek”, etc.)

The Priest this morning, retired, a frequent visitor to our Parish, highly respected, invariably says “kindom” when the text says “kingdom”, and his error is very intentional. As he explained the story a year or two ago, on the Feast of the Three Kings: when he was pastor of an inner city parish that had, and still has, very active ministries to the downtrodden, particularly the homeless, his assistant once typed something for him, and misspelled the word “kingdom”, leaving out the “g”, resulting in “kindom” on his piece of paper. He noted the mistake, but he liked the alternate word, and has used it instead of Kingdom ever since. So, in the Lord’s prayer, an every Sunday part of Catholic Mass, while we read and most of us say the “official” version, “thy Kingdom come”, our Priest is saying “thy kindom come”.

And so, today, we heard about the kindom of God….

Lent begins on Wednesday for those so inclined. Father suggested a good opening exercise would be to read the 6th chapter of Luke in its entirety.

As he was talking, I thought of the front page of my reflections when I came back from Haiti in 2003. You can view it for yourself here.

So far, the data shows that the average American has contributed about $2 per man, woman and child to relief efforts for Haiti. Our government has supplied a bit over a dollar more per person thus far. While this is a vast outpouring of generosity for us, the vast majority of that money will simply recycle right back into the American economy through sale of goods and services, and salaries for people like the military or aid workers. Yes, we’re helping Haiti; we’re also helping ourselves, far more.

Now the time for the serious heavy lifting in Haiti begins. Maybe Lent is a good time to contemplate the meaning of another part of that Gospel of Luke read this morning: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolations. Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry….” Whatever our personal circumstances, if we live in America, we’re rich.

Keep seeing Haiti, and all the other places which have less of the riches of the world than we. It’s the least we can do.

Posted in Community, Haiti | Comments Off

#157 – Dick Bernard: Haiti et al, a little arithmetic lesson in caring and sharing

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

Thursday of this week we showed a few photos from what, in retrospect, were better times for Haiti kids at SOPUDEP School in Petion-ville in December, 2003. Our audience was about 100 2nd graders at an elementary school in a nearby twin cities suburb. Kids relate to kids everywhere, and this audience of young persons paid close attention to the photos of their peers far away, and they enjoyed participating in a small lesson in Kreyol words I was able to teach them.

SOPUDEP school is no longer useable; many of its students were casualties of the earthquake. It has temporarily died, but will rise again with the help of places like that elementary school in the twin cities which is considering helping SOPUDEP recover with part of their relief efforts. It helps to be able to make a personal connection with a person or a place.

The day we were at the school this past week, they were collecting quarters from whoever wished to participate. It was a small amount, but a very intriguing idea.

The school was devoting a week, I gathered, to participate in some way in relief efforts, and was involved in various efforts to better understand Haiti.

Someone(s) had come up with a neat idea: on Monday, the collection began by collecting pennies; on Tuesday, nickels; Wednesday, dimes; Thursday, our day, quarters; and Friday, dollars. If you do the math, that’s $1.41 – a small sum, granted, but coins put together accumulate to real money quickly.

The teacher noted that the trip to the bank with the coins involved a bit of heavy lifting, so to speak.

The fundraising strategy has stuck with me, and this morning at coffee I did a little paper and pencil arithmetic.

IF a person did the same routine as the kids were doing at the school, and repeated the routine every five days over the course of a year, that $1.41 would grow to over $100 by years end.

Of course, one need not stop at a dollar. How about going to six days, and adding a $5 bill; or seven days, adding a 10; or eight, $20? And doing it repetitively, week after week? A seven day cycle would come out to about $850 a year; an eight day cycle, almost $1500…all this for
one cent +
five cents +
ten cents +
twenty-five cents +
$1 +
$5 +
$10 +
$20.

Let’s say that a single percent of Americans – only 3,000,000 people, 1% of a total of 300,000,000 – adopted the elementary schools five day plan, and followed through every day for an entire year. That would come out to over $300,000,000 dollars – all for $1.41 every five days. That’s serious money that could do a whole lot of good in a place like Haiti where a dollar a day is hard to come by, even for adults.

Give it some thought. And action.

Children at SOPUDEP School, Haiti, December 9, 2003

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#155 – Dick Bernard: Haiti, a plea….

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

December 8, 2003 – it was my second full day of my first trip to Haiti – we had spent a powerful and draining morning being briefed by ordinary Haitians, women and men, about the atrocities of the 1991-94 coup in Haiti. There were six of us. I had nothing to say. I was there to listen and to learn.

Our group leader had arranged for lunch for the entire group, and before we left we went around the circle of perhaps 20-25, simply to shake hands and thank the group for their hospitality. About two-thirds of the way around I extended my hand to a man, and he refused the handshake.

Experiences like that tend to stick with me. I have no idea why he singled me out (I was the only one of the group of four men and two women so treated). Perhaps I reminded him of someone, some white American, some terrible experience. I’ll never know.

Similarly, I remember a poolside luncheon later the next day at one of those fancy hotels in Petion-ville. We were being briefed by a supporter of then-President Aristide, who later took us around to a school and to a television station to meet other people. At the hotel, I noticed a solitary white man sitting quietly in a deck chair reading a book. I wondered who he was and why he was there. I didn’t ask and I’ll never know. I gather, though, that a white face in Haiti is a suspect face, with good reason.

So it is.

Years have now passed, and I’m far better informed than I was then, and I happen to be at the intersection of lots of electronic communication about what is happening in post-January 12 Haiti. I’m also ice-bound in the middle of the U.S., trying to help as best I can from here.

I know lots of people with lots of points of view, from total ignorance of Haiti (as was true with me seven years ago) to Haitians who are trying to find ways to work together within whatever system exists in the U.S., to others who, like that guy who refused to shake my hand that December day, just want US the hell out*.

I wish there were simple “one-size fits all” solutions. There aren’t.

A short while ago I started one of these blog posts with a sentence that we had raped, looted and pillaged Haiti for its whole 206 year history. Pretty harsh indictment, but not at all unreasonable. Someone I know responded and seemed miffed with my indictment of US (as in U.S, and we Americans): he really didn’t know any of the back story, apparently. I tried to inform him.

On the other side of the equation, I expressed “disappointment” about something sent by a prominent Haitian leader with a large list, and was told that I “insulted” the person (who I respect.) The rage is palpable and we probably deserve the rage. (My work career found me frequently in the position of being yelled at by one side or another, so I’m used to harsh comments. But, do bitter and angry comments help anything, any more than willful ignorance and misplaced trust? I don’t think so.)

The voiceless ones, represented by that guy who wouldn’t shake my hand, have desperate needs, and the needs will be very long-term.

Somehow we need to accept the fact that the U.S. is key to solutions to this catastrophe, and that there will be all manner of well-meaning and malicious attempts to help (or “help”, as in profiteering from the crisis.)

I think “boots on the ground” folks like Dr. Paul Farmer are in an excellent position to do some good, and know the political system very well. To me, Dr. Farmer has earned his credibility.

The guy in the circle that day in 2003 has also earned his credibility with me.

We need to listen to both sides, and to do what we can to make for a better Haiti, one that is founded on Justice, not dependent on Charity (there is a big difference.) My definition, from December 2003 is found at page 17 of my reflections when I returned.

* – there is more than a little logic behind the resentment of Haitians towards the U.S. See my short commentary at page 7&8 on White Rice, Pigs and Chickens, from my 2006 reflections after coming back from Haiti.

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#154 – Dick Bernard: Haiti…and Power

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Two weeks ago today, 4:53 p.m. Haiti time, Port-au-Prince (Potoprens in Kreyol) and area were devastated by a massive earthquake. Today, two weeks later, coverage of the disaster is decreasing; finding fault or blame is increasing; and the attention of the world and U.S. body politic is shifting back to more mundane things, like the Super Bowl.

It will take years for Haitians to recover and the international community will be central to their recovery, but how long will people care? It’s an important question.

Long before the latest catastrophe struck Haiti, I’ve been thinking about what I believe is a pertinent and basic “conversation” in, particularly, westernized society…and that is the conversation about Power.

Boiled to its essence, I believe there are two classes of people: those with Power, and those without. Those in Power presume they have the right to control agendas and conversations. They do this in sundry ways: controlling information, money, and on and on and on. You can be born into Power, work to get into Power, or be identified as useful to Power. But it’s a club entered by invitation only.

The official Haiti conversation is almost totally dominated by traditional Power.

Power isn’t a partisan deal, and it isn’t Republican or Democrat either. It can be cliques who through one means or another control access or agendas. It can be seemingly out of Power people who have a following. Power is ubiquitous. One way to stay out of the Power circles is to diss Power…. Power people prefer followers.

In Haiti, most of the people are about as Power-less as any people are anywhere in the world. Most are illiterate (I’d maintain this is far more by design of the Powerful rather than lack of motivation of the Powerless). Educated people can be troublesome. The language of the ordinary Haitian is Kreyol; the official and international language of Haiti is French…. Even language disenfranchises the ordinary Haitian.

Of course, there are decent Power people, and indecent ones. It is a complicated process to identify the difference, so usually everyone in a particular class is typecast in various ways, as “good” or “bad”. Such simplicity is not helpful.

The out of Power people far, far outnumber the people in Power, and the Powerful know this: thus the strategies to disempower those not in the inner circles, by disinformation, or discipline or otherwise. If one’s neighbor ends up in jail for no good reason, one notices.

There’s a way out of Powerlessness and that is by no longer being willing to play by the rules established by Power. If the folks in the neighborhood were challenged to play a National Football League team, using NFL rules and criteria, one knows the result…but if the NFL rules and criteria were thrown out and replaced with the neighborhood rules, the results could be very different. But one first of all has to believe that there are other rules of engagement than those mandated by the Powerful.

I’ve long been enchanted by the mantra I hear at demonstrations: “Ain’t no Power like the Power of the People, like the Power of the People, say WHAT? There ain’t no Power….” The chant is delivered with gusto, but I have come to believe that the chanters really don’t believe their own message. And they leave their power on the street, unrealized.

The ordinary Haitians, the ones who will disappear soon from the media screen, but are there in the neighborhoods, will be the salvation of their country. All one can hope is that the commitment of the Powerful will be a bit more towards Justice than the traditional Charity*.

Stay engaged. If you feel you have no power, try to look at your Power a bit differently.

It’s 4:53 p.m. Haiti time. Time to click on Publish.

* My own very brief interpretation on Charity vs Justice was written on return from Haiti in December, 2003. It is accessible at this link page 17.

Posted in Community, Haiti, Peace & Justice, Politics | Comments Off

#153 – Dick Bernard: Haiti. Hope is on the Way?

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

It can fairly be said that the place called Haiti, and the people called Haitians, have been raped, looted and pillaged by my “civilized” world for the entire 518 year history since Christopher Columbus and his men landed there (in the vicinity of today’s Cap Haitien) in 1492. An excellent primer on this history for me was Dr. Paul Farmer’s book, “The Uses of Haiti*“. (I initially thought that this book was still in print. Apparently it is not. The link provided here is to a discussion and critique of the book by someone I early became acquainted with and respect. Take a look, and read the review* all the way through.)

(Today, Dr. Paul Farmer is the most prominent “point person” for the U.S. and the United Nations on Haiti. He was appointed some months before the earthquake; and he has a long history in Haiti and among the Haitians. His Partners in Health is easily considered one of the very best destinations for donations to Haiti. His more recent book, Pathologies of Power remains available, and worth a look.)

It can be fairly said, I believe, that everyone of us in the developed West have grown up with an official and almost exclusively negative narrative about why Haiti is so poor. The essence of the narrative is that Haitians are incapable of running their own affairs: that their problems are their own fault, and that we in the developed world need to rescue them from their own incompetence. We are “the Great White Fathers”.

Historical narratives are developed and shared by people of influence, like leaders, or academics, who are in a position to convey their influence down to the commoners who are the pawns of history. The official story is the story written by the one in Power**. We are told what to believe, and tend to believe what we are told by people more “important” than we are. That is an elemental fact of life. Even Black Americans and Native Americans have absorbed a negative story about Haitians. It is a fiction which has come to be accepted as reality.

When my friend Paul Miller finally convinced me to travel with him to Haiti in 2003, I knew almost nothing about the place and its people. I came back committed to learn about the geopolitical relationship between the U.S. and Haiti. It has been an eye-opening and troubling experience.

Today, January 23, 2010, I feel for the first time since I darkened Haiti’s door December 6, 2003, that hope is truly on the way for Haiti, and along with the hope, some potential for long-term justice for the Haitian people.

There are a boat-load of serious problems beyond the earthquake: I read about them every day in commentaries never seen by the ordinary news consumer in this country. And you don’t undo over 500 years of exploitation overnight.

To those who look only backward at the abuse of a beautiful country and its beautiful, determined and tenacious people, I urge: don’t turn your back on the future and in effect walk only backwards with your eyes only on the awful past.

To those of my country men and women, especially those who share my whiteness, who believe only the official narrative, consider the possibility that you’ve been lied to, deliberately, and often, by most everybody. Crucial information has been tampered with, or left out of, the stories you’ve heard. Open your eyes as you walk forward, trying to help.

To both, consider the possibility of true dialogue, and a willingness to understand the other. Without such an intersection, all of the huge outpouring of money and caring and good intentions engendered by the earthquake of January 12, 2010, will be for naught…and we’ll slide back into the dismal reality that has prevailed over Haiti’s entire history.

Post note: Within the last few days the Twin Cities Daily Planet published a post of mine about the current situation in Haiti.

I have a website concerning Haiti which includes a comparative map and a timeline of significant historical events.

* The review relates to the original edition of the book, 1994; the book I read was the 2003 revised version which very likely dealt with some of the concerns Bob Corbett had with the first edition. To my knowledge, neither edition remains available.

** Quite by accident I was able to document one such occurrence with Haiti. Click on “Anatomy of an Official Lie” here .

Posted in Haiti, History, International Relations | Comments Off

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