Worst to Whatever's Next

There is a Mexican idiom (at least I think it's Mexican) "salir Guatemala y ir a Guate-peor" which roughly translates to "from bad to worse." (Apologies to all two of the Guatemalan readers of this blog.) Recently, we saw Haiti, one of the most destitute nations in the Western Hemisphere and the world manage to do just that but on a much more horrific scale.

The earthquake has really troubled me for reasons beyond the immense human suffering that's occurred there. I am troubled by the fact that it is only now that everyone is running around saying "HOLY SHIT WE MUST HELP HAITI!" If anyone has actually checked up on the damned place every so often, it becomes evidently clear that they needed this much attention long before this. And what did most of us do? We sat around and did nothing but look at the island and possibly wrinkle an eyebrow or two out of "concern."

Haiti has been wracked with terrible debt and violence for much of its history. The US occupied it from 1915 to 1934 due to economic unrest. In the post WWII era, coups and debt plagued the nation.

Then everyone's favorite Haitian dictator came to power: Dr. Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Like most dictators, he was corrupt and also managed to irritate enough of the elites through persecution that they left, worsening the situation in the nation. And just to make it more interesting, he also effectively used Voodoo as a tactic of control. How many dictators you know that did that?

Things didn't improve under his son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier (creative nickname, no? and no, he wasn't a doctor) and eventually Jean-Bertrand Aristide came to power. Unfortunately, despite looking promising, he also wound up to be corrupt. He was ousted in 2004 in a rebellion that left much of the island wracked by chaos and also the chronic problem of human rights issues. The nation hasn't improved much in the six years since.

To sum it up, to call the nation a "hellhole" or anything equivalent would be sugarcoating the issue. It's been like this for years. And yet, it is only now that everyone is up in arms about the entire thing.

If you're not going to do anything for the Haiti earthquake, fine. I can't blame you for maintaining the status quo that existed through other horrific hardships the island endured. But damned if you're going to yell at me and carry yourself like some saint if you're donating or providing charity. The earthquake could do little for the island what chaos, coups, and a crippled economy did in the last century. To be brutally frank, the standard of living for many of the people hasn't changed, mostly because you could not go any lower on the poverty scale.

Now, you might be yelling at the computer screen about how I can say this, presuming that I somehow am innocent of the charges I bring. I am not innocent at all. The place has an economy which could barely be called an economy. The Wikipedia article can provide you with the basic statistics of just how bad it is and has tons of links to help you visualize the suck. And I know this. I have known this. I remember the 2004 chaos during the Aristide overthrow and the widespread looting and violence. And I, like 95% or so of everyone crowing about helping Haiti out now, didn't do a damned thing to help them then. Shame on me, and shame on all of us who sat around before this terrible earthquake for not doing a damned thing.