I tend to look for the positives in most situations and witnessed some shining moments as I was watching the news coverage. There was a two week old baby whose mother had been killed - they thought the baby might have a serious head injury but she didn't and was okay. Also, a young girl had her leg stuck in the rubble for hours yet she survived after they cut through the concrete - they weren't sure if they could save her leg. Another man said, "I don't care about my house, I am happy to be alive" - his wife and children were in good condition as well.
One of the most touching and beautiful scenes occurred while watching CNN. Hundreds if not thousands of people were chanting "Amen, Amen, Amen" while running through the streets. Despite not having a home and living outside, they were able to muster the energy to sing praise to the lord. It was an inspiring sight!
It's a wonderful thing that so much aid is now flowing to Haiti although the most important issue is to make sure that the country is rebuilt better and stronger than before. Not many people cared about this country pre-earthquake and I hope that is not the case ten years from now.
Columnist David Brooks from the NY times wrote an insightful article recently called, "The Underlying Tragedy". He writes about how fighting global poverty has been insufficient and what might be done to bring about real change in poor countries like Haiti. Below are four truths he mentions.
The first of those truths is that we don’t know how to use aid to reduce poverty. Over the past few decades, the world has spent trillions of dollars to generate growth in the developing world. The countries that have not received much aid, like China, have seen tremendous growth and tremendous poverty reductions. The countries that have received aid, like Haiti, have not.
The second hard truth is that micro-aid is vital but insufficient. Given the failures of macrodevelopment, aid organizations often focus on microprojects. More than 10,000 organizations perform missions of this sort in Haiti. By some estimates, Haiti has more nongovernmental organizations per capita than any other place on earth. They are doing the Lord’s work, especially these days, but even a blizzard of these efforts does not seem to add up to comprehensive change.
Third, it is time to put the thorny issue of culture at the center of efforts to tackle global poverty. Why is Haiti so poor? Well, it has a history of oppression, slavery and colonialism. But so does Barbados, and Barbados is doing pretty well. Haiti has endured ruthless dictators, corruption and foreign invasions. But so has the Dominican Republic, and the D.R. is in much better shape. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island and the same basic environment, yet the border between the two societies offers one of the starkest contrasts on earth — with trees and progress on one side, and deforestation and poverty and early death on the other.
As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book “The Central Liberal Truth,” Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10. We’re all supposed to politely respect each other’s cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.
Fourth, it’s time to promote locally led paternalism. In this country, we first tried to tackle poverty by throwing money at it, just as we did abroad. Then we tried microcommunity efforts, just as we did abroad. But the programs that really work involve intrusive paternalism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15brooks.html
My good friend Manfred is Haitian and was the toastmaster (master of ceremonies) at my wedding. He has been a tremendous friend and my first thoughts were of him and his family. Fortunately, his dad was unharmed although the family home or what Manfred called the "fortress" was leveled in the earthquake. Thankfully, his uncle was recently found after his whereabouts were unknown for a few days. Manfred has been an inspiration in directing those concerned about his family towards ways in which they could contribute or donate to those Haitians less fortunate.
I like the no nonsense approach David Brooks writes about in the aforementioned article. His advice is below:
These programs, like the Harlem Children’s Zone and the No Excuses schools, are led by people who figure they don’t understand all the factors that have contributed to poverty, but they don’t care. They are going to replace parts of the local culture with a highly demanding, highly intensive culture of achievement — involving everything from new child-rearing practices to stricter schools to better job performance.
It’s time to take that approach abroad, too. It’s time to find self-confident local leaders who will create No Excuses countercultures in places like Haiti, surrounding people — maybe just in a neighborhood or a school — with middle-class assumptions, an achievement ethos and tough, measurable demands.
The late political scientist Samuel P. Huntington used to acknowledge that cultural change is hard, but cultures do change after major traumas. This earthquake is certainly a trauma. The only question is whether the outside world continues with the same old, same old.
The question is, "Will we see the NO EXCUSE approach and REAL LEADERSHIP in Haiti along with CONSISTENT ACTION from the world for Haiti or will it be "business as usual" in a few years?
I am hopeful for the former.
Happy Gswede Sunday!
Gswede enjoyed spending time with some locals in Gambia, Africa. Despite the poverty, there were an abundance of happy faces.
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