Letter to a Friend regarding Haiti
In defense of the comment: "Haiti doesn't need your prayers. It deserves (and needs) your cash."
Dear Friend,
. . . . . considering that my use of the word "cash" was adopted from Bill Clinton's pronouncements. How easy it would be to the make the case that I am simply parroting the words of a man so symbolic of the neoliberal policies deployed by CAFTA and the Inter-American Development against small Caribbean nations. This argument could be further enforced by reference to the fact that I have traveled to Haiti with NGO groups, helping to provide the minimum and unreliable humanitarian cover that allows the neo-colonial relationship to continue. Perhaps the truth is all the more terrible for the fact that in this case the liberal hand does in fact know what the conservative hand is doing.
But now, oh, now I am haunted by my own friends, by the street I lived on, which was near Petionville, by the image of the inspiring radical theatrical dancers of St. Joseph's leaping onto adjacent rooftops as their beautiful building collapsed into the sea of favalas around it (this image comes through personal e-mails). I myself do pray.
But cash, too, is essential. There is no way to wish away the sorrowful dirge of Haitian history. Aristide was elected in 2001 with campaign videos demanding reparations for the legal obfuscations (French armada off the coast) that in the 1820's demanded recompense for the slave wealth stolen when Revolution made slaves men again --- but this money would never replace the avalanche of effects caused by French colonial pillaging, a century of economic embargo, British attacks, U.S. occupation, cruel military dictationships, and the coup d'etats which crushed ('containment') Lavalas in 1992 and 2004.
Yet Aristide's passionate call for "poverty with dignity" must amount to something. I find it slightly bemusing (is it an ego-distortion?) that in one context you would call enlightenment eponymous with the death drive and yet in another would defend prayer against a concrete call for reparations. And this is precisely what my call for cash is. The U.N. must get out and must stop raping Haitian women. The neoliberal profiteers must be stopped from using this disaster as a condition for further structural adjustments. But Haiti needs help from a technological and financial standpoint as well. Unlike African nations, deforestation and soil erosion problems that were well underway in 1804 combine with extreme overpopulation and the nature of island economy to make products -- from cement to rice to toothpaste -- unbearably expensive. Haiti depends on food aid, on its trade with Miami, and with millions of dollars sent home from the diaspora. We should cherish Cuba for being among the first on the ground with teams of 100+ doctors.
And so, the issues that Haitians address are: 1) reparations; 2) immediate need; 3) emigration. The irony is that spirituality is the one thing that Haiti has plenty of. Perhaps Haiti's plight and her courageous endurance is the one export she can offer to a spiritually enervated America? Indeed the tremendous non-stop coverage on the BBC might speak more to Britain's own need for faith then for any real concern for the Haitian people. In the face of such generosity, we must demand that reperations run both ways.
Let this dialogue and my interest in your brilliant mind be an offer of friendship.
Jacob
PS: Have you read Ken Wilbur. His explication of the difference between the causal and non-dual states of spiritual enlightenment are soundly apropos to our Family Circus discussion. "Causal" refers to the attainment of oneness characteristic of the stereotypical monk lost in thoughts on the top of the mountain, "nondual" to the realization that such oneness is present in all being and all action. According to this perspective, the true angels are walking among us, so to speak. And isn't this why the greatest saints are known for their their enthusiastic willingness to be elbow deep in the muck of human misery?
Dear Friend,
. . . . . considering that my use of the word "cash" was adopted from Bill Clinton's pronouncements. How easy it would be to the make the case that I am simply parroting the words of a man so symbolic of the neoliberal policies deployed by CAFTA and the Inter-American Development against small Caribbean nations. This argument could be further enforced by reference to the fact that I have traveled to Haiti with NGO groups, helping to provide the minimum and unreliable humanitarian cover that allows the neo-colonial relationship to continue. Perhaps the truth is all the more terrible for the fact that in this case the liberal hand does in fact know what the conservative hand is doing.
But now, oh, now I am haunted by my own friends, by the street I lived on, which was near Petionville, by the image of the inspiring radical theatrical dancers of St. Joseph's leaping onto adjacent rooftops as their beautiful building collapsed into the sea of favalas around it (this image comes through personal e-mails). I myself do pray.
But cash, too, is essential. There is no way to wish away the sorrowful dirge of Haitian history. Aristide was elected in 2001 with campaign videos demanding reparations for the legal obfuscations (French armada off the coast) that in the 1820's demanded recompense for the slave wealth stolen when Revolution made slaves men again --- but this money would never replace the avalanche of effects caused by French colonial pillaging, a century of economic embargo, British attacks, U.S. occupation, cruel military dictationships, and the coup d'etats which crushed ('containment') Lavalas in 1992 and 2004.
Yet Aristide's passionate call for "poverty with dignity" must amount to something. I find it slightly bemusing (is it an ego-distortion?) that in one context you would call enlightenment eponymous with the death drive and yet in another would defend prayer against a concrete call for reparations. And this is precisely what my call for cash is. The U.N. must get out and must stop raping Haitian women. The neoliberal profiteers must be stopped from using this disaster as a condition for further structural adjustments. But Haiti needs help from a technological and financial standpoint as well. Unlike African nations, deforestation and soil erosion problems that were well underway in 1804 combine with extreme overpopulation and the nature of island economy to make products -- from cement to rice to toothpaste -- unbearably expensive. Haiti depends on food aid, on its trade with Miami, and with millions of dollars sent home from the diaspora. We should cherish Cuba for being among the first on the ground with teams of 100+ doctors.
And so, the issues that Haitians address are: 1) reparations; 2) immediate need; 3) emigration. The irony is that spirituality is the one thing that Haiti has plenty of. Perhaps Haiti's plight and her courageous endurance is the one export she can offer to a spiritually enervated America? Indeed the tremendous non-stop coverage on the BBC might speak more to Britain's own need for faith then for any real concern for the Haitian people. In the face of such generosity, we must demand that reperations run both ways.
Let this dialogue and my interest in your brilliant mind be an offer of friendship.
Jacob
PS: Have you read Ken Wilbur. His explication of the difference between the causal and non-dual states of spiritual enlightenment are soundly apropos to our Family Circus discussion. "Causal" refers to the attainment of oneness characteristic of the stereotypical monk lost in thoughts on the top of the mountain, "nondual" to the realization that such oneness is present in all being and all action. According to this perspective, the true angels are walking among us, so to speak. And isn't this why the greatest saints are known for their their enthusiastic willingness to be elbow deep in the muck of human misery?