Haiti appears in the world news whenever it experiences a new disaster: a political coup, an earthquake, a cholera epidemic, the return of a former dictator, or a questionable election. However, during conversations with Haitians during an MCC advocacy trip last year, I got a glimpse of a people who are much more than the most recent political or natural disaster.
Known as the “Pearl of the Antilles” during the 1700s, Haiti was the richest French colony in the New World. Sugar and coffee were produced by a brutally efficient economy based on slaves imported from Africa after the indigenous population had been exterminated. Yet by the 1980s, this bountiful land was environmentally ravaged; 98% of the land has been deforested as a result of an impoverished population in need of cooking fuel and land to cultivate for food. Deforestation has caused severe loss of topsoil, declining agricultural productivity, and increased flooding and landslides.
Jean Remy Azor, Reforestation Program Coordinator of a project that MCC has supported since 1983, is working to change this situation, one tree at a time. “We all have an obligation, especially Christians, to repair the destruction that we have brought about in God’s creation. Birds and animals live on the earth and haven’t damaged it; we humans have done the damage. So in this sense, planting trees is giving life. ” The 22 communities involved in the program Remy coordinates now produce and plant approximately 450,000 years per year. This part of the Artibonite Valley has become a delicious green oasis in contrast to the surrounding barren hills.
Nixon Boumba, an advocacy worker with MCC situates Haiti’s current challenges within a broader historical context. “The whole history of Haiti is a confrontation with imperialism – Spanish colonialism, French colonialism, slavery, racism, American occupation [1915-1934] and now neo-liberal economic and political systems…The slave rebellion against France and becoming the first black independent country [1804] was of extraordinary significance on the world stage,” says Boumba. He points out that Haiti set the stage for the independence movements of other Latin American countries in the early 1800s and was a critical influence in dismantling slavery in the United States.
In Haiti’s predominantly Black population, the dynamics of racism and social class that exist throughout Latin America are intensified. A social hierarchy continues to exist that privileges light skin over dark skin, and foreign over local. For example, Haitian Creole is based on Eighteenth Century French mixed with African and Ameri-Indian languages, Arabic, and Spanish. It is spoken by 90% of Haitians. Yet until twenty years ago, French was the only official language and was used in schools, the media, and government. French is still viewed widely as the only language of status, though only a small percentage of Haitians speak French fluently.
This social history continues to impact Haiti today, according to Ari Nicolas, Coordinator of MCC partner organization, Support Local Production, (KPL). Nicolas thinks that Haitians have internalized a sense of inferiority. “Haitians are raised to believe that they are inferior. This is a product of being slaves. For 500 years we have been taught this. Whatever comes from outside is better. For example, our hair is not good because it is black and curly, not blond and straight.”
“Change happens as we heal from our slave past, and restore dignity and pride in ourselves,” according to Nicolas. For this reason, Nicolas works to promote the consumption of local food and goods, as a means of rebuilding a sustainable local economy, and as a means of “creating a new mentality [and] a new society.”
Walking through a noisy street market with Junya Eugene and Margaret Baron, also staff members of KPL, they explain how Haiti has gone from being basically self-sufficient in food production to dependent on imported food in just twenty years. This is partly because trade liberalization imposed by international financial institutions has made imported (and subsidized) American food cheaper than locally grown food, putting farmers out of business. Two live chickens that will eventually be our lunch dangle upside-down from my fingers as we check out rice prices: Locally produced rice costs 1.5 times more than imported American rice.
Haiti has the unenviable distinction of being the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. An estimated 80% of Haitians live on less than $2 per day. Health indicators are the poorest in Latin America. Over 12% of children die before the age of 5 years old, compared to less than 2% in Canada and the USA. Adult literacy is 53%, and parents struggle to pay private school fees because of destruction of the public education system due cuts to government spending imposed by the international financial institutions in the 1990s.
“The earthquake exacerbated the pre-existing problems of housing, security, and food,” according to Antonal Mortime , Executive Secretary of POHDH (Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations). “Our priority is now to advocate internationally regarding social rights, such as education and food, and to create a base to launch a new Haiti.”
Vilès Alizar, at RNDDH (National Human Rights Defense Network) agrees: “The word ‘reconstruction’ for Haitians, is not about rebuilding the National Palace and individual houses, rather it is about building a new Haiti with everything, services, schools, and so on… the construction of a more equitable society.”
“The earthquake not only shook the earth, but also the hearts and minds of people,” says Jean Valéry Vital-Herne, the National Coordinator for Micah Challenge, another MCC partner organization. He believes that, “The church in Haiti has been a conformist church… but it now needs to be an alternative; be the light of the world, and salt of the earth.”
For five centuries, Haiti has experienced the destructive impacts of dominant global forces: colonialism, racism, environmental exploitation, unequal economic growth, and, most recently, devastating natural disasters exacerbated by poverty. Despite this, there is much more to Haiti than the latest crisis, and there are many Haitians working to build a more life-giving society . In response, Vital-Herne asks that, “the global church stand in solidarity with Haiti and respect the Haitian vision.”