Our Haitian neighbors need human solidarity

Bill Knight column for 8-23, 24 or 25, 2021

 Some 1,800 miles from downstate Illinois, Haiti and its recent disasters are another time and place.

But “no one is an island,” as it’s sung.

Likewise, no island should stand alone.

How can those with nothing lose everything?

Exactly 100 years ago, in the aftermath of the U.S. military’s 1915 invasion of Haiti and what became a 19-year occupation, the U.S. Senate sent a delegation there to investigate claims about forced labor, racial segregation and press censorship that had led to a rebellion, according to the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Historian. The U.S. government reorganized Haitian rule, but after another uprising in 1929, the United States began its withdrawal, finally completed in 1934.

Now – already suffering from poverty and the pandemic, government corruption and gang violence, and the July 7 assassination of president Jovenel Moise – Haiti on Aug. 14 was hit by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake, and two days later the country was flooded and scoured by Tropical Storm Grace’s rain and winds.

About 2,000 have been killed, more than 10,000 injured and 30,000 made homeless, and hospitals aren’t just overwhelmed; many are utterly destroyed.

Twenty years ago, I was on a church medical mission there and came away humbled and inspired, so personal emotions swirl about Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere. There's sadness at the tragedy, and there are pleasant memories of Haitians somehow maintaining happiness through hardship.

SORROW: I saw first-hand the abject deprivation and lack of drinkable water, much less an infrastructure, in Haiti; my heart aches. Having interacted with everyday Haitians, worshipped with them and driven with them on rural roads more like Illinois creeks than any highway imaginable, I feel deep grief.

JOY: Witnessing an unbridled delight in Haitians despite lives of such scarcity is not only humbling, it's shocking. Theirs is a defiant culture exhibiting hope and faith amid colossal obstacles and odds.

SHAME: The United States refused to recognize the newly independent republic when they drove out Haiti’s slave-holding French colonizers in 1804, then the U.S. participated in an embargo with other nations to force Haiti to pay reparations to France for liberated lands. Haiti – once the wealthiest colony in the world – paid untold sums to France until 1947, not only borrowing money from American, German and French banks, but exhausting its natural resources to meet the imposed terms. Former plantations that grew and exported coffee and sugar are now barren; once-lush forests are hills of stumps; nearby seas have been fished out. All that helped give rise to ruthless leaders from the 19th century through the notorious Duvalier family in the 20th century to recent officials, allegedly involved in trafficking drugs and children.

FEAR: Weeks after the twin catastrophes, sorely needed aid is missing or arriving slowly.

When I was an editor for the Washington (D.C.) Weekly in the ’80s, one of my writers was Leon Wieseltier, who in The New Republic expressed the despair some felt about the well-intentioned fundraising following a 2010 earthquake in Haiti – despite the faith, hope and love of Haitians.

Wieseltier wrote, "Tragedy cannot be adequately met with confidence and cheerfulness [some show]. We cannot overtake what the world has done to us, what we have done to ourselves. Let us quicken to the intervals between our indifferences, because whether or not God exists, WE do, and much of the time – though not now, as the planes clog the runways in Port-au-Prince – we are terrible."

Others avoid pessimism for practicality.

 “This is what the country needs: tents, food, medicine, toiletries, water, clothes, rescue equipment and wheelchairs,” Marjorie Modesty, a psychologist in the hard-hit area helping coordinate assistance, speaking to The Guardian. “We need rescuing.”

Please pitch in. Below are three of many possible groups working there. Our donations may seem like drops in the bucket, but as English author Geoffrey Chaucer wrote, “Many small make a great.”

* Doctors without Borders https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/news-stories/news/haiti-earthquake-msf-responds-urgent-medical-needs#p1

* FOKAL Haiti Relief https://ademen.org/fokal-haiti-relief-fund/

* Haiti Emergency Relief Fund http://www.haitiemergencyrelief.org/haiti-struck-by-7-2-magnitude-earthquake/