In the wake of the rather stymied attempts to get succour and aid to the millions affected in Haiti, we have the conservative columnists like David Brooks of the New York Times pontificating on the 'cultural' issues that underlie the extreme poverty and lack of infrastructure that plagued Haiti even well before the earthquake on Jan 12.
Brooks dismisses the years of horrendous history and Haiti's struggle for independence from the influence of the French and the U.S.:
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.
He blames Haiti's ills rather too simplistically on its culture
and its affinity for Voodoo (oh, the horror of the undead zombies as
portrayed so gruesomely in film and other media!):
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.
Now, the Haitian Vodou religion is quite fascinating in its own right, informed by a syncretism of multiple African tribal practices and veneered over by Roman Catholicism to enable its practitioners to continue with their prayers even as they seemed to follow in large part the tenets of the Roman Catholic church. I suppose that Mr.Brooks has evidently fallen prey to the assumption that because of its portrayal in the popular media as dark witchdoctoring, it must necessarily mean that the 'poor backward country' couldn't progress despite the tonnes of aid that kept pouring into the country.
He forgets Uncle Sam's propping up of the 'friendly neighborhood dictator' Papa Doc ( Francois Duvalier) and his equally infamous son and successor Baby Doc (Jean-Claude Duvalier).The reign of terror unleashed by Papa Doc and his minions popularly called the Tonton Macoute ('Uncle Gunnysack' for a bogeyman who grabbed kids who were out after dark and stowed them away forever in his sack).
And so in the aftermath of great tragedy, they are crying uncle, and the world, despite the reservations of those like Brooks, Limbaugh, Robertson et al, who think with their wallets, is responding to help them in this hour of their need.
Accidental Blogger 
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