Let's
step back so that we may look ahead. Though important, the current Haitian crisis
is not the heart of the matter. Haiti is a ravaged nation. History has taken a
far steeper toll on Haitians than on any other people in the Western Hemisphere
-- all the more reason for conjuring the longest memory in coming to terms with
what needs to be done. Only nation-building holds out any hope of breaking Haitians
loose from the throes of their history.
Everything
about Haiti seems to be on zero-sum terms. After independence, the new rulers
sought to retain the plantation economy, which would have forced wage labor upon
the former slaves. Exporting agricultural commodities made perfect economic sense.
It did not, however, comply with the longing for land to grow their own food that
the citizens of Haiti had.
Subsistence
won out over export agriculture. It is a poignant irony that an affirmation of
freedom then set Haiti on a track of immiseration. How else but through exports
could capital have been accumulated? Instead, peasant agriculture became the main
productive activity, which, nonetheless, never modernized. By the 1930s, the soil
had been irreversibly depleted, and food production was already in decline.
The
Haitian economy, therefore, never integrated an internal market supplied by domestic
production. Many food items are imported, and the value of exports is only 25
percent that of imports. Industry is extremely limited, while unproductive services
account for more than 50 percent of GDP.
The
long-standing logic of Haitian politics flows from this contorted economy. Control
of the government has been the only sure avenue of mobility and enrichment. Access
to state coffers has tendered power elites a lifeline of comfort in a sea of wretchedness.
Politics is predatory -- a politique du ventre (of the belly) -- practiced by
the grands mangeurs (big eaters). Endless repression, desperate poverty and a
cannibalized nation have been the result.
Jean-Bertrand
Aristide once embodied his people's hopes. What he might have accomplished had
he moved away from this perverse, deadly logic we will never know. That, instead,
he chose to govern in a similar vein as his predecessors is his most unpardonable
failure.
It
would have been infinitely preferable for Aristide and the opposition to have
crafted a compromise, yet, unsurprisingly, it eluded them. How can you compromise
in an all-or-nothing political culture? That armed gangs facilitated Aristide's
ouster should also have been predictable.
Haiti
is a failed state, but it simply cannot be fixed by its people on their own. The
international community -- the United Nations, the Organization of American States,
the United States and France, to start -- could set up a commission to supervise
the flow of aid. With the help of international experts, the Haitian business
community needs to come up with a plan to rebuild the economy, attract capital
and create jobs. Humanitarian efforts must be stepped up to feed the hungry millions.
Sound institutions are nonexistent in most areas of public life and must be created.
Haiti
does have a rich resource of its own: the diaspora's human capital. Nearly 93
percent of expatriates over 25 years old in the United States have had some schooling;
37 percent have some higher education; 20 percent have college or professional
degrees. Would expatriates, for example, answer the call to join a Peace Corps-like
effort? Probably, for the sentiments expressed by a Haitian American in Boston
are widely shared: ``I carry Haiti with me always.''
Such
a degree of outside involvement could well raise the sensibilities of Haitian
nationals. Yet their engagement at every step of whatever the international community
and the Haitian diaspora might do is an utmost imperative: Without it, nation-building
-- which requires no less than tracking life in Haiti on positive-sum terms --
will never happen.
More
worrisome is the prospect that the external commitment will falter or, indeed,
never materialize. Haitians would then remain shackled by their history. Failed
states, however, are friendly habitat for drug dealers (doing well in Haiti already)
and terrorists (not there yet). Getting Haiti right is, thus, no marginal matter.
The time for looking ahead is now.
Marifeli
P?rez-Stable teaches at Florida International University.
