Hope For Haiti

I. A Blessing In Disguise?

An earthquake has devastated Haiti. The capital is destroyed. [CORRECTED FROM ORIGINAL POST!] The New York Times reports the total dead as around 150,000. Haiti lost everything it had, which wasn’t much. The earthquake will force Haiti to rebuild its country and will inspire foreign countries to contribute to Haiti’s recovery. The destruction is grim. But the rebuilding, if done right, could be great.

Haiti needed help even before the earthquake. As the newspapers say, it was, and is, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Resources are scarce, and people are so poor that they can’t afford to buy things they need even when they are available. Many people lack clean water and pasteurized milk and die of easily preventable diseases.

Some would argue that the US had an obligation to help Haiti even before the earthquake. Some, on the other hand, would argue that before the quake, Haiti’s problems were manmade by the Haitians and that they are not the US’s responsibility. Before the quake, Haiti’s government was not working to organize society, and its economy was not productive enough to support its people.

The destruction of the earthquake has overshadowed those manmade problems. It was a natural disaster and no one’s fault. Maybe Haiti didn’t have very far to fall, so to speak, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that Haiti has hit rock bottom.

The earthquake could be a blessing in disguise. Whereas before, Haiti had itself to blame for its corrupt government and failure to organize its society, now it can blame all its problems on nature. Countries that might not have felt responsible for Haiti’s plight before the quake now will probably be more sympathetic.

II. We Can’t Write Them Off

My sympathies are easily won. I hate to say that Haiti’s poverty and corrupt government were the fault of the Haitian people and write Haiti off my list of worries. I believe that everyone in the world is connected to everyone else by biology, by sharing a planet, and by commerce, in the most practical sense. I use products that come from all over the world, from a t-shirt sewn in Bangladesh to an Israeli red pepper. In that way, I influence the lives of people all over the world. If a person in Bangladesh is underpaid for their work in a sweatshop, and I buy a product of that sweatshop, I’m partly responsible for that person’s poverty. On the other hand, I’m also creating a job that might keep them alive. In either case, I’m connected to the Bangladeshi seamstress. I can’t say that her problems are not my problems.

Similar connections exist between me and Haiti. The US has had some hand in Haiti’s government throughout the last century, from an occupation lasting from 1915 to 1934 to the US intervention to reinstate Aristide after he was ousted in 1991. For better or for worse, the US has a relationship with Haiti, and it can’t abandon it now.

III. Trade Embargoes

A sore point in this relationship between the US and Haiti was a trade embargo of the 1990’s. In effort to pressure Aristide’s reinstatement, Clinton’s administration placed trade embargoes on Haiti that left Haitians with no market for their coffee and mangoes. Cripple the economy and leave people hungrier than before in order to force a government change intended to boost the economy and help people? This is a terrible idea.

Trade embargoes are a foolish way to try to change a country’s government. If rich countries refuse to trade with Haiti, its people will be poor. That won’t necessarily inspire them to revolt against their government and come up with a democracy. People will, instead, live in desperation. They won’t think long term. They won’t think about changing the government. They’ll just survive, or not, on luck.

If people have some international trade to give them jobs, they’ll have more money, more leisure, more hope for a better life. People given a taste of a better life might start to imagine that, were they in charge of the government, things could be better still.

IV. How can we help?

An island nation where everyone is poor cannot survive without getting some capital from somewhere else, through aid or trade. On one hand, I think the world should muster its resources to help Haiti. On the other hand, I’m not sure the Haitian government can be trusted to use the money wisely. Trade is the better option.

Trade with Haiti is a better way to help, because it is more than a hand out: it rewards Haitians for responsible behavior, productivity. The US should support Haiti’s economy by enacting the opposite of a trade embargo. We should go out of our way to buy Haitian exports, such as mangoes and coffee. Perhaps Haitians could also provide some services to companies that hire people all over the world to answer phones, enter data, transcribe recordings.

Readers, help me to round out the “how can we help?” section of this essay. And then, let’s put our ideas to work.