After seeing the amount help Haiti has received, some Haitian scholars, natives, and relief workers are starting to believe that this constant aid will cripple Haiti's independence. Ronald Agenor, a Haitian-American, believes that "We're not a country anymore...It doesn't seem like we have a government. We're a place where people go to give money."
I guess you can have too much of a good thing. Although I've never considered this before, I can see where Agenor is coming from. I feel like he seems to have lost a sense of pride, seeing that his country needs help in rebuild itself. But I personally don't think what the world is doing is necessarily a bad thing or will cost Haiti its independence in the future. Yes, it seems as if everyone is doing what they can for this country, but the idea behind it is to get Haiti back on its feet, not to help it forever. Once Haiti demonstrates that there is no need for anymore help, countries will slowly start leaving. Although Haiti will need some more time, I know that they will eventually prove their independence.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
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3 comments:
This is an interesting angle to the Haiti story. My curiosity lies with when the international community will decide that Haiti is ready to get back on its own feet. Will it stop when the country is back where it was before the huge earthquake, because they were not doing amazingly then either. Will they continue until the country is better than it was before? If so, how do we justify this. Because Haiti had the earthquake, they get to be the third world country with the support to improve? What about the huge amount of other third world countries? Because they did not have an earthquake they do not deserve help?
I am not against supporting Haiti. I think that they need it and that the support is justified. However, when do we stop? When do we start helping other countries as well?
i agree with mark, i do not agree with the general ideology behind this particular relief effort. there are many more people in despair in Darfur and we are not advertising that around the globe a fraction of the amount we are with Haiti. the problem is that hooking ourselves onto Haiti and making it dependent on our aid will eventually make it into a second Iraq for us to be responsible for...and we are unable to even take care of ourselves at this time. so i say help any country we can in need but not to the extent that it is either crippling us as a nation or making us liable for their welfare because they become dependent on the aid in the long run.
-Victor Sukhovitsky
People will always their different opinions. The original post said that one Haiti demonstrates stability, other countries will start to pull out. Stability in America and stability in Haiti could mean two very, very different things. Even before the earthquake, Haiti was an unstable country. People there were going hungry, dealing with poverty and citizens had a low life expectancy of about 54 years old. Besides that, the richest 1% of the population controls nearly half of all of Haiti’s wealth. So, how can you judge stability in a country where stability was never really apparent?
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