At the time of the rotation of the calendar year, I usually take time to ponder and reflect on past events so as to foresee the trajectory of the new year.
In the rest of the world, there was the opening of the freezer door between the United States and Cuba. There were, in New York and Ferguson, Missouri, vast demonstrations against police brutality.
Masses of unfortunate Africans are still taking boats seeking a hospitable sky in Europe. The wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq are coming to a close but there are killings every day since there was no nation-building infrastructure implanted in those countries. It was also the year of the pandemic of Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
ISIS has raised its ugly fundamentalist head in Iraq and Syria, killing women and children without mercy.
In Haiti, the Martelly government has been enduring, with a crescendo in the tempo, the anger of the opposition pregnant with those who belong to the past governments of Lavalas and Preval as well as to the Mirlande Manigat clan that lost the election in 2011.
The Haitian government position is a hot commodity unit that provides instant gratification in money, privilege and standing to the occupier and, as such, the fight to get in is rude, without mercy yet filled with the veil of hypocrisy enrobed with disguised morality.
It was a grueling fight from the very beginning, with no honeymoon usually reserved for an incumbent government. From a singer transformed into a head of state, President Martelly has done well for himself. An impartial observer could not resist adjudging the fact that, for the past 60 years, Haiti did not have three governments, nay one government that tried so hard, albeit with results not so palpable due to fierce opposition and lack of thoughtful coordination.
The globe trotter columnist of The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof, celebrated Haiti in an op-ed page on Christmas Day:
"I visited a program that trains flower farmers to use greenhouses and is supported by the United States as part of the Feed the Future initiative. One farmer, Michel Dorlean, told me that, with greenhouses, he has tripled production of chrysanthemums.
"You come back and this hillside will be covered with greenhouses," he predicted. He added that the flowers I buy for my wife in New York will eventually be exported from Haiti.
"Here in Haiti, too many people are still homeless from the earthquake. But, in the last few years, the economy has been growing more quickly than the American economy."
But from government to government Haiti has not defined its vision and the right mission for its people. The blame game has been its best formula to avoid taking responsibility for the welfare of its citizens. It was first the French, then the Americans, now the United Nations and the Dominican Republic.
Haitian politics has centered on taking control of the spoils of the meager resources that can be collected from a few citizens, the international community and the Diaspora. A true project of society leading to the well-being of all has not been entertained.
Even when forced to do so by the international community, as in 2010 after the earthquake, it was a pure academic exercise, with no faith in or responsibility and determination for its implementation. As such, Haiti is as poor as it was some 60 years ago when the Duvalier regime took power in 1961 under the mantle of caring for those most in need.
From a dictatorial regime to military one and then to illiberal governments, the fate of the majority of the citizens of Haiti has remained the same, men peddlers of used tennis shoes, women selling from door to door a stock that does not amount to $50 and children looking for and selling a bag of water. The majority of the Haitian population is living an undignified life with no end foreseen in the near future.
This Christmas season, which was so festive on the other side of the island named the Dominican Republic, is filled with controversy in Haiti. A vociferous group, led by a sitting senator, Moise Jean Charles, which names itself Sons of Dessalines, pledged to disturb all signs of seasonal celebration.
They framed the disturbance in such a raucous manner, I am surprised they are not aware that their supporters are collecting the ire of the average citizen with the defacing of private walls with badly written slogans, the destruction of public buildings and public vehicles, inconveniencing the normal way of life for kids who go to school and for adults who go to work.
An emasculated president is reduced to concede terms of negotiation that were concocted by a conciliation group. Amongst those terms was the resignation of the prime minister, Laurent Lamothe, the presumed heir to the president.
Without a chosen candidate to assume his legacy, without a party that could rally the troops, President Michel Martelly is reduced to a lame duck government that may lose the momentum that has made him attractive to the populace.
He was elected under the appropriate name Repons Peyizan Party, but under the influence of his friends and his counselors he has chosen to ignore that party and build his own, named PHTK that has struggled to gain in popularity and in attractiveness from the population.
The policy chosen by Laurent Lamothe, the deposed prime minister, was filled with bold marketing and excellent packaging but low in substance and result. With a population living in extreme poverty, a policy of social welfare is inappropriate and can lead to only state bankruptcy.
Haiti's population, albeit uneducated and unpolished, is resilient and creative. The Lamothe administration should have aligned itself towards a policy of wealth creation based on the existing framework proper to the Haitians. A "Haiti is open for business" formula is not fit for Haiti. It should have been instead "Haiti is seeking business for its organic agriculture and husbandry as well as for its exotic arts and crafts".
The ebullient minister of tourism, Stephanie V. Balmir, who has been getting high marks for his choice tourist destinations, failed to hit the ground where it matters most: creating wealth in that sector, because Haiti, without decent infrastructure and reliable institutions, is not ready to graduate into the mainstream tourist path.
She could, though, profit from the country's unusual Catholic tradition of Saint Fiesta that would attract Catholics from Spain, Italy and the Gothic branch of Catholicism to Haiti. The devotees would find themselves in a familiar path and the Haitian towns, rural or urban, would garner manna not from the sky but from earth from May 1 to November 1 on saints' days.
They will certainly come back for Carnival and Rara (peasant's carnival) from January to April, completing the circle of manna every month.
When it comes to the potential candidates for the 2015 election, I am not bullish about any of the potential aspirants. Without a clear vision and a set mission for Haiti, the electoral fight will center around name calling instead of principles.
The principle must be that Haiti must become a nation with a sense of purpose that will become the glue for building the chain of solidarity that shall lift those who have been left behind for the past 200 years.
The principle must include that Haiti must engage itself in building a ring of infrastructure and institutions that will surround the entire country, so its citizens will no more become nomads in their own country and wandering like lost sheep around the rest of the world.
Last, but not least, the principle must include that Haiti must regain its destiny of an emancipatory nation by becoming free and caring for and engaging its citizens in becoming nation builders not only in the motherland but also in the rest of the world.
But, first and foremost, Haiti must struggle with its own demons to rebuild its ecology devastated first by the colonists, now by the Haitians themselves. It must also stop the culture of waiting for Washington or from the western world to bring solutions for its woes.
The political platform under which President Martelly gained power did not have the chance to apply this vision for Haiti. Under the right leadership of its own president and its own prime minister in power, Repons Peyizan, again in true control of the government, Haiti can stop its descent into hell, at last to start producing milk and honey.
Already with a new prime minister given as a gift on Christmas Day, Mr Evans Paul, a seasoned politician, the government will be humbler, readier to listen, ready to strengthen the infrastructure and the institutions while helping Haiti to regain its confidence and leadership in nation building for itself and for its neighbors.
My wish for the year 2015: may God and his saints protect and extend to Haiti and the rest of humanity the aura of peace and prosperity.

o Jean H. Charles, LLB MSW, JD, is a syndicated columnist with Caribbean News Now. He can be reached at: jeancharles@aol.com and followed at Caribbeannewsnow/Haiti. This is published with the permission of Caribbean News Now.

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