The Republic of Haiti holds one third of the island of Ayiti, or Hispaniola. It sits as the pendant of the chain of the Caribbean islands. It has an historical stormy and tragic past. It is now very vulnerable. This vulnerability is due to its past because it was the most exploited of all the islands of the Caribbean, as it had to burn most of its assets to acquire independence. Its founders, after the assassination of the precursor Jean Jacques Dessalines, practiced the policy of discrimination and exclusion, undermining its development. The exploitative nations of the world, to punish its daring might, have conspired to prevent its renaissance. The succession of Haitian governments, allied to favorite international predators, has failed the country from creating a nation-state entity.
Two hundred years later, with an explosive population of 10 million inhabitants from its beginning of 400,000 people, on a surface leached by erosion, improper cutting of trees and poor land management, Haiti eats now its own seeds, compromising any development now and in the future. What to do? Haiti must diagnose its wrongs in a national and international context. The national context It has a young, uneducated and untrained population from a rural world that lives in the hills (60 percent) without institutions and infrastructure and 30 percent who struggle in the slums in unsafe and vulnerable conditions. A small portion frequents poorly equipped public educational institutions; a larger portion attends private institutions at great cost to their parents, institutions that are commercial in nature but are even more poorly equipped.
The vast majority of the population unravels, turning into water and drink peddlers for the men, fruits and used clothing (Pèpè) sellers for the women. Its elite, between 10 percent and 11 percent of the population, highly educated and sophisticated, practiced over time the concept of noblesse oblige that maintained the social stability on a rosy plank. Since 1946, especially since 1957, this social balance was catapulted by the revolution noiriste (it is now the turn of the blacks after the ones of the mulattoes) concept of the Duvaliers followed by the Lavalas. The small percentage of that elite erected its barriers several inches higher, as the Haitian government amplified its predatory culture.
The masses, uneducated and untrained, took the reins of power for the last 60 years with a policy that dictates impulsion from the bottom with all the compromises of values that implies. To borrow the passage of a chronicler of this decaying Haiti, it has become a place where, "The lack of vision, lack of coordination, lack of ethics, lack of sense of responsibility, lack of civility, of patriotism, of human and social values, moral authority tout court convinced establishing drifts, as a rule of life, as to shred and destroy the city and our country but also validate an unspeakable vile anarchy, we see today." The international context Haiti, a rebellious daughter of Africa, is not graspable.
She has acquired her own independence by defeating and humiliating the global forces that wanted to perpetuate the enslavement of man by man. So from a young age she has suffered openly in 1804 and suffered now a disguised and muted embargo. She suffered also from the stigma of the French slave culture that propelled the tearing of each other apart as a favorite game of personal intercourse. Very closed to the United States, it suffers the fate of blacks and minorities as a reservoir of cheap labor to meet the needs of the industrial sector operators outsourcing the worldwide textile industry friendly to low wages and bad working conditions.
Yet as the pendant for the Caribbean chain she should have a privileged place in the Antilles, as Bali in the Pacific, because of its location, its history, its culture, its natural beauty and the warmth of its people. Haiti vegetates in extreme poverty that seems to worsen day by day because of the population explosion, the elements of nature and the consequences of carelessness and predation of past governments. The solution Haiti must take its leadership in its own hands to build a nation-state that is contrary to the concept of the state of laissez- faire of Alexander Pétion, swim or sink of René Préval or state of internecine conflicts of Jean Bertrand Aristide. Haiti must return to the concept of the nation-state as conceived later by the French philosopher and historian Ernest Renan.
The nation-state concept as conceived by Renan consists of these principles: one is the possession of a rich legacy; the other is the willingness to continually update the desire to live together. Still according to Renan, a nation-state is a daily plebiscite that all the sectors will continue to be part of the country. They have done great things in the past and they want to do it again in the future. We love the house we have built together, and we will bequeath it to the next generation in a better and bigger shape. The nation-state is responsible for the fate of each one of its citizens by providing an excellent education until the age of 24 years to every young man and woman.
Grant each district of the city and of the rural area sound institutions and good infrastructure so that citizens can live in and enjoy their hamlet or their county where they are, while enhancing and enriching themselves as well as the state. He will have no need to be a nomad in his own country, leaving the rural county to the town, from the town to the city and from there to the capital all the while plotting a clandestine trip to warmer skies where the hospitality mat is larger. The nation-state has a strong army that instills the love of the country in its glory and its history while teaching the culture of living together, and working together to build a homeland. Finally, the nation-state will ensure that no group is left behind.
The examples of nation-states that beat the odds to assert the benefit for their citizens are: Vietnam, which fought not only the French but also the American proxy to unite them and succeed; Singapore, that defied the laughingstock of the world to focus on the future of its residents; Malaysia, that followed the example of Singapore. There is also Rwanda that practiced genocide before kissing each other to succeed. There are certainly the Scandinavian countries which have a culture and a common bond that facilitated the emergence of the nation-state. Haiti with an uneducated and poorly trained population must use its ethos and its special condition to enrich itself while it embarks on the path of education for all.
Haiti is the most rural country of the world, according to "Peasants and Poverty" by Mats Lhundal in a study of Haiti. Its wealth must be built from the rural areas by focusing on:
1. First targeted organic and nostalgic agriculture for its own Diaspora as well as the Caribbean one in the USA, Canada and Great Britain, as well as the fine connoisseurs of good produce in general in the rest of the world. The Haitian state in cooperation with foreign organizations shall put together peasant cooperatives to ensure the quantity, quality and marketing of those produces. The experience of the Francis mango is a model to scale out and reproduce to other products.
2. The Haitian government, still with foreign cooperation help, shall develop cooperative breeding of quality chicken, guinea fowl, goats and pigs and fish for local and foreign consumption. The large farms in each county will offer chicks to individuals who will nurture their livestock in conditions of observation and control that meet international standards of quality of the worldwide supply chain of food and produce.
3. Finally, the Haitian state benefiting from the artistic dexterity of the Haitian people to frame complex workshops to produce furniture or utensils where art combines with utility to produce original works that bloom in all the Costcos of the earth.
Therefore, Haiti should focus its job surge for its non-educated citizens in the areas mentioned above such as livestock, agriculture and craft. The man or woman without education and training could easily earn $1,250 per month instead of $1,440 per year as proposed by the textile industry. For the citizens who are university graduates, Haiti should concentrate its diplomacy of business toward that sector. Foreign investment with higher paying wages should be sought to turn knowledge into use, for example, in the field of electronics, calls centers and IT services However, Haiti cannot aspire to a nation-state if a critical mass of the population is not educated.
In a key and famous book by Emil Vlagik, "The Wretched of Modernity", he reveals that only countries that agree to provide a critical mass of educated citizens will cross intact the global financial crisis. The ingredients of development are a large enough population for the territory. This population must be educated and it must be creative. Haiti has a population of 10 million inhabitants, it is resilient and creative but it is not educated. If in 1804 the signatories of the Act of Independence agreed to forge a nation; in 1806 the true colors were shown naked.
The signatories of the Act of Independence of 1804 did not agree to build a nation that would be hospitable to all. Those who had in mind to remove the settlers to become themselves the settlers have had the upper hand. They built a Haiti that renounced the vision of its visionary founders: Toussaint Louverture, Jean Jacques Dessalines, and Henri Christophe. Education or the lack thereof was the policy utilized to keep the mass in a neo-bondage. To conclude, by making education for the whole of its citizens free, efficient and excellent, the state will be the first beneficiary.
When tackling the issue of training from infancy to 24 years old, the young man or young woman would have reached a higher degree of expertise where his genius and creative talent will provide 45 years of taxable income for the state. Tourism and Haiti Haiti shall be transformed into a Bali of the Caribbean that uses its culture, religious festivals, cuisine and art to attract first its Diaspora and the world in general to take part in its cultural calendar that follows:
• May 1 to November 1 from Jacmel to Grande Rivière du Nord: Festival of Saints or fiesta parties, fêtes champètres.
• The Christmas festivities in December
• Week of international solidarity with Haiti marking the earthquake of 1/12/10 December 26 to January 12
• The Festival of the Carnival or Mardi Gras in February
• The rural festivities of Rara in March
• The Easter festivities in April
• The return to the festivals of Saints on May 1. Haiti needs to address its deficit of infrastructure and the feeling of insecurity to engage into a policy of international tourism.
The government through the program seen in the towns of Grande Rivière and St. Raphael, where a project of urbanization is taking place, shall scale out the project in all the towns and cities the municipalities before the festival with support from the population and the Diaspora shall participate in this renaissance that will benefit them and the public fund. Finally, to conclude, the government should take its bullhorn megaphone to teach the population two principles:
1. It is committed to become a state where nation building is the policy by providing the capital and the support for good institutions and sound infrastructure.
2. It is urging and nurturing the Haitian people to become good citizens who pay their taxes, respect the environment, and contribute to the creation of a common homeland, a nation-state which is hospitable to all, in particular to the most vulnerable ones.
• Jean H. Charles MSW, JD is executive director of AINDOH Inc. a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a kinder and gentle Caribbean zone for all. He can be reached at: jeanhcharles@aol.com. Printed with the permission of caribbeannewsnow.com.
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