Haiti’s Dark Side
Just finished a startling interview in USA Today with Mark Driscoll about some sick developments he witnessed in Haiti, including watching a boy gunned down in the street and this sickening account:
“We were downtown loading up our film crew. There were no police, no medics, to be seen by a huge park with hundreds of people camping out with no where else to go. There was a little cart with a red umbrella and a man selling cell phones and cigarettes — and a few young girls.
“You want to buy loving?” the guy asked me. I said, “What in the world are you talking about?”
But there was another guy there, who claimed to be a translator for a relief agency, who was negotiating a price for a girl. I asked him what he was trying to do. He said, “Oh, she’s a friend of mine. We’re just trying to connect.”
That’s ridiculous. A young girl. A man 20 or 30 years older. I told him this was unacceptable. MacDonald confronted him, too. But there were no police and you could argue all you wanted but the girl took his money and they walked away.”
That’s evil.
Phil, you are right, it is evil at it’s “best”. However, that stuff happens all the time everywhere on earth… and more often than not, the girl is not a willing participant.
Someone on the radio yesterday had suggested that the US import all 9 million Haitians and put them on welfare. The guy was joking…but…
They would fit right in here in the US, or England, or France,etc…. Whoever lives in Haiti, lives in our town…. I don’t believe any of this will change until Jesus returns.
Rather than import them and put them on welfare, which would bring no change, why don’t we take up Douglas Wilson’s (half joking I think) idea to make Haiti a territory and basically colonize them. It’s worked fairly well in Iraq regardless of what liberals want us to believe. They have a functioning democracy in one of the most anti-democratic areas in the world.
http://www.dougwils.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7304:panglossian-pipe-dreams&catid=87:politics
It is really amazing to see what the governmental anarchy that is Haiti’s reality. The difficulty, of course, is that once all the relief efforts are over, as Wilson points out, the social and political realities will return. What’s needed is not short-term feel-good, “well-intentioned” efforts, but long term policies that will foster the kind of culture and society where people can live well. But then again, that presupposes that we know what “living well” looks like, something which our post-modern culture has kicked to the curb.
This is NOT to say we need to support another group of peoples.
But, the government of a country, such as Haiti, will remain in power and maintain their own self-interests, (money, power, etc…), rather than those of the citizens, as long as the general population is dirt poor, (50 cents/day wages ).
The fact that so many of the people are super superstitious is another reason for Haiti’s problems. A huge lack of education, which ensures the people stay superstitious, is also a tool the power/leaders can use to keep a lid on the population.
My beliefs also would include, as a huge positive measure; Large doses of basic Christianity. It is NOT the cure-all…. the leaders would have to be equally Christian to make real changes. Then once decently educated, democracy could be a turn-key to greater success.