Tragedy is a fact of life in Haiti. Only the second nation in the Western Hemisphere to achieve its own independence, Haiti is also one the poorest in the world today, with more than 80 percent of its inhabitants living in squalor. The history of Haiti is one of economic stagnation, deforestation, subhuman living conditions, the Duvalle dictatorship and various devastating hurricanes. It seems that an ominous black cloud has been hovering over Haiti for decades, never allowing the sun to shine. Just when the sun seemed to be coming out for the first time in a very long time, the ground shook violently.
The images being sent back to us through media outlets are heartwrenching. The images depict scenes reminiscent of Dachau, Auschwitz and even the bombing of Dresden during World War II. Survivors in Haiti walk the streets as if in a stupor, sporting torn clothes covered in a mix of blood and chalk-like asphalt powder. Every day we see people waddling through streets littered with rotting human corpses of all ages. People still remain trapped under a labyrinth of concrete slabs. All in all, the horror in Haiti has been a stark reminder of how brutal life can be. It is also a reminder of how difficult it is for local and foreign entities to coordinate help and get it to those that need it in a manner that is expeditious.
The scale of the destruction may be hard for many of us to gauge. Reports from The New York Daily News are that an estimated 50,000 bodies have been collected, and about half of them have been buried in makeshift mass graves. Newsweek magazine claims that more than 300,000 people have been left homeless. The reason for this is that the vast majority of structures in Port-au-Prince fell apart thanks to construction absent of steel rebar. If structures would have had rebar intertwined within the concrete walls, then this would have ensured more structural stability.
This is but one aspect of a systematic failure across the board, representative of the Haitian government’s inefficiency in dealing with a catastrophe of such monumental proportions. In effect, the Haitian government’s response has been almost nonexistent. CNN’s Anderson Cooper stated in a recent telecast that in the last few days he has seen no more than “five or six police officers” patrolling the streets of Port-au-Prince. To make matters even worse, Haiti has no standing military. What else can you expect from a nation where their President, René Préval, turned the airport into his new home because, as he said, “I have no home to go to.”
Such abject poverty and corruption at the hand of the Haitian government has meant that after the earthquake there has been little help from government authorities across the board, mainly because they do not have the resources or even the training to deal with such a disaster.
When poor people cannot help themselves, do we have a moral obligation to help? Will this be the start of new things for Haiti, bringing about much-needed reform?
The horror in Haiti should make us reconsider the Haiti situation altogether. In a nation like the United States, with so many riches and material resources, it is incumbent for us all to help those that have nothing. If we do not, many people will die needlessly.
President Barack Obama said it best in a recent article for Newsweek: “[A]bove all, we act for a very simple reason: in times of tragedy, the United States of America steps forward and helps. That is who we are. That is what we do.”
The people in Haiti do not have the infrastructure, the government or the know-how to be able to help all those people trapped under blocks of fallen concrete or those dying at makeshift tent hospitals. Doctors do not have the requisite medical supplies and they have said that they feel that their security is not guaranteed. In a recent interview, Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent for CNN, said that many of these so-called “tent hospitals” are being run in an environment where human operations call for whatever can be found close by. Gupta said that he saw operations being conducted with hacksaws, drinking alcohol and even the powerful animal tranquilizer Ketamin, which dissociates the mind from body.
Once the rubble is swept aside and normality returns, Haiti will need a long-term recovery plan that calls for a more resilient economy free of corruption and a strong representative democracy. For now, Haiti needs to ensure that it remains a relatively secure environment so that looting does not get out of hand and so that gangs do not impose rule. Only then will aid be able to flow freely and get to where it needs to go.
The American people must organize resources and mobilize them ASAP in order to help these people in dire need. It is refreshing to see the U.S. government moving ahead to make sure that, like Obama said recently, “No one will be left behind.” I think America has finally learned their lesson thanks to own homegrown catastrophe, Hurricane Katrina.
