How Little Do We Know

When the world became aware of the devastation following the earthquake that struck Haiti, quite specifically, sparing the Dominican Republic which was in far better shape on the Isle of Hispaniola, international aid was swift in arriving. Countries from around the world sent humanitarian aid, sent their first-responder-emergency-aid-workers, as efforts were made to save as many people as possible from suffocation, buried under the rubble of Port-au-Prince and surrounding suburbs and towns.

Haiti, the most poverty-stricken country in the Western Hemisphere, a country peopled by slaves whose lives were exploited by empire-building ambitions of the West who viewed black Africans as personal property. After Haitians finally fought for their liberty, then suffered under a succession of their own dictatorships caring nothing for the people, the country finally appeared on the verge of stumbling toward responsible independence.

But the friable state of the country continued to fail as a nation capable of looking after its own, as one impostor of a governing elite after another simply took over, and took over as well the vast sums of "guilt-reparations" that developed countries sent to help the country's administration establish a sound and working civil infrastructure. Only to see that money find its way into offshore accounts proudly owned by the country's native overseers.

Now, post-quake, Haiti finds itself still with a vast number of its people living hopelessly in the most stark conditions prevailing in squalid, temporary refugee camps. It's just that to the people, attempting to make some sense out of the collapse of their formerly-adequate lifestyles on the cusp of realizing greater aspirations, wonder whether they will ever see a decent future for themselves and their children.

To the world at large, the dreadful disaster is concluded. The devastating effects of the huge tremor that brought much of the country into ruin is history. There have been other natural and man-made disasters to rivet peoples' minds, until the next one erupts. Most people, if they think of Haiti at all, simply assume that with the huge amounts of international aid that poured into the country and ongoing commitments to aid, the country's problems have been solved.

Irrespective of the billions of emergency funding poured into the country, the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who are not of the scanter middle- and privileged-classes fear the future, their hopes dimmed by long delays with little improvement in their day-to-day lives. In which case, perhaps it is just as well that Canada's current Governor General, Michaelle Jean, has taken a post with the United Nations to oversee and direct its mission in Haiti.

As a native Haitian, and Haitian-Canadian, she may be capable of producing a United Nations-sponsored program of value to the people who need it so desperately. On the other hand, perhaps that's too much to hope for any United Nations-affiliated enterprise. She can but try, and in her position there, buttressing Canada's huge interest in Haiti's eventual well-being, she may yet do herself and us proud.