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Shortly
after the January 12th terrible earthquake
that has virtually pulverized the Haitian
people legitimate aspirations for better
living conditions; politicians and
activists have begun to debate about the
concepts of national sovereignty,
independence, or self-determination. But
in a country where people are dying of
hunger, misery and disease should they
continue to expatiate about these
concepts?
We
find even members of the press promoting
national sovereignty theory. Journalism is
different from politic to the extent that
a journalist should always try to respect
the deontology of the profession and say
nothing but the truth. I
believe that the concept of national
sovereignty national which has been
claimed during the recent protests in
Port au Prince against the Preval /
Bellerive government, is pure and simple,
unrealistic and impossible to implement in
a poor country like ours. Countries that
have the monopoly of money, knowledge and
technology have always come to impose
their hegemony in this global world.
Although
objective and subjective conditions for a
big social and political explosion are
met, it is impossible at this time to have
a revolution like that of Fidel Castro in
Haiti. That time has completely elapsed. If
a country has no money of oil as
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez or Iran's Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, the more realistic approach
would be to negotiate frankly with the
international community.
The
next president will have to deal with huge
challenges: jobless
workers, a weak economy, landless
peasants, threatened by hunger, exhausted
by any kind of endemic disease; all
this is the daily plight of all those who
are surviving on this corner of Espanola
Island.
In
addition
to the creation or implementation of
better public health policy, education,
family planning, agriculture, or
economics, the new president will also
have to take in account the structural
weaknesses of the country. In a general
way it should be noted a lack of human
resources and the physical infrastructure.
The social and political stability in this
country depends today and tomorrow
directly on the improvement of living
conditions of the population.
I
must clarify for my readers that I am not
opposed to peaceful protests in the
streets. The
leaders have to know that in this country
they cannot always resolve every issue as
"the emergency law" in the
streets. The law, that had given full
power to President Rene Preval to deal
with challenges of rebuilding, was
ratified by the parliament that holds a
piece of the national sovereignty. The
classical theory of the sovereignty
national causes an automatic exclusion of
"popular sovereignty". The
Executive, consisting of the president of
the republic and prime minister,
represents the national sovereignty.
It
is distressing to note that the mass is
not yet awake to the proletarian
consciousness. This explains the ease with
which, throughout history, demagogues have
so easily manipulated this group. The
“lumpen” proletariat unfortunately has
suffered with the maximum severity of the
effects of misery that is the common
denominator of its attitudes and
behaviors.
The
Haitian elite, for its part, is
responsible for this bumpy situation. It
has too long neglected the education of
the people that they have not been placed
under the conditions required to benefit
today technical progress and innovation.
Some
would tell me that the time is not
favorable for accusations, because
everyone is guilty of a certain level
whatsoever. All social forces should get
together to profit fully from the
international aid. From
Paris to Washington via Ottawa, Brasilia
and Caracas, one should not lose sight
that members of the international
community as well are confronting serous
economic dilemmas.
Our
current problems do not begin today. They
began during the colonial period. From
this historical period to present days no
attempt has ever been made to modernize
the country. According to historian and
novelist Roger Gaillard in the series
“Les Blancs Debarquent” (The Whites
Land), the first attempts to modernize
Haiti have started during the USA military
occupation of 1915. These occupants’
forces built roads, bridges, hospitals,
schools and reorganizing public health
services.
I
believe that the unfortunate earthquake
provides a historic opportunity to correct
the deviations of the past. This is the
most ardent wish that I have for the
country of Jean Jacques Dessalines and
Toussaint Louverture.
Romeo
estinvil
estinro@hotmail.com
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