Haiti in the eye of the storm
Poor Haiti. Spawned by imperialists, reduced by earthquake, sickened by cholera, and now “le deluge”.
I’m writing ahead of it because I won’t be able to Snowblog during it. Depending which satellite imagery you go with, by dawn our time, midday in Europe, whatever force will strike this island will have struck, or be striking, or be about to strike.
What impacts upon me immediately is the stoicism of the people – good natured, accepting of their awful fate and probable destiny. I was here two days after the earthquake hit in January. Since that time the urban sprawls of tented encampments have consolidated into canvas, timber, and corrugated tin homes. The density is absolute – ten to a shack, families are crammed everywhere.
Wandering through one camp of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) we came upon an intense football game – of great skill and of huge concentration for those ten boys playing. A boy was being towed along in a wheelie case by another. Everywhere there are tableaux of defiance, of turning whatever little there is to remarkably imaginative good use.
The most harrowing aspect of being here is the candour and openness of those you talk to. A boy from the cholera hit district beyond the capital tells me his mother died of the disease two weeks ago. He had fled the place leaving the dead behind him, and many more who were sick with the epidemic.
“I’m just looking after myself,” he tells me. “I just want to survive”.
Then there is the sweet woman in pink, hand washing at a basin in the corner outside a shack. Is she frightened? – not really, she’s been through so much.
“What will you do when the storm strikes?” I ask.
“I have nowhere to go, I will stay here,” she responds. Then I ask her, what about your children?
“They are dead,” she says. “The house fell down on them when they were in bed in the earthquake.”
What can you say in such a moment? Condolences are not enough. There is such agony all about – of dispossession, of discomfort – of hopelessness, and yet still this stoicism.
Related posts:
- Haiti thoughts from abroad
- Home thoughts on the way to Haiti
- Haiti: no doctor, no medicine, no hope
- Haiti and the forgotten fundamentalists
- Haiti's long, long haul out of the bottleneck
There are 24 comments on this post
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Remember not to get carried-away by the Haiti-thing. These people don’t have jobs, some of them are homeless, and they’re living off OUR handouts. What does that mean? Scroungers.
Think on.
And don’t forget to remind British Govt that we don’t want them coming over here. Sure D Express will back us on this. Even P Diana wouldn’t want that.
@ phil dicks – Disgraceful post which should be removed.
This forum’s gone-to-pot. Those smileys were meant to be capital d’s. It’s totally ruined the effect. (I suppose I deserve it – does the word ‘loser’ spring to mind when you see my name?).
Do not agree with you. There are scroungers everywhere including Haiti but their country has been decimated by those who control the way they want us to think & they seem to have reached their goal with you Phil.
adzmundo TVP
Phil,
Only Saltaire seems to have picked up your wicked irony & run with it! No, “loser” certainly doesn’t describe you. Ignore the po-faced, anally-retentive bloggers & keep your own style – it’s priceless!
It’s like poetry when misread Phil.”thats not what I meant at all.”
Yes, the comparison between all those homeless suffering people out there and our own homeless is pertinent. Some claim our own are scroungers but would they judge this suffering in Haiti in the same way ,being similarly affected by outside influences although of greater momentum.
T
Damn, Phil. And I thought you’d been so clever using smilies to show the uncaring, vacuous smiling countenance of the capitalists sho churn out so much xenaphobic rubbish from the pages of their ‘news’ papers. Heigh ho, serendipity strikes deliciously once more
Max-thanks to the supporters. Maybe some things shouldn’t be mocked, fair enough, but it’s an eye-opener how ‘anally-retentive’ some people really are. It sort-of makes them a legitimate target!
The frailty of life as nature/ God whatever one believes the force is, always has the last word.
Indonesia too. Haiti suffers, whilst these morons argue and rant and rave about selfish insignificancies.
I have always said, love , tolerance and self control are the best virtues, as we are only visitors on this natural world.
Good luck today.
That is because us humans are a combative race but it only really shows in the super rich wanting to be even richer and the super poor being more than content with what they have.
I’m lost for words when thinking about how people are having to cope with such injustice.
Why does a country prone to hurricanes & earthquakes, that was stripped of all its natural resources, have to now deal with an outbreak of a perfectly preventable killer disease?
The reason is that we are all controlled by less than 5% of the worlds population and those mainly men who have their fingers on the red button, should be behind bars for the rest of their miserable lives..
adzmundo The Venus Project
I sent you a comment on the original coverage of the quake, asking why you (and everyone else) were not giving the government of Haiti a hard time, and touching on corruption. I got no reply, so I repeat, after your broadcast last night – why do you not cover the incompetence of the government there, and what they have done for their people with the money from world donors. Where has the money gone – I know a lot of the cash is still only promises. What about ongoing and endemic corruption.criminality.
Have you been asked not to go hard as a requirement of your team’s entry visas?
Bet if you check, Jon, all the promised aid from hand-wringing countries following the earthquake won’t have appeared in reality.
If ever the obscenity of some individuals owning millions while others have nothing needed underlining, this is surely such an occasion. Capitalism thrives on inequality.
This country, like so many in the west, grew rich on imperialism and our standard of living is maintained by a similar force that sees the goods we covet made by children on paupers’ wages.
For the cost of a few atom bombs and other means of destruction, necessary to defend our lust for more than our fair share, we could have re-housed the people of Haiti so they didn’t face a hurricane in tents.
We send billions of pounds worth of satellites into the sky to spy or merely to make it easier to find our way without a map. Meanwhile back on earth some people are living mediaeval lives.
Greed has won. I despair.
Thank you Jon Snow and the team for having the courage and wisdom to return to Haiti!
A country that has been pillaged, exploited and largely abandoned by a Western media which used the earthquake to boost ratings and revenue ~ sickening.
Haiti needs many things, first and foremost its people need water, food and shelter. It needs the neoliberal jackboot lifted from its neck and it also should get full, no strings attached reparations from Western countries that exploited its resources and the labour of its people.
The Haitians are resiliant and creative people, they had to be because they were dealing with the worse of kind of parasitic, vampiric individuals who sucked that country dry. But still they stand proud and tall and need people who live in comfort to speak out on their behalf.
Viva Haiti!!! May it rise in justice and equality for all.
Jon, what were you expecting to find? A town in mourning where everyone was lying, given up in the gutter.Even the posed(for the camera) anger of about 4 individuals looked false.Those on the ground in charge that you interviewed,were quietly confident.What else is there to be in adversity,except die??? In this country , though slightly before my time , it was known as the “blitz spirit”
There is one major difference that you failed to highlight.We saw some tidy rubble , but no rebuilding,other than the tented village.That is the tragedy of Haiti.It is not in big businesses interest to spend billions , for there will be no return on the investment
Puts things into perspective. Economic gloom does not hold a patch on what’s happening here – these people have nothing. The increasing rate of ecological disasters is not promising for future generations. Unfortunately that’s something money has very little control over.
Stop figthing…
God is a Master. No one has to judge anyone about what happend in this world. Now, it’s time for each of us to ask forgiveness.
Look arround the world. Open our eyes, and we will see much more then we taugth.
What happend today was happened before, and it will happend. Again and again. If you read Bible you will realize it’s unecessary to be a rebel.
e.g ( Amos, Ezekiel, Daniel 2 Esdra etc…)
NO HUMAN MIND CAN UNDERSTAND GOD’S WAYS.
NO HUMAN MIND CAN UNDERSTAND GOD’S WAYS.—They sure cant !!- Difficult to know waht a being that does not exist wants .
Yes – dont rebel – do as you are told .
So the rains have rained and the winds have not blown and the likely track of the storm is predicted to be all out at sea. That’s good.
The progression of the waters was well depicted by the camera men who captured all the gubbins in the swollen rivers.The statement made was living tragic art.
Shoulds and woulds are isolated artefacts amongst the scenes of anger and despair.The viewer can see a more desirable site to put up tents out of Port au Prince,for surely the voodo in which many of the Haitians believe, is ever present. The spirits of the dead ,must be awake in the minds of those who have lost loved ones.
I expect that the desire to huddle amongst fellow human beings and accept ones fate, feeling the nearness of those who know and understand pulls more strongly for some than escape and survival.
I once saw an experiment, broadcasted on the box where two mice were separated, were anxious , heart rates , respirations and blood pressures were elevated and when they were put back together in the same box, they breathed at the same rate,heart rates and blood pressures were synchronised and sleep became easy when the anxiety of separation was reduced.
The predicted devastation from the hurricane, exagerated by Jon and channel 4 , thankfully was not forthcoming and had to be downplayed that the rivers in full speight could bring the possible cholera.A non story in the mould of Dtr Who for its dramatics .I would have thought that a river albeit swollen , but flowing would have the opposite effect of rushing the problem out to sea.
Although certain bloggers have been asking for updates on Haiti , neither their imput nor the speed of the moderators , indicate there is any real wish for the blogson this subject
If it had been about the firefighters and their climbdown over strike action , The government and their climdown over more payment to Europe , or the naval tie up with the French , i am sure there would have been more interest.
What are we to expect of an organisation that is incapable of returning our thumbs.WELL:VERY LITTLE!!!!!!
Don’t know how P Dicks can be so heartless … and ignorant. This country has been hacked to shreds by successive US administrations propping up evil dictators for thewir own mischieveous ends.
Thank you Jon for your insightful images painted more eloquently than acres of video.
Jon,Please can we have more informative reporting. Haiti,like several other flashpoints in the world is a case study of a country caught in an ecological and economic downward spiral, from which it has not been able to escape. Like Afghanistan, Somalia and the Yemen, it is a failed state, a country with a rapidly expanding population, sustained by international life-support systems of food aid and economic assistance.
Desperately poor, this small island country of 9.5 million people has one of the lowest consumption footprints in the world. Yet it has already wrecked much of its ecological assets and relies on emigration to USA, Canada and the neighbouring Dominican Republic as a safety valve on population pressures.
Once largely covered with forests, high population growth and subsistence farming has stripped the landscape,leaving forests standing on scarcely 4 percent of its land. First the trees go then the soil. The population is projected to leap,according to the US Population Reference Bureau,to over 15 million by 2050, because of cultural legacies and poor access to contraception, due to opposition from the dominant Catholic Church. Aid agencies ignore all this.
If the people of Haiti used their brains – and anything else necessary – and were not so indoctrintaed with religion – especially that s##t that come from the vatican – they might stand a better chance .
Dear Mr Snow
I refer to your report on Haiti this evening where you included mention of one Mr. Denis O’Brien and his current enterprising work on behalf of that island people. It is essential that as a respected reporter that the background and context of your report be properly provided in that the same wealth that ensures Mr. O’Brien has arisen on the back of a very dubiously obtained public sector telecoms contract and which is currently under investigation by the Irish Government in a statutory tribunal of inquiry. To those looking at this reportage on this island (ie. Ireland) it is mesleading at the very least to portray Mr. O’Brien as some sort of christian saviour. You might for the sake of balance at least take this on board for the future. Best regards Ed