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http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/haiti/story/942795.html?asset_id=941326&asset_type=gallery
For instance, I cannot believe this picture of the US President standing by our Haitian mega star Whycleff Jean while watching this Haitian woman, this compatriot "charging" a perhaps 25Kg sac over her head as food aid given to her by the international community. While I applaud this generosity wholeheartedly in this dire time of need,and while in contrast The New York Times rightly calls for the Haitian Diasporas to be less aloof and to do more in getting their own country unstuck in this social and economic quagmire, I cannot believe that the universal rule of lifting and carrying weight safely does not apply to this compatriot just because this time around she is too poor and too 'starving" for such a nicety. The pretext would be, she has a bigger problem than that, a survival problem. The issue is, if we are helping out, let us truly help all the way and not standing idle while someone, in order to find some food, must break her back in front of our helpers as the price to pay. It would be wrong for anyone to carry such heavyweight in any advanced country as basic safety dictates, such is the case among the OSHA laws of the United States. Anybody who is close to our national hero Whycleff Jean, please tell him also. He will be glad you did, while we are all grateful for what he is attempting and that he deserves a big national thanks. My contention is the following: Help us advance also. What's good and universal for all in advanced countries should be universally applied to all mankind.
Again, we as a new generation of Haitians are not opposed to all cooperation but to dumbed cooperation that makes little dent in helping us out where we are, in one generation. We want our helpers to make their money count and make their precious time count in helping us truly and not in inadvertently enlarging the ranks of those among our own Haitian nationals who are truly acting as "sous-developeurs" in getting us deeper and deeper in our quagmire for the sake of expediency and realism, meaning what has always existed. All Haitians are not created equals. Some are truly decliners leading advancers for far too long, whether they know it or not. We are trying to flip that: advancers leading decliners. We hope the world's mighty and famous understand that and pick the right camp to reinforce when they seek to stand with the Haitian people.
Second thing we wish our good friend of the Haitian people, former US President Bill Clinton, have avoided is the issue of "beatly" calling for just more investment in Haiti, just like that. Here is part of President Clinton's statements as it relates to that:
''I have followed Haiti for more than three decades. This is the first time I have really believed that the country has the chance to slip the bounds of poverty, and escape the heritage of oppressive government and misgovernment and abuse of people that have held people down too long,'' Clinton said Tuesday, wrapping up a visit to the Caribbean nation. ``The message I want to send to the rest of the world is what the man in the factory, the factory owner told me today: These people work hard and they work smart...tell the world Haiti is a good place to invest.''
Now, it all sounds good and we all want investments to flow in Haiti and flow abundantly. But here it ends the similarities. What frustrates advancers, the Haitian masses and the great majority of the Haitian people all classes included is what sorts of investments? Investments for what country, the one we want or the one we have? Investments in what amount, or still under-capitalized? Investments for whom, that pay what wages? Investment to do what, as part of what 30 year timespan real, quantum, economic development plan for mass advancement and rising household incomes? Until these questions are settled, the call for investments will always sound suspicious that ultimately it will simply be just transfer of wealth from the helpers to a tiny minority, to plutocrats that walk and work among us. While meanwhile such investments do little to help us as a people to get across, out of the cascading waters we've found ourselves in. While such investments do little for mass wealth creation, mass wealth accumulation, mass wealth distribution geared towards the lifting up of one another and the real possibilities that with the right array of "developing" investments some of us can truly hope to graduate, in a life-altering move in one generation, from one class to another. It can be done, if each such investments is made to be a real piece in the puzzle we are assembling over a definite time horizon, 30 years.
I know such a politics of new possibilities that we as advancers are leading would appeal to this great friend of The Haitian People, Bill Clinton, and to countless of others in the USA and around the world. So, I urge all to really pick their spot and their camp when they rush to our rescue. It must be at last, to shore up advancers leading decliners, for there is such a camp constituting and made up of Haitians of all walks of life. That is the only thing that is going to pay off, for their precious dollars and time and emotional investments into my country, for my people.
JUSTIMA, Emmanuel
emmanuel_fondationjustima@voila.fr
justima@live.com
HAITI.2@live.com
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