Haiti (Catch all)

[marct]

Hi Tom,

Careful there, Marc, you're getting perilously close to uttering the dreaded "I" word. ("Look, let me go back in there and face the peril." "No, Marc, it's much too perilous." "I can handle it. Really.")

The "I" word is, of course, imperialism. Pity really, that we're simply not morally equipped to do any of that, anymore. It was hardly such an unmixed bag of evil as it's generally portrayed as. Indeed, most of the formerly British colonies, possessions, and proctetorates, are doing comparatively well.

Personally, I've never had as much of a problem with imperialism, at least in the open, British, sense, as I have had with other forms of it including, but not limited to, the neo-feudalist version currently in practice by many bureaucracies. Then again, I'm a descendant of United Empire Loyalists and (by blood and schooling) a member of the Family Compact, so I'm obviously biased .

I liked that ad, but couldn't help but notice how interestingly flexible phrases like "help support" and "help pay for" are. At least insofar as they mean, as they often do, that "5% of your money goes to support one person, who needs 792 of you people to live fairly well. The rest is split, 55% to bribes, 21% to our Chairman's little dacha in Darien, CT, 9% to our legal defense fund, 4% to our accounting firm and their tax attorneys, and the rest for advertising..."

Yup, they are "flexible". What truly bothers me is looking at how close that is, both yours and mine, to the reality in some of the more unethical groups.

Yes, there are some vast differences in overhead among charities. I'm not sanguine that the end result, however, varies much on the ground, generally. Exceptions? Yes, probably a few, for a while, and then the jungle returns. My church, for example, supports a school in Haiti, the nuns who teach there, and the two women who cook for the kids (as someone must because their families can't or won't but in any case don't). And if they're successful over the next 20 years what will it mean beyond that 640 (of about 820 anticipated 'graduates' over that time) somewhat literate Haitians will escape for greener pastures?

I've been involved with several projects supporting schools in the Dominican Republic and, while the overall picture is much better there, some of the same problems are still apparent, e.g. the brain drain. What is fascinating, however, is that, as Rex noted, if the society can be stabilized at a fairly basic level, then remittances can work as a driver. I doubt that more than 15% of the students in the school projects I've worked with will leave the DR for more than a couple of years.

You realize, I trust, that reports from your students are somewhat anecdotal, evidence-wise.

Yup. Then again, surveys and statistical analyses are just reified and projected anecdotal data . More seriously, so much depends on what indicators you look at, how you collect the data, how variables are defined both by the surveyors and the population being surveyed, etc. All too often, the people who write these surveys use a supposed universal indicator which actually isn't universal, it's a cultural projection (the rather vicious fights amongst the various international feminists are a great example of this).