Skip to main content

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

Rebuilding a Just Haiti


     Photo: Laura Wagner                                                                                                                  

Haiti is known around the world as a troubling, godforsaken place where troubling, godforsaken things happen.  Its poverty and state-sponsored violence are well-known, while the international policies which have contributed to them are not.  The January 12 earthquake is just the latest disaster to befall this country.
 
Throughout the constancy of oppression and suffering runs another constant. That is a highly organized grassroots movement which has never given up the battle its enslaved ancestors began more than 200 years ago, when they created the only successful slave revolution ever and the first independent Black republic in the world. The movement is composed of organized women, peasants, clergy and laity, workers, and others. Their mobilization, protests, and advocacy have brought down dictators, staved off some of the worst economic policies, and kept themselves from going quietly into the night as a defeated people.
 
They may not yet have ever gained the rights and economic justice they deserve, but neither have they given up. Yolette Etienne, director of Oxfam Haiti, said years ago: “Bamboo symbolizes Haitian people to a T. Bamboo takes whatever adversity comes along, but afterwards it straightens itself back up.”
 
Already, after one of the worst natural disasters in world history, they are straightening themselves back up.  Here are the priorities that nineteen people’s organizations articulated in a joint statement on January 27, quoted directly:

  • To contribute to defending the main gains made by the popular and social movements of Haiti now threatened by the new situation;
     
  • To respond to the urgent immediate needs of the people, by setting up community service centers to respond to the following needs: food, primary health care, medical and psychological assistance;
     
  • To take advantage of the presence of the international press in our country to present a different image to that disseminated by the imperialist forces; and
     
  • To establish new ways of overcoming the isolation and separation which are among the central weaknesses of our organizations.

Other Worlds is working to document the ways that communities and social movements, together with their allies around the world, are working to build just economic, enviornmental, and political alternatives out of the ruins of the earthquake. At the same time, we aim to contribute to the goals of the Haitian movement for a just reconstruction, toward a just future, through both solidarity work and fundraising.  We will support the social movement’s ability to participate fully in the process, towards policies and programs from which they will benefit.