
The end of Haiti?  - cwan
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/01/end_haiti_0
======
mahmud
I am from Somalia, and I have witnessed its decay right to its downfall,
including the three days during which the government dispersed and the central
bank threw out its stash of local currency in large garbage bins.

Haiti will not die. For one, the suffering has been universally afflicted on
all Haitians. This will strengthen their bond more than anything. Even if
warlords and gangs form their own fiefdoms throughout the country, the
humanitarian efforts, whenever they're ready a year or ten from now, can
always tap into that shared Haitian identity, forged through an equally-
endured hardship.

An earthquake has no one to blame. Probably as many Somalis died as in Haiti
(though not in one day) but we only have ourselves to blame, and each victim
left a blood debt on his killer, which "must" be avenged (or it has been
avenged, and now the victim's family are awaiting reprisals)

~~~
sailormoon
_An earthquake has no one to blame._

The event itself does not, it's true. But there certainly is someone to blame
for the shoddy construction standards and grievous lack of preparation. The
government is entirely accountable for these things.

~~~
abalashov
Easy to say if you're coming from the vantage point of someone living in a
rich country.

~~~
theycallmemorty
How many deaths have you heard about in the Dominican Republic?

Its not exactly Luxembourg over there but they survived.

~~~
Cald
The earthquake epicenter was in Haiti. It wasn't felt as strongly in the Dom.
Rep.

About 6 years ago, an earthquake centered in the northern part of the island
destroyed the nearby towns.

------
Alex3917
Did anyone else hear the NPR special on Haiti the day before the earthquake?
They were saying how even though the country was extremely poor, investors
were lining up to put in money to train workers and start companies, in part
because of Clinton. They were saying how this was probably Haiti's last
chance, and if anything else went wrong it would probably be the end of the
country. Then this.

~~~
furyg3
I can't find that anywhere on NPR's site. Got a link?

~~~
minder
The story of hope for Haiti prior to the earthquake was on PBS NewsHour:

[http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/social_issues/jan-
june10/hait...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/social_issues/jan-
june10/haiti_01-11.html)

------
1gor
The concluding remark about 'climate refugees' is out of place in this
otherwise very important discussion about failed states.

Climate change and its perceived influence on the mankind is a very
controversial subject, and today most of people's suffering from poverty and
misgovernment has nothing to do with it. Advancing your own pet theories using
a real-life tragedy as a prop is a bad taste.

~~~
sukuriant
Agreed, and I quarreled with that statement briefly. What I think the author
is trying to say is that soon, there will be climate refugees, and when that
happens, we'll need to know what to do with them, and we can use this event as
an example on how the world should handle it.

It wasn't necessary in the argument, and yes, he was pushing his theories, but
it may not have been so completely insulting as: "climate changed caused an
earthquake!"

~~~
borism
_Climate change and its perceived influence on the mankind is a very
controversial subject, and today most of people's suffering from poverty and
misgovernment has nothing to do with it._

The fact that a lot of people today suffer from poverty and misgovernment is
indeed not entirely due to climate change (although there is dutch
disease/resource curse: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse>)

However it is not hard to realize that those suffering right now will suffer
even more were climate change effects as severe as some scientist predict, is
it?

------
brettnak
He just had to bring up climate change at the end. Great way to get everyone
to miss the point of your post.

~~~
DaniFong
Isn't climate change (as a consequence of man-made deforestation) a large part
of the problems that face Haiti today?

<http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a002600/a002640/>

~~~
sailormoon
The deforestation depicted in those photos is not the result of climate
change, but of ill-advised logging activity.

~~~
pc
There's no need to be snide about it.

~~~
sailormoon
Sorry, that was not my intent. I'll edit.

------
patrickgzill
Does the Dominican Republic want Haiti? I don't think so considering how hard
they are on Haitians who try to go to the DR part of the island.

Will the USA take on Haiti and make it a second Puerto Rico? I don't think so;
for one, it would be expensive; two, all the Haitians would move to the USA as
soon as they could; and there are probably other reasons as well.

So my analysis shows that Haiti will remain a barely functioning country as it
was before and it will not "end". After all, Bangladesh has it bad every year
due to the extensive flooding and naturally occurring arsenic in the
groundwater; but they still exist.

~~~
datums
Puerto Rico was invaded by the United States. Haiti has great sadness in it's
history. A large portion of their population is > 19 yrs old. There's a well
known problem of child sex slaves in Haiti.

~~~
yardie
I think you mean <.

------
ars
Historically disasters (and wars) have the opposite effect.

In the short term it's terrible, but long term a disaster usually spurs
rebuilding and economic activity that results in a better situation than what
was there before.

~~~
borism
Pretty ridiculous statement in my opinion.

Life goes on, disaster or not.

There's supposedly always better situation in the future, it is pretty dubious
to claim that wars and cataclysms accelerate long term development.

~~~
timwiseman
_There's supposedly always better situation in the future, it is pretty
dubious to claim that wars and cataclysms accelerate long term development._

It depends on what you mean. Wars have historically accelerated technology
development, at least in the short term.

If you mean development more generally, then no probably not. The civilian
technology would eventually get developped, if more slowly without the major
push of a war. In the process, people and resources are destroyed.

~~~
chrischen
Perhaps it's like accelerating your car. You gain more speed faster at the
expense of efficiency.

~~~
timwiseman
I think that's a pretty good analogy.

------
gills
The end of conflating failed states, earthquakes, and AGW?

------
philwelch
As far as failed states go, this could push Haiti from Haiti level to maybe
even Somalia level. So I have to wonder what the repercussions of this could
be. Somalia is a "safe" distance away from most of the rich and powerful
countries--it's kind of a distant problem that Somalia has no government and
even the piracy is kept to a sustainable level. Haiti's a lot closer to home.
The US was pushed to action in Haiti in the 1990's, and chances are we'll have
to do so again.

~~~
kiba
The Somali have customary laws which allow them to operate and grow their
economy despite political chaos.

However, it would seem to me that that Haitians have no common law system or a
customary kind which would permit the growth of an informal economy.

~~~
mahmud
That's just offensive to Haitians and downright wrong. Somali traditions are
the #1 cause of our strife; tribalism. We don't have any "laws", neither
written nor verbal. It's all tribal handshakes and the whims of whoever is in
charge.

If you're referring to Islam, well, that hasn't saved us, or the Iraqis, or
Afghanis .. come to think of it, maybe they're better off without a prominent
political religious establishment there. Where there is a will for violence
and anarchy, the dominant or pre-existing "laws" only become pretexts, never
deterrents, or they become marginalized by "circumstances". You have never
seen evil until you have seen religion under the Marshall law of the
religious, curbed to the side temporarily, until the faithful reach a given
objective, promising to resume their piety later when it's more convenient. (a
bit meta here, but I am thinking more of Communism than Abrahimic faiths.)

Haiti is from the exact same Moor embryo that gave birth to the Dominican
Republic, Jamaica, Suriname, and the two Guyanas. Sure, they might not become
a world-class economy any time soon, but nationhood is within their collective
conscious. Never underestimate the will of a regional minority to rise up:
francophone Haitians are in the middle of Spanish and English Caribbean. Give
them sometime, they will be back up better and stronger.

~~~
kiba
I have no interests in "nationhood" and "collective consciousness", or
"political will".

I am an individualist anarchist, and is naturally drawn to non-statist
paradigm of organization and especially evidence for or against possible non-
statist systems.

In any case, your opinion is highly valuable. I now have more information
regarding what Somalian think of the situation and society in Somalia, which
is often mentioned as a case of real world anarchy.

If there is no law system, then there's no anarchy, and thus only chaos. I
found that hard to believe when I hear reports of rising standard of living in
Somalia, as well capital investment, among other things.

I was only expressing my belief that there seem to be no alternative system of
organization in Haiti would be comparable to Somalia's, thus no hope.

EDIT: this is not to say that there are no civil strides. It would seem to me
that foreign interferences from other countries destroy possibilities of peace
in the region.

------
roundsquare
Potentially relevant TED talk:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_collier_s_new_rules_for_rebuil...](http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_collier_s_new_rules_for_rebuilding_a_broken_nation.html)

------
gphil
Given the fact that even before the quake, Haiti was a hotbed of gang
activity, and now that many more of its criminals have escaped from prison, I
can't help but worry that all of this aid money being handed over is going to
ultimately fall into the wrong hands.

------
sharms
What I haven't seen explained is what exactly needs to be rebuilt? If someone
has nothing, and there is an earthquake, exactly how does billions of dollars
restore nothing?

Or because of this earthquake the world should build their infrastructure for
free?

~~~
tptacek
Hospitals, prisons, drinking water distribution, sewage, housing, electricity,
police stations, firefighting capability. Is this a trick question?

Haiti didn't have _nothing_ ; it had a very crappy version of most things.

Charge Haiti whatever you'd like to build a basic survivable level of
civilization. They'll never pay, but that doesn't matter. The alternative is
Somalia in the Carribean.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I think it is a reasonable question. There are plenty of places without
drinking water and sewage infrastructure of any real note. Why then does this
earthquake mean that we should fix Haiti's water/sewage. Why not fix Somalia's
instead?

Given the comments about Haiti's resources it seems it should be quite rich
monetarily, certainly enough to pay for the rapid construction of Hospitals
and the like. Yes, we'd want to help with skilled workers if sufficient don't
exist locally for the timescales sought.

I don't think (hope) that the parent is saying we shouldn't help Haiti, just
asking why only help them or help them in preference to others that are
suffering as much.

~~~
philwelch
The quick answer to "why not fix Somalia" is "we tried, and they ended up
shooting at us, so we left".

Oddly enough, we tried fixing Haiti a few times, too. It's not very
successful, but they don't seem to shoot at us quite so much.

~~~
tptacek
Haiti is not yet Somalia. By the '90s, purely humanitarian intervention in
Somalia was untenable.

------
jleyank
Perhaps it's (finally) time to see the OPEC and other resource-rich countries
step up and rebuild Haiti?

~~~
maxklein
Why OPEC countries? These are oil producing countries, but very few of them
belong to the rich countries in the world. I think that perhaps the richest
countries in the world should help rebuild the devastation of one of the
poorest countries in the world.

~~~
jfornear
I think he meant OECD countries.

~~~
sailormoon
_OPEC and other resource-rich countries_

I think he meant what he typed. There's plenty of OECD countries without
significant natural resources.

------
tennisman120
This earthquake can be noting but good for Haiti. People saw and heard there
were problems and poverty here, but did nothing. Now due to the earthquake,
people see and and millions of dollars are pouring and and will continue too.
It is going to spur growth and economic activity. like ars said, bad
initially, but great in the long run.

~~~
adharmad
Broken window fallacy

~~~
timwiseman
This does not apply in this case because it is bringing in resources from
outside of the country. The broken window fallacy only applies in a relatively
closed system.

Of course, even if this DOES improve the economy (and I am not saying it will,
just that it does not violate the broken window fallacy if it does) this was a
horrible tragedy with an enormous deathtoll.

~~~
adharmad
Agreed..it does not seem to be broken window fallacy....sloppy on my part.

~~~
WalkingDead
I don't even understand the broken window fallacy. The broken window repair
does seem to increase GDP, as long as G means Gross (Gross Domestic Product).

Of course the net gain is zero, but that's not what GDP mean, I think.

------
LostInTheWoods
Some countries should be disbanded. Their citizens should be given a passport
to the country of their choice along with a 1-way ticket and a small stipend.

~~~
borism
All countries should be disbanded.

Thank you very much for your exceptionalism.

