By Ardain Isma
CSMS Magazine
News Analysis
As Haiti marks its 4th anniversary of the historically devastating earthquake that killed an estimated half of a million people, its children around the world are once again being reminded how vulnerable their country is. Today is a grim reminder of how urgent it is to install democratic governance and the rule of law on the western third of the island of Hispaniola. Four years ego, one remembers too well the horror pictures of the dead and the dying and the miraculous survivors intermingling in a surreal atmosphere as countless of other victims lay trapped beneath the rubble.
The Préval government at that time forfeited its rights to lead and shamelessly transferred its legitimacy to the UN Proconsul—former US president Bill Clinton—and his cronies, who have seized on this latest calamity to fulfill their opportunistic, petty bourgeois aspirations. It was and still is a travesty, as the now so-called legitimate leaders—totally beholden to the UN and, in a more explicit way, to Washington, Paris and Ottawa—roam the world while using their country’s misery to attract financial donations in order to divert them to fill their own personal lots.
As Haiti lay in ruin like a toxic dirge under the blazing eyes of horror-struck citizens around the world, the enemies of Haiti went on to recruit stooges, slavishly submissive to their dictates, choosing Sweet Micky over Myrlande Manigat, and the rest is …….
Today, they’re trying to fabricate cosmetic changes through the rebuilding of government ministries, the signing of sleazy and fuzzy contracts to build some soi-disant “luxury” hotels, out of reach and out of touch with average Haitians. Meanwhile, they’re fastly pushing back the clock, crowning Jean-Claude Duvalier and Duvalierism in an attempt to roll back 30 years of democratic gains. The most vexing of all is the red carpet rolling for Baby Doc and Prosper Avril—the two most infamous figures of Creole fascism—in Gonaives on New Year ’s Day, Haiti’s Independence Day. What a blow, once more, to Jean-Jacques Dessalines Le Grand!
No one can claim to be a democrat while sentimentally involved with those who have dealt the biggest blow to Haiti, its history and its people—those who have killed Jacques Stephen Alexis, Jean-Jacques Dessalines Ambroise, Gérald Brisson, Charlot Jacquelin……sending millions of Haitians to shark-infested waters as they fled a country they loved so much.
For 29 years, they politically hijacked a country and reduced it to misery at its rawest form. Now Sweet Micky and his band are rehabilitating them under the covert name of reconciliation. Anyway, what did anyone except? It is Sweet Micky after all.
Today, as we mark this gruesome memory, the future of Haiti has never looked so bleak, like a windswept, barren and desolated landscape. In CSMS Magazine, we believe there can only be one way to break the impasse: the extirpation of this current state bureaucracy and the emergence of a brand new one where honesty in public affairs will be the norm rather than a daily shocking reality and where genuine patriotism will be the driving force behind decision-making on behalf of millions of Haitians whose lives have never been so hellish. It is the only way, we believe, we can rewrite the ugly narrative that marks our motherland’s current history for nearly 60 years. Entre-temps, let us pray for the souls of the ones who perished during the earthquake, for now they can only live in our hearts and in our memories.
Dr. Ardain Isma is essayist and novelist. He teaches Cross-Cultural Studies at UNF (University of North Florida. He wrote this piece to appease the thirst of many of his readers thirsty for a new novel. He can be reached at publisher@csmsmagazine.org
