so, monday (then again wednesday) in world civilizations class, we were discussing the haitian constitution (from 1801, after the slaves took control). then, monday night in comparative politics class, i had opportunity to mention jared diamond (particularly, his use of haiti in his book collapse) after our teacher suggested haiti and the united states couldn't be compared. then, tuesday, as we all should probably have heard by now, haiti had a 7.0 earthquake, flattening buildings and killing, well, a whole lot of people. so, since i am supposed to be writing a blog entry (for the aforementioned comparative politics class) anyway, i figured i would go with the flow of synchronicity and write a little bit about haiti. reader's note: this first paragraph won't be in this blog entry as it appears on the class site, though it will everywhere else... which, though i've been neglecting my blogs for a while, would be at myspace, at livejournal (that one later posting automatically to facebook), and at my website, lemmingdrops.com. now, on to haiti and some attempt at comparative politics. again, this paragraph won't be in the class version, so forgive any phrasing that seems redundant with it present... like the opening sentence of the next paragraph.

i'd like to talk about haiti. the earthquake this week has taken one of (if not THE) poorest countries in  the western hemisphere and dragged it even farther down the scale, flattening buildings, including apparently the 5-story hotel where the UN offices there are located, a prison, houses, businesses, even some buildings at the airport in port-au-prince, the capital. just today, president obama said the US would be sending $100 million twoard the relief effort, not to mention thousands of soldiers. the more cynical side of me wonders what's the point? did any of us in america care about haiti just a few days ago?

a little history:

christopher columbus landed at haiti in 1492, and thereafter came much exploitation by the spanish for gold. not, of course, before the spanish executed a local "queen" when she stood up to them. that queen, anacaona, is revered still by the haitian people.

hisapniola (the island which is now haiti and the dominican republic) was a notable location for pirates and slavetraders, and there was dispute over the island between the french and spanish was settled in 1697--that's when haiti became its own territory, then called saint domingue. it was, like many other parts of the new world, an agricultural land, worked by slaves. inspired by the american and the french revolutions, the haitians slaves rose up in 1792. it took a while, and some fighting, but by 1804, haiti achieved independence. according to jared diamond (collapse 335), at that time haiti "was still the richer, stronger, and more populous  part of the island," something that would change drastically over time.

the haitian constitution owes some of its basic language to the american declaration of independence. it speaks of all me being born "free" and being "eligible for employment." it even goes further than our declaration (or our constitution)--and expectedly so, given it was being founded by former slaves--outlawing slavery. but, then it also specifically calls for roman catholicism to be the "only publicly professed faith," puts a specific value on marriage and the family and specifically dictates how cultivation, "the colony being essentially agricultural," would work: essentially a communal system (like the russian mir at the same time, but run by families), the consititution demanded cultivation, demanded farming, and outlawed imports of "good similar in nature" to its exports, an economic protectionist move. haiti had seized its independence and was dictating a clear role for its people and its self in the world.

they even annexed the eastern side of the island for a time, twice. as diamond points out, by the 1850s, haiti "controlled less area than its neighbor but had a larger population." haiti's stance against outsiders--the aforementioned ban on most imports as well as further policies forbidding foreigners from owning land or controlling means of production--plus their mixed heritage and language (while the dominican republic was seen as spanish-speaking, european) kept it mostly out of the world market. while much of the world was industrializing, particularly the united states not too far away, haiti remained relatively poor. 

1915 to 1934, the US occupied haiti (and the dominican republic 1916-24) militarily, ostensibly to prevent unrest and protect our interests in panama farther south. whatever strife or instability had been in haiti before, was amplified after the US left. under dictator rafael trujillo (evil maybe, but efficient like many a dictator), the domincian republic modernized quite a bit over the following decades. haiti remained poor, unstable, until it had its own dictator, papa doc duvalier. unlike trujillo, though, duvalier lacked "interest in modernizing his country or developing an industrial economy" (collapse 338). he died in 1971, his son ruled until he was forced out in 1986. haiti returned to instability.

diamond asks why these two countries, sharing the same island, unfolded so differently. he cites environmental differences; notably, rain comes mostly from the east, so the eastern side of the island supports more plant growth, the dominican side has higher mountains with rivers that flow down into the eastern side as well--he even calls th cibao valley in the dominican side of the island "one of the richest agricultural areas in the world" (collapse 339). the paradox is that the haitian side developed an agricultural economy first. and, it was valuable to the richer french empire (at the time, ie the 1500s), which encouraged the slave-based plantations, while the poorer spanish empire neglected to do so with the dominican side of the island.

what is has come down to more recently is deforestation and poverty on the haitian side, a coup d'etat in 1991, a purportedly corrupt election in 2000, and another coup in 2004. since 2004, there's been a united nations stabilization mission in haiti, made up of nearly 10,000 personnel, but as of 2007, according to a red cross report, this mission has failed to gain control over armed gangs throughout the country. and, now, this week, the country was ravaged by a 7.0 earthquake. and, nations around the world are throwing money and supplies at the problem. but, while lives might be helped, the country will remain what it is, unstable, economically weak, and lacking in the natural resources it once had and used well.

one has to wonder if protectionism, like the haitian constitution's limit on imports, or reliance on constitutionally-dictated agriculture as the rest of the world was drifting toward industrialization--even at the start of the 19th century--crippled haiti so much that it never had a chance without a serious overhaul. after all, the american south's reliance on slave labor crated such economic (and subsequently, political) disparity between the north and south that it led us to civil war. haiti began the 19th century prosperous and independent (as did the american south), but lacked true connection (see the ban on imports) with the world's economy, even its French parent, and did not evolve economically as it, arguably, needed to evolve in order to survive. instead, it has limped along, remained poor, gone through many periods of instability, and now can do little to help itself when disaster strikes.