Humanitarianism in Haiti

           
            Last year in my French 101 class, my professor played a documentary about the awful earthquake that struck Haiti on January 10, 2010. This documentary delved into the complex issues that the aftermath of the earthquake had for the Haitian people. More specifically, the documentary described the problems that the Haitian government was facing when it came to reconstruction efforts in the country. Many countries all around the globe like the United States and organizations such as the United Nations tried to help the Haitians repair their decimated country through humanitarian aid. This included money donations, home and school reconstructions, food donations, and more. While I believe that humanitarian action is incredibly important when a disaster strikes a nation, I also think that the aid that was given to the Haitians has actually had unintended negative effects on the country’s recovery from the natural disaster.

            
             As more and more foreign organizations and countries tried to help the Haitian people, it only created more problems for the nation. One example is that groups of people that were predominantly white were building new housing developments and teaching in schools, however all of those jobs were going to the wealthy white volunteers and not to the people who actually needed those jobs- the Haitians. This was, and continues to be, problematic because if willing and able Haitian citizens couldn’t get jobs because the jobs were going to volunteers instead of them, money wasn’t circulating through the Haitian economy. This means that the economy had no chance of growing because people didn’t have an income that they could buy goods and services with. This ties in with the colonialism aspect or humanitarianism that we talked about in class. A common criticism of humanitarian acts are that it can be seen as colonialism. This could definitely be seen throughout Haiti’s earthquake relief. One example was how after the earthquake, there was a new presidential election in Haiti. However, the election was heavily tampered with, and Bill Clinton and other presidents from other nations were donating money and supporting candidates in Haiti that they wanted to win, instead of letting the Haitian people vote and decide who the best fit for their struggling nation was. Even though the US wasn’t overtly trying to control the Haitians, the money that we donated to the candidates that we wanted to win is an example of how we got involved in an election that we had really no place in. Our attempts to shape Haiti’s government might have come from a place of good intentions, but it really ended up hurting the Haitian people, and it heavily tampered with their new election which has caused a lot of political turmoil in Haiti till this day.

            
            I think humanitarian efforts are extremely important when a natural disaster or a domestic disaster strikes a nation that doesn’t know how to deal with the problems. However, I believe that the people of the nation have to have a say in the restoration of their country and be able to make choices about their politics and their economy by themselves.