Haiti: Beware of Those Who Profit From Chaos

Quite frankly, chaos can work to the advantage of some more than others. I'm not speaking of petty looters and hungry quake survivors, but multi-national corporations and international human traffickers. 

Naomi Klein's theory, called the Shock Doctrine, would be well applied to Haiti's circumstance. Finding its ultimate incarnation in Bush and Cheney's Iraq War, this theory is about disaster capitalism - exploit disaster and  profit from suffering. The 2004 Tsunami enriched many who appropriated aid money and landed lucrative building contracts along the devastated coastline of Bangladesh.


Haiti will very likely be a target for First World economic colonisation. It may receive billions in aid that will be paid to First World firms to reconstruct the nation. Then, utilities will be privatised and sold to western companies - and the spoils will be divided. In the meantime, the people will continue to suffer while rich foreigners move in for the cushy jobs created by the global companies. 

Even now, hundreds of Haitian orphans are at risk of being sold to the highest bidder. No doubt, a better home with loving parents is exactly what Haiti's orphans need - but not through a black market trade in human bodies. And God knows who can exploit these children should they find themselves in the wrong hands.

Without being too paranoid I only raise the issue because it has happened before, and in the very recent past.

Haiti: Born to Bleed?

They'll come right through it. We've had dental clinics and we run out of Novocain. A Haitian will sit in a chair and you can pull as many teeth as you want. A Haitian can take pain because he's used to pain. That's their life.

Bobby Burnette, Love of Child Orphange Founder, Haiti

This is a statement from an advocate of Haitian welfare. Florida native, Bobby Burnette and his wife,  care for some 67 Haitian orphans in a well equipped picturesque rural area near the Dom Rep border, called Fond Paresien. It is an odd and frightening sentiment that may betray an unconscious mindset typical of the First World denizen. It is reminiscent of Barbra Bush’s musing that the Katrina dead are likely better off for the depravity and poverty in which they lived.

The terrifying implication is what this mindset allows and inspires in its possessor. How do the aforementioned orphan directors treat their wards given their attitude that Haitians are not just used to pain, but it is their lot in life? There seems to be no intent to change that lot, indeed it hasn't occurred to the Burnettes that people who suffer (even in preventable circumstances like anesthetic-free dentistry), should and do not have to live thus. It hasn’t even occurred to Bobby Burnette that people do what they must when they have no other choice or options available. Either live with the prolonged pain of a cavity, or the relatively short agony of extraction. Perhaps some are unaware that anesthetic is even an option.

The further implication is that as members of the so-called ‘Third World’ (perhaps poor and non-white too, as in the case of the American Katrina victims), this is what is expected of them and what, in essence, they deserve. This mindset may be perpetuated in part by how the media, through news coverage and entertainment, portrays the developing world and non-whites in general. The coverage of the earthquake's aftermath has included dead bodies and dying victims. One report showed a small child heaving her last breaths. One could argue that this stark reality will spur sympathy and urge action. But consider how similar tragedies – man-made or otherwise - are treated when they involve either First World or white victims.

How many dead were broadcast in the Finnish shootings, the Columbine massacre, the McVeigh bombing, the Iraq War and even the 9/11 tragedy? I can’t recall any, save the portraits of Saddam and his sons corpses paraded in the international media. I do not want to see the dead bodies of US soldiers or white people, but that is also true of the Haitians. The treatment of Third World tragedy seems so different to that of the First World. Mind you, dead black bodies were seen in the media post-Katrina, but no tearful montages showing the dignity of the victims thereof as is customary otherwise.

The post-Katrina report that came closest to dignity was one covered by Andersen Cooper. He interviewed a white woman who lost her house and all her possessions in the deluge. Cooper himself was brought to tears watching the sobbing woman scrounge for the remnants of her material memories. But he had no tears for the actual dead people. Somehow this white woman’s tragedy was worthy of more sympathy than anyone else’s. Wolf Blitzer contributed by observing how the victims were ‘so poor, and so black’ during the Situation Room’s coverage. That suggests a real sense of pity for the poor, disadvantaged and non-white – but no respect. There seems to be an association between colour, status and suffering – poor, non-whites are expected to suffer – they have for centuries, surely they, like the Haitians, are used to it by now.

Many have pointed out that the suffering of Haiti began long before this Quake, that it stretches back to the enslaved and self-emancipated Africans who founded the Nation, and the French masters who extorted the fledging country into almost irredeemable environmental and economic debt. Some claim that the abuse of the Haitians by the US and France continues to this day, more recently manifested in the illegal and audacious kidnapping of Jean Betrand-Aristide and his wife by the US military, and the high rotation of Haiti’s premiers. This makes Jonah Golberg's declaration that Haiti needs 'tough love' a little unreasonable. He argues that Japan and Switzerland, like Haiti, have few natural resources yet excel economically and socially. He goes on to say, 'Once the dead are buried, the wounded and sick healed and the rubble cleared, it's time for some tough love. Otherwise, Americans will just be back to clear the debris after the next disaster.' But he neglects to mention the part America has played in the perpetuation of Haiti's political, and by extension, social instability.

With terminology like ‘black on black violence’ and the Associated Press observing blacks ‘looting’ and whites ‘finding food’ after Katrina, one wonders about the cumulative effect of this kind of media coverage. Put that together with type-cast non-whites (Asians as terrorists and blacks as…blacks, for example) and we get a world in desparate need of change. It is easier, however, to change the channel than it is to change the world.

Reporting the News & Respecting Haiti's Dead

I was watching Sky News with Live Jeremy Thompson and the main story was, of course, the aftermath of the earthquake that took place 10 miles west of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince on Tuesday. Not long into the broadcast images of the destruction were shown; the fallen buildings, the wounded and distressed plus 3 dead bodies.

There was no warning regarding the gruesome nature of the content of the report, and it came as a shock that such graphic imagery would be shown at 5pm. I don't know the official track record of reportage regarding such material with Sky News or the Western media in general, but it made me think about how choices of what is shown and when are made.

This might sound picky, but I feel that the broadcast of the dead, in this case, robs them of a certain dignity a dignity that, it seems UK and American soldiers  have - having never seen a dead body of any broadcast on TV. Don't get me wrong - I don't think these soldiers bodies should be broadcast out of respect for family and the dead themselves. But rarely, if at all, does one see the dead bodies of first worlders displayed in the international media for all to see. I can't recall seeing one dead body after the 9/11 catastrophe. I didn't want to see any - but that is also true for this disaster in Haiti. So what's the difference?

Does it have something to do with the nature of the event? Are the dead from natural disasters fine for broadcast, but those killed in violent conflict off limits? Apparently only black folks died in the Katrina disaster in New Orleans, also an acceptable image for the media as is the dead in Iraq and across Africa.

One could argue that there are simply more disasters in the developing world and so the appearance of more dead from the respective locales is only a matter of statistics. But I believe it has something to do with race and class. To be poor is to be overlooked - to be black is to be inferior. To be poor and black is to be pitied - but not respected. There seems to be a sense (and I sometimes see it in myself) that the poor of the 'third world' aren't 'like the rest of us'. They are more like animals - used to living in squalor and therefore not sensitive to pain and distress the way 'us civilised'  folks are. So, they can be treated differently from the more civilised and materially privileged.

If this incident took place in say Chicago, Paris, Oslo or London would it be dealt with in the same way? Likely there would be montages with touching music with crying and distressed humanity - dignified in the struggle to survive (not unlike the white flood victims who 'found' food during the aftermath of Katrina).

These musings may have no basis - but I do believe that with repetition and consistency, the subtleties in how stories and the subject matter thereof are treated have a deep impact on our perception of the world. We get used to certain groups being filthy, starving and fly ridden and other groups being clean, prosperous and dignified and become inured to the suffering of some and sensitive to the suffering of others. The suffering of Haiti began a long time ago, and this earthquake has highlighted the extent of the long existing poverty and only exacerbated the pain. In some indirect way, what we portray in the media, and how it is portrayed, helps to determine what we expect, and ultimately accept in the world.

An Open Letter to the Future: Come Early!

If there's one thing consumers hate it's being teased with what they could have but probably never will. Hence those sexy, efficient and alluring concept cars that look like the future we imagined but, 'have no plans for production' are a complete waste of time and frustrate consumers to no end.

This is why the ongoing CES is overshadowed by the promise of the Apple iSlate/Tablet. Consumers are pinning their hopes on the brand that has delivered the future before in the form of the iPod and the iPhone. Apple's attraction is that it doesn't tease consumers with the future, it puts it in their hands.  The iPhone feels, looks and operates like a phone in the future we anticipated when we dreamt of the '21st Century'. But not many other brands or companies seem to have the ingenuity or the will to turn our longings into reality, and those that may manufacture advanced products only do so for the wealthy elite - Apple has managed to place that, 'feeling of the future' in the hands of the Average Joe. Thanks Steve.

But this is not an Apple ad. The frustration consumers feel is deepened by the sense that companies, in particular car companies, have the technology and imagination to produce items of the future right now, but simply choose not to. Take the famous now non-existent GM EV-1. People wanted it, but it was taken away with no explanation (check out the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? for more on that).

So what's the hold-up? Why can't we see more sleek, intelligent and innovative designs in...everything? Whether clothes, transport, kitchen appliances, energy production or communications devices? One can't help but feel some contempt for an age where the  designers of the Eurostar couldn't seem to anticipate one of the World's oldest events: winter. Which, ironically, happens at least once a year (except during the Ice Age when it happened every day), and so really they should have thought about that 'snow' thing.

E-readers are all the rage right now, courtesy of the CES but I have little faith in them. I believe they will be a short-lived fad because people want fewer gadgets that do more rather than a proliferation of gadgets with one or two functions.  A dedicated e-reader is of no use to me and will take up more space in my computer bag that already has my phone, iPod, note pad, Macbook etc. If I get an e-reader, it has to replace something else in my bag apart from the latest novel or work of non-fiction...and we're back to the iSlate.

This again is why we place our hopes in Apple. The iPhone has become many , many things apart from just a phone, thanks to the many apps available, and the hope is that the iSlate will be a similar future-object. The excitement surrounding the iSlate is more than just committed Mac users generating hype, it's the deep longing of a generation for the future they've always wanted (seen mostly in works of fiction) and realized only in false starts and sips too small to quench. Indeed, it is about anticipating being completely surprised by a design and approach we would never have imagined, but that makes practical sense while tantalizing our sense of beauty.

We are waiting for the invention that will herald a change in how we design our world. Waiting for the mind that will take the leap and lead the charge. The company that will say, 'screw the progression of models let's give them the concept car right now!'.  So far Apple has come closest, but we will welcome all comers. Just don't keep us waiting it's getting a bit boring.

Technology.