Draft

Leave Haiti Alone!

Not everyone in the world or more specifically the United States have been to Haiti before yet a majority of people if not everyone have an idea of what they believe Haiti is like. Out of all the people who have never visited Haiti a majority of them share the belief that Haiti is dirt poor and practically hopeless. Why is that? Simple. It’s due to exaggerated media coverage of the country. The idea that Haiti is a dirt poor country has been held for so long by people who haven’t even been to the country yet that even when new reporters go to explore the nation and write about it they already believe in their mind that the nation is poor and they understand that this belief is a popular one already so they exaggerate it even more to make their articles newsworthy so it’s not the same old boring news about haiti that everyone already expects. Many people look at Haiti as a poor and dangerous country with no hope however Haiti is not as poor as people believe, the media just portrays Haiti this way.

A man by the name of Romesh Ranganathan pays a visit to Haiti and documents his experience in an article. When you read the whole article you see that Ranganathan has little to no positive things to say about Haiti. After saying nothing but negative comments about Haiti he adds a single sentence talking about some beauty he saw in Haiti, he says “  I spent some time in Jacmel on the southern coast, with its beautiful beaches and touristy hotels. It’s probably the first time I remembered that we were next door to the Dominican Republic, where everybody goes on holiday”(Ranganathan). This is the only positive thing he had to say about the country. He also said something else that really interested me. He said “All of this was strongly contributing to the opinion I was forming that Haiti was very much not for me”(Ranganathan) He was referring to his first negative experience in Haiti which had to do with a dog. Everytime he left the main hotel building and tried to go to his room he was chased by a dog. But he specifically says that it was “contributing to the opinion I was forming”( Ranganathan)This was his first negative experience that we know of so it leads me to believe that he was already forming this opinion prior to him even landing in Haiti and I believe it is safe to say that the media and the powerful hold they have over the minds of the people regarding Haiti may have had something to do with this. He went into Haiti already having the thought in mind that the country is not a place he should be visiting. After reading the article by Ranganathan, the Haitian Ambassador Bocchit Edmond  had a lot to say. He says “Had Mr Ranganathan done his research, he would have known that Haiti is one of the safest countries in the Caribbean. Our crime rate last year was significantly lower than those of the most popular tourist destinations in the region, and we rank higher on the Global Peace Index”(Edmond) In this quote he is specifically talking about the way Ranganathan portrayed Haiti as a dangerous place where crime is around every corner. He is really against this and provides evidence as to why this is false.

Ranganathan is not the only example of this. This happens throughout the media and in order to understand why the media does this we have to first look at the history of Haiti and why it’s so poor in the first place. Haiti has not always been the way it is right now. Haiti actually used to be considered the richest colony in the world. It was not until the nation was overly exploited and neglected by more powerful nations that Haiti’s glory began to diminish.  France had been exploiting Haiti ever since they acquired the land from the spanish and colonized it giving it the name Santo Domingo. Haiti was very rich in materials that were vital to the rest of the world and France took advantage. They brought African slaves and set up plantations for the slaves to work on so they could produce goods which were then traded for profit. The amount of goods being produced from Santo Domingo (Haiti) kept going up and so did the amount of slaves. At the peak of this all the number of slaves in Santo Domingo reached 500,000 with only about 32,000 whites and about 28,000 free blacks.

The U.S. becomes involved with Haiti through France during the American Revolution. The 13 colonies by themselves could not defeat the British empire so they looked to France for help and France obliged. France was able to support the colonies through the profits they made from exploiting Santo Domingo and the many slaves there. Haitians themselves fought with the Americans during the war. After the war the slaves in Santo Domingo eventually revolted after all the cruelty and suffering they had experienced while under the French. In 1804 the people of Haiti proclaimed their Independence from France and became a nation of their own. This did them no good because their independence was not acknowledged at all and they were not seen as a nation of their own and brought more problems which ultimately led to Haiti being the way it is now.

The U.S. chose to ignore Haiti’s declaration of independence because it became the first free republic in Latin America and the second throughout the entire western hemisphere behind the U.S.  the fact that this republic was established by blacks was unbelievable and induced fear in the U.S. They were scared that if word of this successful revolution by blacks got to their own slaves it could motivate them to have a revolution of their own and overthrow their masters and leaders. Due to this fear the U.S. was set on not acknowledging Haiti’s independence and France did the same. Both the U.S. and France continued to have enormous influence in the country which completely disregarded their declaration of independence. South carolina senator Robert V. Hayne in the 1820s said “Our policy with regard to Haiti is plain. We never can acknowledge her independence”(Dunkel). This was a form of oppression and it lasted for 2 centuries. The U.S. and France bullied Haiti and did not allow the Nation to grow by itself. They continued to influence haiti to the point that it seemed like a colony of theirs. They sucked Haiti dry and ruined any form of government they tried to develop and that really stunted Haiti’s growth and practically ruined the nation leaving it the way it is now. Now the media wants to heavily push the narrative that Haiti is a poor nation which became this way due to actions of their own. This then makes U.S. efforts in Haiti seem like humanitarian efforts. We are painted as Haiti’s heroes by our own media to hide our imperialistic acts.

In 1825 France made Haiti pay “indemnity” for property that was lost or destroyed because of the revolution in order for them to be acknowledged as a nation. France also remained as a neocolonial power in Haiti all up until 1915, when the U.S. invaded and occupied the country. The Haitians tried to fight this but were quickly defeated by the U.S. In the early 20th century. The United States although it doesn’t claim to be imperialistic, does act based on imperialist beliefs and the problems in Haiti and how The U.S ties into them shows a lot of evidence of that. The U.S. wants to uphold democracy in Haiti and in order for it to be seen as humanitarian instead of imperialism, Haiti has to seem poor enough that it needs intervention from other nations and that is why it’s important to the U.S. that Haiti is portrayed as it is in the Media. John pike in his article tells us about operation uphold democracy which began in the late 20th century. In December 1990 Haiti elected a man into presidency but he was overthrown by the military in February the year after because they were unhappy. When this happened the U.N and the U.S stepped in. The U.N. set up an oil and arms embargo in order to set up a form of negotiation with the military that had taken over Haiti but this also hurt Haiti’s economy as a whole. The plan eventually worked and negotiations happened and the elected president was to return to the presidency but the military went back on their word and tried to prevent this which then prompted the U.N to reimpose the embargo. Then “In May 1994, the military selected Supreme Court Justice Emile Jonassaint to be provisional president of its third de facto regime. The UN and the U.S. reacted to this extra constitutional move by tightening economic sanctions.” Then “In the weeks that followed, the United States took the lead in forming a multinational force (MNF) to carry out the UN’s mandate by means of a military intervention”(Pike). This is how operation uphold democracy began. The operation also continued for a while and till this day the U.S. and the U.N. keep tying themselves with Haiti trying to impose what they believe is the right form of government thinking they are helping the Nation heal when in fact they are doing major damage of their own. Edwidge Danticat in his article even tells us “The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (minustah) now operates in the country. Several forensic studies indicate that minustah peacekeepers likely introduced the cholera epidemic that has killed more than eight thousand people in Haiti, but U.N. officials have refused to accept responsibility”(Danticat). The cholera outbreak in Haiti which happened recently was caused by peacekeepers. People who were sent by the U.N. to help the nation and the outbreak was looked at as another thing that happened to Haiti just because the people there are poor and just can’t catch a break or help themselves, when in reality it was caused by the very people who were said to be saving them. This may not be 100 percent their fault but this does show that when the U.S. and U.N. think they’re helping they are in fact causing more damage as well.

In conclusion the media is used by the government as a way to continuously opress Haiti to the point that it seems like anything we do for the country is in good heart and beneficial for the country. The country is seen as extremely poor to justify the wrongs we commit to the people of Haiti. We act like their heroes when we cause as much damage as their villains do. I chose this topic because I can somewhat relate to this to an extent. When I moved to the U.S. from Nigeria,everytime Nigeria was brought up people would always talk about it like it was the wild with no cities and buildings, only grasslands. I never really understood why but I realized it was the media and I realized it must be the same for Haiti and it turns out to be way more than that, but it was something along those lines.

Bibliography:

Danticat, Edwidge. “The Long Legacy of Occupation in Haiti.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 19 June 2017, www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/haiti-us-occupation-hundred-year-anniversary.

Pike, John. “Military.” Texas Revolution, www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1998/kretchik-chapter5.htm.

Ranganathan, Romesh. “Dogs, Dives, Voodoo and Guns: Romesh Ranganathan’s Haiti Holiday.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 27 June 2018, www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jun/27/romesh-ranganathan-haiti-holiday-misadventures-voodoo.

“U.S. Embargoes against Haiti — from 1806 to 2003.” Haiti: A Slave Revolution — Haiti’s Impact on the United States, iacenter.org/haiti/embargoes.htm.

“The true Haiti is safe and rich in culture; Our crime rate last year was significantly lower than those of the most popular tourist destinations in the region, writes Bocchit Edmond, Haitian ambassador to the UK.” Guardian [London, England], 2 July 2018. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A545111473/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=2d1a675f. Accessed 8 Dec. 2018.

 

Critical Response

Leave Haiti Alone!

Not everyone in the world or more specifically the United States have been to Haiti before yet a majority of people if not everyone have an idea of what they believe Haiti is like. Out of all the people who have never visited Haiti a majority of them share the belief that Haiti is dirt poor and practically hopeless. The media exaggerates its portrayal of Haiti which makes the country seem incapable of taking care of itself because it is so poor and poorly governed. Because of this many people think the country is poor and needs to be take care of by other countries but what is really happening is Haiti is continuously being oppressed in the media to impose the belief that Haiti cannot take care of itself which allows other nations to do whatever they would like with the country without any consequences because all efforts going into the “Desperate” country are seen as humanitarian efforts.

A man by the name of Romesh Ranganathan pays a visit to Haiti and documents his experience in an article. When you read the whole article you see that Ranganathan has little to no positive things to say about Haiti. After saying nothing but negative comments about Haiti he adds a single sentence talking about some beauty he saw in Haiti, he says “  I spent some time in Jacmel on the southern coast, with its beautiful beaches and touristy hotels. It’s probably the first time I remembered that we were next door to the Dominican Republic, where everybody goes on holiday”(Ranganathan). This is the only positive thing he had to say about the country. He also said something else that really interested me. He said “All of this was strongly contributing to the opinion I was forming that Haiti was very much not for me”(Ranganathan) He was referring to his first negative experience in Haiti which had to do with a dog. Everytime he left the main hotel building and tried to go to his room he was chased by a dog. But he specifically says that it was “contributing to the opinion I was forming”( Ranganathan)This was his first negative experience that we know of so it leads me to believe that he was already forming this opinion prior to him even landing in Haiti and I believe it is safe to say that the media and the powerful hold they have over the minds of the people regarding Haiti may have had something to do with this. He went into Haiti already having the thought in mind that the country is not a place he should be visiting. After reading the article by Ranganathan, the Haitian Ambassador Bocchit Edmond  had a lot to say. He says “Had Mr Ranganathan done his research, he would have known that Haiti is one of the safest countries in the Caribbean. Our crime rate last year was significantly lower than those of the most popular tourist destinations in the region, and we rank higher on the Global Peace Index”(Edmond) In this quote he is specifically talking about the way Ranganathan portrayed Haiti as a dangerous place where crime is around every corner. He is really against this and provides evidence as to why this is false.

Ranganathan is not the only example of this. This happens throughout the media and in order to understand why the media does this we have to first look at the history of Haiti and why it’s so poor in the first place. Haiti has not always been the way it is right now. Haiti actually used to be considered the richest colony in the world. It was not until the nation was overly exploited and neglected by more powerful nations that Haiti’s glory began to diminish.  France had been exploiting Haiti ever since they acquired the land from the spanish and colonized it giving it the name Santo Domingo. Haiti was very rich in materials that were vital to the rest of the world and France took advantage. ”As the indigenous population dwindled, African slave labor became vital to Saint-Domingue’s economic development. Slaves arrived by the tens of thousands as coffee and sugar production boomed. Under French colonial rule, nearly 800,000 slaves arrived from Africa, accounting for a third of the entire Atlantic slave trade. Many died from disease and the harsh conditions of the sugar and coffee plantations” (Kastle). France brought many African slaves and set up plantations for the slaves to work on so they could produce goods which were then traded for profit. The amount of goods being produced from Santo Domingo (Haiti) kept going up and so did the amount of slaves. 40 percent of sugar imported from france and Britain came from Haiti and also 60 percent of the worlds coffee also came from Haiti. At the peak of this all the number of slaves in Santo Domingo reached 500,000 with only about 32,000 whites and about 28,000 free blacks. This was all done by the French who colonized the land.

The U.S. becomes involved with Haiti through France during the American Revolution. The 13 colonies by themselves could not defeat the British empire so they looked to France for help and France obliged. France was able to support the colonies through the profits they made from exploiting Santo Domingo and the many slaves there. Haitians themselves fought with the Americans during the war. After the war the slaves in Santo Domingo eventually revolted after all the cruelty and suffering they had experienced while under the French. In 1804 the people of Haiti proclaimed their Independence from France and became a nation of their own. This did them no good because their independence was not acknowledged at all. In fact this actually brought more problems which ultimately led to Haiti being the way it is now.

The U.S. chose to ignore Haiti’s declaration of independence and the fact that this republic was established by blacks was unbelievable and induced fear in the U.S. They were scared that if word of this successful revolution by blacks got to their own slaves it could motivate them to have a revolution of their own and overthrow their masters and leaders. Due to this fear the U.S. was set on not acknowledging Haiti’s independence and France did the same. Both the U.S. and France continued to have enormous influence in the country which completely disregarded their declaration of independence. South carolina senator Robert V. Hayne in the 1820s said “Our policy with regard to Haiti is plain. We never can acknowledge her independence”(Dunkel). This was a form of oppression and it lasted for 2 centuries. The U.S. and France bullied Haiti and did not allow the Nation to grow by itself. They continued to influence haiti to the point that it seemed like a colony of theirs. They sucked Haiti dry and ruined any form of government they tried to develop and that really stunted Haiti’s growth and practically ruined the nation leaving it the way it is now. Now the media wants to heavily push the narrative that Haiti is a poor nation which became this way due to actions of their own. This then makes U.S. efforts in Haiti seem like humanitarian efforts. We are painted as Haiti’s heroes by our own media to hide our imperialistic acts.

“In 1825, the country was forced to pay France 150 million gold francs (i.e. France’s annual budget at the time) intended to “compensate” the former slave master colonists for loss of “ownership” in exchange for recognition of its existence as a nation-state“ (Duval). France forced Haiti to pay “indemnity” for property that was lost or destroyed because of the revolution in order for them to be acknowledged as a nation. France also remained as a neocolonial power in Haiti all up until 1915, when the U.S. invaded and occupied the country. The Haitians tried to fight this but were quickly defeated by the U.S. In the early 20th century. The United States although it doesn’t claim to be imperialistic, does act based on imperialist beliefs and the problems in Haiti and how The U.S ties into them shows a lot of evidence of that. The U.S. wants to uphold democracy in Haiti and in order for it to be seen as humanitarian instead of imperialism, Haiti has to seem poor enough that it needs intervention from other nations and that is why it’s important to the U.S. that Haiti is portrayed as it is in the Media. John pike in his article tells us about operation uphold democracy which began in the late 20th century. In December 1990 Haiti elected a man into presidency but he was overthrown by the military in February the year after because they were unhappy. When this happened the U.N and the U.S stepped in. The U.N. set up an oil and arms embargo in order to set up a form of negotiation with the military that had taken over Haiti but this also hurt Haiti’s economy as a whole. The plan eventually worked and negotiations happened and the elected president was to return to the presidency but the military went back on their word and tried to prevent this which then prompted the U.N to reimpose the embargo. Then “In May 1994, the military selected Supreme Court Justice Emile Jonassaint to be provisional president of its third de facto regime. The UN and the U.S. reacted to this extra constitutional move by tightening economic sanctions.” Then “In the weeks that followed, the United States took the lead in forming a multinational force (MNF) to carry out the UN’s mandate by means of a military intervention”(Pike). This is how operation uphold democracy began. The operation also continued for a while and till this day the U.S. and the U.N. keep tying themselves with Haiti trying to impose what they believe is the right form of government thinking they are helping the Nation heal when in fact they are doing major damage of their own. Edwidge Danticat in his article even tells us “The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (minustah) now operates in the country. Several forensic studies indicate that minustah peacekeepers likely introduced the cholera epidemic that has killed more than eight thousand people in Haiti, but U.N. officials have refused to accept responsibility”(Danticat). The cholera outbreak in Haiti which happened recently was caused by peacekeepers. People who were sent by the U.N. to help the nation and the outbreak was looked at as another thing that happened to Haiti just because the people there are poor and just can’t catch a break or help themselves, when in reality it was caused by the very people who were said to be saving them. This may not be 100 percent their fault but this does show that when the U.S. and U.N. think they’re helping they are in fact causing more damage as well.

In conclusion the media is used by the government as a way to continuously opress Haiti to the point that it seems like anything we do for the country is in good heart and beneficial for the country. The country is seen as extremely poor to justify the wrongs we commit to the people of Haiti. We act like their heroes when we cause as much damage as their villains do. I chose this topic because I can somewhat relate to this to an extent. When I moved to the U.S. from Nigeria,everytime Nigeria was brought up people would always talk about it like it was the wild with no cities and buildings, only grasslands. I never really understood why but I realized it was the media and I realized it must be the same for Haiti and it turns out to be way more than that, but it was something along those lines.

 

Bibliography:

Danticat, Edwidge. “The Long Legacy of Occupation in Haiti.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 19 June 2017, www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/haiti-us-occupation-hundred-year-anniversary.

Pike, John. “Military.” Texas Revolution, www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1998/kretchik-chapter5.htm.

Ranganathan, Romesh. “Dogs, Dives, Voodoo and Guns: Romesh Ranganathan’s Haiti Holiday.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 27 June 2018, www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jun/27/romesh-ranganathan-haiti-holiday-misadventures-voodoo.

“U.S. Embargoes against Haiti — from 1806 to 2003.” Haiti: A Slave Revolution — Haiti’s Impact on the United States, iacenter.org/haiti/embargoes.htm.

“The true Haiti is safe and rich in culture; Our crime rate last year was significantly lower than those of the most popular tourist destinations in the region, writes Bocchit Edmond, Haitian ambassador to the UK.” Guardian [London, England], 2 July 2018. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A545111473/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=2d1a675f. Accessed 8 Dec. 2018.

Duval, Jérôme. “Haiti: From Slavery to Debt.” Www.counterpunch.org, 9 Nov. 2017, www.counterpunch.org/2017/11/10/haiti-from-slavery-to-debt/.

kästle, klaus. “___ History of Haiti.” History of Yemen – Key Figures in Yemen’s History, www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/History/Haiti-history.htm.