A black author observes that something is terribly amiss in the Haiti rescue / rebuilding effort. Brilliant piece.
- By Loose Canon (a Black man)
- Botswana News Paper Southern Africa
- 1-29-10
- I hope black people will learn a lesson from the earthquake that hit Haiti. If they don’t learn anything from it, then I throw up my hands in despair and give up.
- Let’s start with a few basic facts.
- Until the earthquake, I never knew there was a place called Haiti. I was taught geography at school but I cannot remember a time when the mistress told us about Haiti. It must have been one of those insignificant countries that we had no reason to know about.
- I was fairly good at geography because I knew which country was on which continent. I also knew many capital cities. But as for Haiti I was clueless.
- Now the whole world, including myself, knows about Haiti. I heard news of the earthquake on the radio. I wondered where Haiti was and what sort of people lived there.
[snip]
- I wondered what if there were no white people. You see, when the earthquake hit Haiti somebody had to come to its assistance. There had to be a rescue effort. The Haitians who survived of course did their fair bit by digging out their families from the collapsed ramshackle buildings.
- But such was the scale of the devastation and the loss of human life that a bigger effort was needed. For that sort of work, you need heavy lifting gear and other sophisticated rescue equipment. I have been following the story of the earthquake keenly. I can attest to the fact that the first people to arrive with sniffer dogs were white crews from all over the world.