To those who are paying attention, it is no secret that Haiti is in turmoil. A quick catch up for those who are unaware, protests leaders in Haiti have called the people to the streets after being fed up with poverty, scarcity and corruption. Year after year, the country continues to rank the poorest in the Western hemisphere; more than half the population lives on less than $2.49 a month. Thousands have continued to march since this all began which mostly just turns into riots as civilians spill oil and burn down anything in their way.
As you can imagine, many meetings, debates and acts of desperation have been put together to get these acts in the community to ultimately come to a stop, but nothing has helped. It is almost as if, unless something changes soon to make civilians happy, Haitians will just have to wait out the storm caused by themselves and/or their neighbors. Stanford classics professor Ian Morris does in his book, “War! What Is It Good For? Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots” suggest the thesis that human progress has been helped, rather than hindered, by war. In hopes of shedding some light over this darkness that is currently surrounding our headlines, that is the thesis we will explore as well.
For very obvious reasons this has been one of the worst times in Haiti’s history but, without this uprising many things wouldn’t be on their way of being reworked. Post this “war” stage, it is the hope that the community will be given what they want or, if not 100% satisfied, then at least some sort of compromise will be made to settled some of the hearts spearheading these riots. And, when the smoke has eventually cleared the city will need to be rebuilt. In that act, Haiti will have a brand new community to house their reworked economy. These things don’t happen overnight and are most likely very far from easy to set in stone and move forth with as simply as reading about the idea sounds, but when you have nothing left to fight and you are just waiting for others around you to make it stop, these are all hopeful places one can take their mind.
More internally rather than just for the good of the society, to endure these kinds of living conditions (where every day you come outside your home there is “war”) one has to give credit to their own strength. Moving forward, our people should be reminded of these times and how they kept pushing as a reminder of how powerful they can be facing any obstacle (as small as family issues or as big as this).
In all this, holding on to gratefulness is key. There are many things about their government and who stands with them that the people of Haiti are now aware of all because of these past trying weeks.
We continue to pray for the safety and sanity of the Island but also hope better is to come as there can be exciting life after such devastation.
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