More suffering for the Black Jacobins

Jan 17, 2010 Features / Columnists, My Column

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There is certainly no one on the planet who is not talking about Haiti and following the situation, unless that person is in some location where internet access is very limited and where television signals are hard to come by.
On Tuesday the world got a shock when a massive earthquake struck Haiti and devastated the capital that was home to about three million people. From my corner of the world I have seen and read about devastating natural disasters. There was the tsunami that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in five countries; the flooding of New Orleans; the collapse of the World Trade Centre and the destruction of the Pentagon; and of course there were the ravages of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Indeed I have seen my share of human suffering. There were mudslides in Brazil and Venezuela, and numerous other earthquakes, some in China. These things paled in comparison to what happened in Haiti these past few days.
Up close and personal I saw the agony on the faces of the survivors, the harrowing tales of those trapped beneath the rubble and the lost look on the faces of those who lost loved ones. I have met thousands of Haitians in my travels, many of them in New York, New Jersey and Miami. Some were doctors, some nurses, many reporters and the greatest number small shop owners.
There were the cab drivers in Brooklyn and Newark who all seemed to have carved their niche in the societies. They worked long and hard hours because they recognized that there was money to be made, something that they lacked in their native country. And every one of them with whom I spoke, told me about sending money back to their country.
A recent publication by the World Bank revealed that the Haitians were responsible for the largest remittances—totaling more than a billion American dollars. Guyana’s US$400-plus million was a fraction of what the Haitians sent home.
I found that they were like the Guyanese. They took the first job that was on offer, shared small apartments until they could do better and they brought with them, their foods and culture.
When the earthquake hit I realized that they built their homes just as we do in Guyana with no consideration for earthquakes. It was no surprise that these buildings collapsed after one minute of ground-shuddering turmoil. The same would have happened in Guyana because our homes are mere buildings on uprights and beams.
Our tall buildings are nothing but blocks pasted together and cast beams. Some have steel inside the walls but they would all come down if a quake were to hit. The difference is that we would be able to call on draglines and bulldozers and hymacs and other heavy earth-moving equipment. The Haitians had to rely on brute force and their bare hands.
I am claustrophobic so it does not take a lot of imagination to see me under tons of rubble and no escape unless help comes from the outside. Many are dying because they have been trapped for six days, some with dead people near to them and in these tropical conditions the bodies are decomposing.
Perhaps some of those still alive have a dead and decomposing person draped across them. It is not a pleasant sight. This is a recipe for even more death.
The first images shocked me, the others were numbing and these days I shudder to look at the devastation and the human suffering. I suppose being a reporter forces me to capture the scenes so that I can share them with my countrymen and countrywomen who also have it rough but whose suffering is nothing compared to the suffering in Haiti. It is like heaven and hell.
On Friday night when I moderated a segment of the Government-sponsored telethon I asked about the final death toll. Dr Jennifer Westford placed the figure at one million and counting. That is more people than the population of Guyana. She explained why and I understood.
People who survived with cuts and broken limbs may still die because the wounds will become infected.
There are people who are going to die because they will be drinking contaminated water unless the global community provides enough.
Dr Motie Lall introduced another factor. AIDS is highest in Haiti outside Sub-Saharan Africa. Many of those who were on anti-retroviral drugs will die because their supplies have been cut off. Dr Motie Lall explained that they will develop a resistance to the drugs. I shudder to think about the numbers.
Yesterday I told an American who called from India that I will be dead and gone and the scars of this earthquake would still remain because it is going to take a huge rebuilding effort. Haiti does not have the human resource to undertake the task. And to compound the issue, there is no government at this time.
Money, medicine, clothing, food, just about everything is needed. In Guyana we are known for our magnanimity and we are trying our level best to help those suffering people. We have billionaires in our midst who must make some of that money available.
Some two hundred years ago an earthquake struck that country which was already devastated from the war of independence and the clash between the ex-slaves and the mulattoes and the whites. None of the Haitians alive could have believed that they would have been struck by another. Indeed, an earthquake was history. They are dying because of that belief.
We had some water on the land and a few of us died from leptospirosis. The Haitians would have wished for such a disaster compared to this.
And for those of us who cannot understand Haiti, read The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James. It will tell an interesting story.

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