[News] On my return to Haiti | Jean-Bertrand Aristide

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/04/haiti-earthquake-aristide-education/print
guardian.co.uk

On my return to Haiti 


A profit-driven recovery plan, devised and 
carried out by outsiders, can not reconstruct my country

Friday 4 February 2011 20.00 GMT

Haiti's 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/haiti>devastating 
earthquake in January last year destroyed up to 
5,000 schools and 80% of the country's already 
weak university infrastructure. The primary 
school in Port-au-Prince that I attended as a 
small boy collapsed with more than 200 students 
inside. The weight of the state nursing school 
killed 150 future nurses. The state medical 
school was levelled. The exact number of 
students, teachers, professors, librarians, 
researchers, academics and administrators lost 
during those 65 seconds that irrevocably changed 
Haiti will never be known. But what we do know is that it cannot end there.

The exceptional resilience demonstrated by the 
Haitian people during and after the deadly 
earthquake reflects the intelligence and 
determination of parents, especially mothers, to 
keep their children alive and to give them a 
better future, and the eagerness of youth to 
learn – all this despite economic challenges, 
social barriers, political crisis, and 
psychological trauma. Even though their basic 
needs have increased exponentially, their 
readiness to learn is manifest. This natural 
thirst for education is the foundation for a 
successful learning process: what is freely learned is best learned.

Of course, learning is strengthened and 
solidified when it occurs in a safe, secure and 
normal environment. Hence our responsibility to 
promote social cohesion, democratic growth, 
sustainable development, self-determination; in 
short, the goals set forth for this new 
millennium. All of which represent steps towards 
a return to a better environment.

Education has been a top priority since the first 
<http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Lavalas&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a>Lavalas 
government – of which I was president – was sworn 
into officeunder Haiti's amended democratic 
constitution on 7 February 1991 (and removed a 
few months later). More schools were built in the 
10 years between 1994, when democracy was 
restored, and 2004 – when Haiti's democracy was 
once again violated – than between 1804 to 1994: 
one hundred and ninety-five new primary schools 
and 104 new public high schools constructed and/or refurbished.

The 12 January earthquake largely spared the 
Foundation for Democracy I founded in 1996. 
Immediately following the quake, thousands 
accustomed to finding a democratic space to meet, 
debate and receive services, came seeking shelter 
and help. Haitian doctors who began their 
training at the foundation's medical school 
rallied to organised clinics at the foundation 
and at tent camps across the capital. They 
continue to contribute tirelessly to the 
treatment of fellow Haitians who have been 
infected by cholera. Their presence is a pledge 
to reverse the dire ratio of one doctor for every 11,000 Haitians.

Youths, who through the years have participated 
in the foundation's multiple literacy programmes, 
volunteered to operate mobile schools in these 
same tent camps. In partnership with a group from 
the University of Michigan in the US, 
post-traumatic counselling sessions were 
organised and university students trained to help 
themselves and to help fellow Haitians begin the 
long journey to healing. A year on, young people 
and students look to the foundation's university 
to return to its educational vocation and help 
fill the gaping national hole left on the day the earth shook in Haiti.

Will the deepening destabilising political crisis 
in Haiti prevent students achieving academic 
success? I suppose most students, educators and 
parents are exhausted by the complexity of such a 
dramatic and painful crisis. But I am certain 
nothing can extinguish their collective thirst for education.

The renowned American poet and essayist, 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson>Ralph 
Waldo Emerson, wrote that "we learn geology the 
morning after the earthquake". What we have 
learned in one long year of mourning after 
Haiti's earthquake is that an exogenous plan of 
reconstruction – one that is profit-driven, 
exclusionary, conceived of and implemented by 
non-Haitians – cannot reconstruct Haiti. It is 
the solemn obligation of all Haitians to join in 
the reconstruction and to have a voice in the direction of the nation.

As I have not ceased to say since 29 February 
2004, from exile in Central Africa, Jamaica and 
now South Africa, I will return to Haiti to the 
field I know best and love: education. We can 
only agree with the words of the great Nelson 
Mandela, that indeed education is a powerful weapon for changing the world.


On my return to Haiti 
 | Jean-Bertrand Aristide

This article was published on 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/>guardian.co.uk at 
20.00 GMT on Friday 4 February 2011. A version 
appeared on p39 of the 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/feb/05/mainsection>Main 
section section of 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian>the 
Guardian on 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/feb/05>Saturday 
5 February 2011. It was last modified at 20.42 GMT on Friday 4 February 2011.




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