Haiti, pt. 4: TIH

There is almost too much to say about Haiti. There are ideas huddled beside feelings and concerns piggybacking resolutions spinning around emotions. It is all very overwhelming. The improvement projects needed branch off into a forest of tasks and the root system of all the problems seen in Haiti is no less complex.

From day one, Haiti is impossible. Everything about Haiti seems broken. Everything: government, sanitation, spiritual climate, community, courtesy, patience, agriculture, zoning, education…and the list goes on.

As a rich white intruder I want to clean it all up in a week long volunteer effort to put on my resume. This of course, is impossible. But, even so, I think with enough time and effort, Yes We Can!We can come in and clean up this sin drenched place. I find that this attitude yields so many problems, though. The first question must be asked: do they need to be “rescued”? Well clearly this place is not living in perfection, it is far removed from the Garden. However the next question is what does it need? Does it need “our way?” The American system is also ripe with injustice and sin….it just smells better.

The real hopelessness blooms, when, sitting and talking about all there is to Haiti, one realizes that even the solutions have problems. Progress, as so valued by us, has so many ornate trapdoors.

For instance: dropping shoes from a plane to distribute to the Haitians will protect and cover the children’s feet from the jagged rocks of the landscape (but will it also take jobs from local shoemakers, creating…more poverty?) Surely some initiatives like a nationwide trash collection or sex education are paces to start, but those are far too massive for me to feel like I can even consider! And even if those things were started, the long term effects of what those projects could turn into remain unknown. There are many caveats to progress.

Progress unleashed without a moral barometer can be utterly devastating and create situations worse than were present before. Just look around you, inquire into the food industry, inquire into the clothing industry. The consequences of unbridled advancement in the name of progress are all around us. This was one of the problems that kept coming up in late night ponderings. To improve or help Haiti always was paired with the system being polluted or taken advantage of or done in the wrong way to produce a different, sometimes more complex problem. It all seems so hopeless.

So, what shall we say now?

I was encouraged after reading an article in the latest issue of The Economist*. All these thoughts on what to do about Haiti had been weighing on me since I touched down in Port Au Prince, and this article reinforced the confusion at first: it discussed the fragile balance between progress and destruction. This concept had been debated countless times over the week at the orphanage. We would wax on our ideal visions of Haiti, then others would point out how that wouldn’t work for one reason or another. The term “be realistic” was thrown around a lot, and not angrily, but gently and often with a depressing sigh.

In the Economist article, philosopher Susan Neiman wrote that “every time someone tells you to ‘be realistic’ they are asking you to compromise your ideals.” I found this to be extremely interesting and remarkably accurate. But ideals are hard, and I learned this week they seem too grand to actually be possible. The encouragement lies with what Neiman says next: your ideals will never be met completely, but sometimes, however imperfectly, you can make progress. She writes that often we create a false idea that a choice must be made between Utopia and degeneracy. Neiman argues that this is not true and that moral progress is neither guaranteed nor hopeless.

I think her conclusion was a more eloquent version of what I had been musing towards the end of the trip: We can only try to resolve or nurture what we see set before us today.

Operating with love and compassion we can only take small steps forward on an immediate and daily basis. Of course, we must constantly recheck our motives, goals and hearts to be sure they are consistent with our original intention. Haiti cannot be saved in a day, but small, consistent efforts of love over a long period of time is how it will be done. We may never live to see full healing in our physical condition, but that timing does not matter.

I belive this concept becomes even more hopeful and beautiful under the grace offered through Christ. The hope of Haiti lies not wth us, and our hope lies not with helping Haiti. Rather, the hope of both parties rests with Christ. We can be vessels of change, but ultimately our efforts will be kinked and skewed with sin. Thankfully, He is the hope of all things. One day He will do more than make progress, He will restore to perfection. And until then, His enduring grace will fill in the cracks when we inevitably take a wrong turn or make a mistake while trying to do His work.

* I dont want to give false impressions of grandeur here, this is not normal reading material for me. That was the first time I had even picked up The Economist. The cover article "Progress and its Perils" caught my eye in the airport.