Ayiti (land of mountains)is the original Taino name for what is now known as the island of Hispañola. When General-Governor Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared what was then Saint Domingue a free and independent Black Nation in 1804, he changed the name back to Ayiti, in an act that W.E.B. Dubois, among many historians, believed was an “attempt to symbolically disrupt centuries of European empire and brutality”. 

— Grace Lee Boggs, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century, p. 79 (via dusttracksonaroad)

(via so-treu)

Haitian Activist Patrick Elie: "Haiti is Controlled by Foreign Governments and Foreign Interests"

On the first anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti, Patrick Elie, a longtime Haitian democracy activist and Haiti’s former Secretary of State for Public Security:

“I don’t think, truly, that the Haitian people have to be pitied or mourned. They have to get true solidarity in their endeavor to rebuild,” Elie says. “We must resist the impulse to rebuild Port-au-Prince the way it was: a city of exclusion, of hyper-concentration and of shanty towns, which contributed very, very much to the high toll that we’ve paid after the earthquake.”

Wesleyan Professor Alex Dupuy: Haiti Transformed into the "Republic of the NGOs"

One year after the massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated Haiti, reconstruction efforts have barely begun. Alex Dupuy, a professor of sociology at Wesleyan University:

“There is a dramatic power imbalance between the international community—under U.S. leadership—and Haiti. The former monopolizes economic and political power and calls all the shots,” Dupuy writes. “This unequal relationship is reflected in the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission.” The IHRC is co-chaired by Bill Clinton.

Haiti One Year After The Earthquake

Haiti’s Yearlong Aftershock

No doubt, many of the NGOs saved lives and provided badly needed care. But their efforts are uncoordinated and often at cross-purposes with government policies. For example, the flood of volunteer doctors providing free emergency care has forced several Haitian hospitals into bankruptcy, weakening an already fragile medical ecosystem. Camps run by charitable organizations or celebrities like Sean Penn have discouraged some Haitians from leaving the overcrowded capital or returning to habitable homes. Haitians have taken to calling their country “the nation of NGOs” and begun to wonder if foreign aid is bad for them in the long term. It’s an important question: Thousands of organizations, many of them well-meaning, have toiled in Haiti in recent decades; they have made little discernible difference in the lives of most Haitians.

(Source: abbyjean, via so-treu)