Pop Culture and Post-Earthquake Haiti

For my entire life, music has been a central theme—from having grandparents that like to sing to being a dancer myself, I have understood the importance of music and pop culture in my life. Today, after reading more of Jonathan Katz’s book, The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left behind a Disaster, I was able to understand the importance of music in the post-earthquake Haitian context.

The section that we read for this pre-trip training looked at various elements of the disaster relief, including land tenure and gender-based violence, but what struck out to me the most was the impact that music had. Young people in Haiti would sing and rap about looking forward as a nation, urging the citizens to “stop marching under the orders of the blan [foreigners]”. This showed me that music was used as a form of political expression, especially for youth, which is one of the most important demographics to consider when rebuilding political stability.

Michael Martelly

Another important musical movement in Haiti at the time was kompa music, led by a man named Michael Martelly, but commonly known as Sweet Micky. Katz described this music as “the love child of merengue, funk and R&B” that was popular for older crowds. His message in his singing was political too—claiming “if you don’t like it, get out of here!” This is a sharp contrast to what the youth were expressing through their rap—the youth had a more positive call to action, while Martelly’s lyrics explained the futility of even trying to escape. This sentiment was furthered when Martelly decided to run for president—knowing he cannot run away, and that the only hope for change was assuming a position of authority.

Wyclef Jean

The last artist introduced in this section of the pre-trip training was Wyclef Jean—a Haitian artist who moved to America and built up his music career there. He came back to Haiti after the earthquake to run for president. As a prominent Haitian in America, he was named Haiti’s ambassador to the US in 2004, and then continued building his diplomatic/political power. His music, much of which talked about Haiti, along with his high visibility status was an example of how the Haitians at the time were looking for a change from the current political parties at play.

Each instance of introducing music and its deeper meaning helped me uncover another aspect of Haitian culture and beliefs. This section of reading reinforced the emphasis I put on music in my life, and helped me appreciate from a different perspective. And now, I can’t wait to go to Haiti soon and listen to live kompa music, because it sounds like a lot of fun!

Open Eyes, Open Minds

On Tuesday, our AltBreak group had the opportunity to meet Dr. Paul Farmer; after shaking his hand at a pre-reception we listened to him speak about Global Health Equity, Haiti post-earthquake, and AIDs treatments around the world. All of us were nervous and excited to meet this public health superstar, the poster child for dedication, commitment, and the war on infectious disease. But I have a confession:

3 months ago, I had no idea who Paul Farmer was.

Over winter break I started reading a couple books to enlighten myself on Haiti and this was the first time I had heard about Paul Farmer. Like I mentioned in my previous blog post, one of the books I read was by Paul Farmer and the other was about Paul Farmer. From reading about him (and Haiti) I have learned an immense amount about the history of disease, politics, and disaster within Haiti. I've learned about Paul Farmers life and his work in Haiti and around the world. I've learned about the WHO and U.N. and their influences in global health issues as well as their role Haiti's earthquake relief effort. After reading about all of this, I was SO excited to hear Paul Farmer himself speak. I think he is an amazing example of a human being and an incredibly intelligent and driven man. Paul Farmer is the kind of person that makes me feel like there is true good in the world-- he stresses the necessity of a local voice in public policy (ie. Haitian people explaining what they need and want in their country politically, economically, etc.) He works to correct the "chronic" AND "acute" issues that we see so deeply rooted in our society and impoverished societies like Haiti.

If you can't tell, now I love Paul Farmer and keep him as inspiration in the back of my head. But I felt a little awkward that other members of the group had known and respected Paul Farmer for so much longer than I had. I felt uninformed and ignorant for not knowing that such issues existed and that such a great man and his entourage were doing great work to combat these problems. I recognize that there are many large issues ravaging all types of societies in every corner of the world. I also realize that I am young and can't know about everything that's going on in the world. But I feel so much more aware now that I have learned so much about Haiti, the WHO & U.N., large global health issues, foreign aid policies, and all the interconnected issues that these things affect.

This meta-reflection leads me to a conclusion that reconfirms one of my fundamental beliefs: knowledge is the answer. In order to help people, to make the world a better place, or at least to avoid causing accidental pain or suffering, it is important to learn, to educate ourselves. We will never be done learning but the more we learn, the better work we can do. As we saw in our last chapter of "The Big Truck That Went By" the foreign aid that came in after the earthquake in Haiti actually caused a great deal of damage and has still not created a significant amount of good. I feel like my eyes have been opened to these whole new part of the world, and this whole new set of interconnected issues. I feel like this knowledge helps me to exercise and open my mind. Ultimately, open minds are able to see a wide variety of solutions, consider multiple outcomes, and apply previous knowledge to avoid re-creating devastating issues in order to achieve will progress and development within the world.

Flawed System of Aid

What strikes me the most about the issue of foreign aid and disaster relief is the amount of discretion taken before a nation or body decides to react. In the presentations last week, a diagram which gave a visual representation of the amount of money given to relief after Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake, September 11th, the Asian tsunami and the Japan earthquake/tsunami.

Of all of the disasters, Hurricane Katrina received the most aid in the first seven days. This is unsettling because the United States is one of the richest countries in the world, however, monetary support came in waves (no pun intended). Juxtaposition that with the aid that was sent to Haiti in the first 7 days. Sure Haiti ranks number two on the list of receiving aid, but if one actually takes a look at the monetary values, what he or she will notice is that Hurricane Katrina received almost twice as much aid as Haiti. Haiti is much poorer than the United States. Haiti does not have the resources with its country necessary to combat such an event as the United States does.

In my personal belief, the apprehension to donate is political. The United States has certain allies. Because of this, it is in their interest to provide the US with money in order to secure their relationship. As far as Haiti, because the country is very poor and even corrupt, its number of allies is very small and so they did not receive as much relief as they could have in those first few days.

Although I have tried to compare the United States and Haiti, the article's focus is on the dismal amount of foreign aid that Japan received. I feel that it is important to hone in on this issue as well. The earthquake was a 9 on the Richter scale, whereas Haiti was a 7. The earthquake in Japan was more powerful than that in Haiti, yet the amount of aid doled out was not proportional to the disaster. The only justification that I can produce for this amount of disparity is the fact that because Haiti is far poorer than Japan, the country was devastated more. The country was also less prepared for such an event. For this reason, countries that provided aid knew that Haiti needed it more. Unfortunately, this points to systematic issues in our society which stem from imperialism.