Towards a global perspective . . .

Following both US mainstream coverage of the relief efforts in Haiti and  coverage through international and independent outlets is a confusing experience.  All agree that the US, in command of relief efforts in Haiti, has taken charge of the Port Au Prince airport, put several thousand, has put as many as ten thousand troops on the ground to secure the disaster area before allowing any aid to enter,  and placed a air carrier off shore days before the the hospital ship arrived.   It is clear that every day help is delayed, thousands of people buried in the rubble die, thousands with injuries die of infections and blood loss, thousands of babies and elderly and weak are at risk due to lack of water and food.

The mainstream press is reporting significant security measures to address serious security concerns.    There are concerns that the people will riot, that aid workers will be assaulted, that victims of the quake will be subject to violence from other victims.    Read the rest of this entry »

I flip on Democracy Now! There are some bodies strewn among piles of rubble and people running around, people sitting in the rubble in shock.  I think, “Gaza?”  No.  It’s Haiti.  That’s right the people are black.  Or are they?  I used to work with a Haitian Manager.  JC was rather gruff, but very direct . . . and generally reasonable.  He was well educated, well dressed, and spoke with a French accent.  We had an international crew in those days, and I didn’t think of him as a ‘black’ man.  He was ‘Haitian’.   I worked with another Haitian a few years later.  He was a engineer, and I didn’t know him well, but I remember one day we stood in front of our cubes, laughing and ducking as a bird that had somehow entered the recycled warehouse where we worked, swooped one way and soaring the other, first diving and then wheeling high above our heads.

So today I am watching the Haitian bodies being removed from the rubble, the men purposefully digging, big eyed children looking on,  people sitting in the ruins of their lives in despair. Read the rest of this entry »