The story and its brutal indifference
The country is now the poorest in the demand for transforming a natural disaster of justice will
Nothing is written
advance
What just happened in Haiti, the earthquake and its consequences, is the latest episode in a tragedy that shows, if need be, that historical processes are indifferent to the idea of \u200b\u200bjustice. If any company in our hemisphere should have run with better economic and political fortunes which had, it is the poorest country in the continent, which now occupies the western part of the island that was once called "the English."
A key feature of the processes of nature is its complete indifference to the pain and into what we mean by morality, by the ideal and compassion. In the state of nature rule is that the big fish eats the small and the strong survive and the weak perish. In animal societies highly developed is the cooperation but not solidarity or altruism: when the common good is not given, the company is dissolved.
For some time, the process of evolution of species is explained by an ultimate goal of all life: constant accompaniment to refinement. Today, biologists have abandoned that idea and see evolution as an adaptive mechanism that has a lot of chance and that no final purpose. From this perspective, nothing is set in advance.
The idea of \u200b\u200bprogress
From time immemorial, since I became aware the precariousness of its existence, the man sought for a reason and found in the diversity of gods in recorded history. However, Western civilization was developing other parallel or alternative response: the idea of \u200b\u200bprogress. In this view, the march of history is not cyclical and is dominated by chance, but has a meaning and ultimate purpose. This optimistic view of human events as progress was made during the Enlightenment, was further strengthened by Hegel and is independent of any religious element in Marx. The latter meant that through the ancient clash between the classes, the world would come to the stage of real history, that where property no longer exist capitalist exploitation or domination of a class or group over others, so the state and politics disappear, "and nature would finally conquered by man and put through science and technology to the point that then and only then would the true human essence a voice.
radical vision of progress and therefore on the future security and weakened, is on the defensive. Companies can not rely on metaphysical grounds that they ensure a better future than the past and present. It is the conscious human effort alone can lead to a better collective basis, but the bad fortune or the dominance of special interests over general can lead to decline and the failure of the joint venture no matter how unfair the fact. Thus, a nuclear conflict or a continuation of abuse of the environment may end up with human history itself.
An example of historical injustice
Haiti has not seen since his brutal encounter took place between Europeans and the native population in 1492. The original settlers were razed by the English through three channels: direct destruction, extreme work and disease. Then came the French, who in the eighteenth century that became part of the island in the most productive colony in the world to combine climate with sugar and coffee plantations designed to meet the demand for commodities in a global market expansion with African slave labor intensive.
Keep in mind that the worldwide trade of slaves reached its peak in the decade 1783-1793, ie just at the outbreak of the great rebellion of enslaved workers in Haiti. Napoleon's troops tried but failed to impose themselves on their former captives and 1803 definitively lost control of the west of the island, the economic jewel of the French Empire overseas. In 1804 half a million former African slaves declared independence from its territory under the name they had given the original inhabitants, the eliminated three centuries ago: Haiti. It was the only slave revolt that ended his triumph with the formation of a country: a stunning success!, When compared with Mexico, where the effort ended in defeat insurgents military and where independence was only possible years later, in 1821, thanks to the insurgency Creoles turned against his king.
A bitter victory
former slaves in 1804 France gave him a deep sense that the revolution in Paris had proclaimed before but, of course, not including their African slaves in the Caribbean: liberty, equality and fraternity. However, France and the rest of world empires made him pay dearly for its achievement. United States, for example, did not recognize the new nation until 1862 because how would receive the White House a black ambassador in Washington if blacks were still slaves? France, meanwhile, demanded in 1825 to their former establishments that pay 150 million francs as a condition for recognition: who stole the freedom of the Africans were charged to return!
And this is where the story gets really unfair. The independent Haiti was formed by individuals outside of their status as former slaves had little in common. The French had not built that forced workers to take hold, was more economical to work tirelessly to death and immediately replaced by other newly captured, which allow them to form families and have children, that was too expensive. Thus, assuming independence, unlike colonial experiences as the Mexican independent Haitians in Haiti had no history, no equivalent to the Indian peoples of Mexico. Without cultural identity, and the old economy in ruins, Haitians hated ended up leaving the plantation economy, today, the important sugar and civil war, in part a struggle between mulattoes and blacks, became almost inevitable conclusion of the grand victory of slaves on their masters. The poor relationship between Haiti and its neighbor, the Dominican Republic, did not help the smooth running of the country of the descendants of those who had liberated themselves. Between 1843 and 1915, the year the United States occupied Haiti, there was a score of governments where the sequences were marked by repression, rebellion and murder. Economic development in this situation was simply impossible and the culture of poverty put in deep roots.
The American occupation lasted until 1934, but as it took place in a time of intense racism in the country occupying those two decades have served to give him a second chance to Haitian independence. Later, the Cold War led to the dictatorships of Francois Duvalier, "Papa Doc", and his son (1957-1986) were accepted as functional for U.S. interests in the Caribbean. The latest political debacle of Haitian society was the failure of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Salesian priest who came with enormous popular support for President in 1990 as a result of the first truly free elections in the country, but ultimately was unable to be at the height of their great responsibility and historic opportunity.
The earthquake of 2010 found the nation Haiti Western Hemisphere's poorest and deprived of the presence of a stabilizing force for the United Nations to give a minimum of force to a State which was itself incapable of maintaining order and the minimum services in a country of 10 million basically rural and devastated by poverty and the effects of hurricanes on a geography previously destroyed by deforestation. Future
The history of Haiti-the only modern country born of a successful slave revolt and demand their former colonial countries in our hemisphere and the rest of the international community an extraordinary effort to transform a disaster in a point turning, and to begin to pay the enormous debt which meant the inhumanity of slavery. Would be desirable that arises now that the world will compel the story to stop being indifferent and justice in Haiti.
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