A Broken Promise

The situation that is currently unfolding in Haiti (and when I say ‘currently unfolding’ I am referring to an ongoing phenomenon over the course of hundreds of years) is both sickening and unremitting. The collapse of the school La Promesse last week added to a string of events including four tropical storms that wiped out crops as well as the rising food prices that were the source of violence and a food crisis.

However according to Petionville's representative in Parliament Stephen Benoit the school that collapsed and killed 88 students and teachers in Petionville last week has apparently become nothing more than a symbol for the perpetual suffering that has become synonomous with “Haiti.”

In an interview yesterday Benoit referred to the school’s collapse as a “golden occasion to address this anarchic construction.”

Of course this event will draw attention to Haiti and the haze of corruption that hangs over the country but when did the death of innocent children become a symbol for moving forward? How will this event save Haiti where the inexorable violence of the past three centuries has not? (here is a link to an excellent article that chronicles a part of Haiti’s violent past: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_n5_v57/ai_13705082)

The sad truth is that the more than 2 million people in Haiti living in abject poverty have no reason to believe this event will spark anything more than a couple more days of headlines in developed nations before something more important to them takes over again.

What makes this story even more dispiriting is that the school “La Promesse”, which translates to ‘The Promise’ in English, was a school that was supposed to be a source of hope for many Haitians and their children. Families laboured and saved in order to pay the annual $1500 tuition fee to send their children to school and give them a chance in a country where almost half the population is illiterate.

Try to imagine for a minute living in a place with nothing and without any hope for the future but for your children to go and have a chance for something better.

Imagine saving every penny you had for years to send them to a place where they would get this chance.

Then picture this hope, this “promise” collapsing in front of your eyes. The place that you had spent your whole life working to send your child to becomes their grave.

After all of that try and picture reading in the paper that your representative in parliament called this event “a golden occasion” for the future of Haiti.
The death of those children does not symbolize any sort of opportunity for the future of Haitians. If anything the collapse of La Promesse symbolizes the loss of those who provided Haiti with a dream for the future.

This is a desperate situation but I am not trying to paint a demoralizing picture. Hope is important and trying to find positives, although very difficult, is absolutely necessary in the process of alleviating the destitution in Haiti. I just don’t think trying to use the deaths of innocent children as a positive is constructive, especially for those families grieving the loss of their beloved.

Will Grassby