“We may have come on different ships, but we are all in the same boat”. That is a most picturesque and succulent saying for which the Rev. Dr. Jesse Jackson has become well known. In it he asserts the common destiny and responsibility of all the American people. Winston Calliste, better known as The Black Stalin, in his celebrated calypso classic The Caribbean Man, reminds the people of the region that our destiny as a single people is not unrelated to the fact that we, descendants of slaves and indentured labourers, may have come on the “same ship” and are on the “same trip”!
Even a cursory reading of our modern Caribbean history beginning with the Columbus event indicates that ships, boats and boat-people are a common feature of our culture and personality.
In the wake of the recent turmoil and agony of the Republic of Haiti, however, there has been an unprecedented number of people who have taken to the seas in small, un-seaworthy craft, some making it to Cuba, Jamaica, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Dominica. If the estimates are correct, it could mean that there is a level of human carnage finding watery graves around Haiti, which, could constitute a major tragedy in our regional history.
The US Administration’s position is based upon a comparatively recent United Nations reclassification of refugees which has created a category of “economic refugees”. Interestingly enough, Haitians continue to be the ones who automatically qualify most consistently, for this status. The thousands who fled Cuba through Mariel did not. On the contrary, they were given red-carpet treatment in Florida. Neither did the thirty thousand Nicaraguans who were received in the US in the space of one month, nor of the tens of thousands from Eastern Europe who continue to arrive.
An earlier administration had argued that it could not take in refugees from Haiti while its government remained friendly with the US. Surely the present conditions represent a change in that status quo! The present Haitian administration has been unable to function for at least the last three months! Does it also have to be communist for charges of ungovernability to be believed?
To be sure, grinding poverty and widespread hunger have become endemic in Haiti and many would want to flee.
In a moment of national crisis the prophet Isaiah (chapter 51) admonished his people to “look to the rock from which they were hewn, the quarry from which they were digged”. For him, it is in the recognition of our pedigree that real physical and spiritual creative energy is derived.
Stalin’s allusion to the slave-ships crossing the dreaded Middle Passage reminds us that we are all boat-people ourselves and that it could very well be that if some of our fore bearers had not landed here, they could well have been taken to Haiti. Let us recall, further, that on January 1st 1804, Haiti became the first Black Republic in the western hemisphere, freeing themselves from the clutches of some other boat-people under the command of Napoleon’s brother-in-law, General Leclerc. One of their earliest legislative enactments declared that once a slave set foot in Haiti he or she was automatically free! And a flood of boat-people converged upon Haiti from all round the Caribbean especially from Jamaica, the Bahamas, and the Southern USA. So how do we Caribbean people go about saying and doing “NO” to Haitians today?
And how do we turn our backs upon those, the courage of whose heroes inspired ours to wrest freedom and to struggle for justice, peace and self-determination? How about using our boats (Coast Guard Vessels) and ourselves plucking out of the Caribbean waters those who are ethnically, historically, culturally and spiritually our kith and kin, opening our arms and hearts to them, and offering them, with the help of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the temporary relief that they are seeking?
And finally, when will our Caribbean and CARICOM governments be less self-depreciating and more proactive in relation to this challenge? Our co-operation in the Organization of American States and the United Nations are commendable. But Haiti is our challenge and we need to be in the vanguard of confronting it, informing ourselves and our people, consulting each other, coming up with creative solutions and acting together with help from outside to deal with it.
You see, there is another sense in which we are in the same boat: some thirty-three years ago, when Rev. Allan Kirton assumed office as General Secretary of the CCC, he signaled then that there was a process afoot which he called then the Haitianisation of the region. Probably there is no reason today to change that judgement since the economic and social situation throughout the Caribbean has worsened.
The “smell” of Haiti intensifies. If we think that by plugging our nostrils, covering our eyes and numbing all our other senses the problem will go away, we are sadly mistaken. Our silence and inactivity, far from distancing us from the challenge is bringing us closer to it or it to us:
“There is a destiny that makes us brothers;
None goes on his way alone.
For what we send into the lives of others
Comes back into our own.”
“For in as much as you did it .. did it not … to one
of the least of these brothers (and sisters)
you did it … did it not … to me.” Spoke Jesus Christ.
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My word to Haiti is to dediacate their country to God. Because their fore fathers sold Haiti to the devil. When you sell yourself to the devil for things, he always comes back to collect.
The West continues to pay lip service to the Haitian cause knowing full well that the problem in Haiti is a structural issue. The top 1% of the population control all the wealth while millions languish in poverty.
With a population of about 10 million we cannot solve Haiti’s problem with charitable donations or the granting of asylum to a few refugees. Haiti, and the Caribbean in general, need a massive Marshall Plan to build thousands of schools, housing units, health centers, factories, roads and farms. A few grains of rice and peanuts from the USA will not cut it. We need trillions of dollars to do the things we need to live dignified lives like every human being in the West. Let’s make Haitians proud to return to develop their country instead of having others run away, creating resentment in the host countries.
Haitian are the most untrustworthy people, i wouldnt do an iota of move to help a haitian, i dont hate them but they are loke woodants, they dig under your when they need help and as soon as they get it and they reach what they wanted they forget you, they pass you on the street as though they never knew you, dam ungrateful set of people and the so dam bold!
We are Haiti Now!!! WE did not learn JACK from the lessons of Haiti! I didn’t even read your piece.. What makes you think we are better than Haiti?
That’s the reason why they need to go back to rebuild their countries cause with them in DA God and all the evil God will surely turn his back on DA, what happened yesterday is just the beginning of what to come
People need not to trust Haitians, wherever they land, they have their agenda, destroy, evil and move on to greener pastures
Wow that was deep,thanks for that piece of his history,I have lived in Florida for quite a number of years,and I find that the black Americans really support the Haitians (there are thousands maybe tens of thousands of them here)but it’s interesting to know that Jamaicans of all people ran to Haiti back then,Jamaicans strongly dislike Haitians,I do agree that some of them are really difficult to deal with but so are some of us.I have worked in supervisery position over Haitians and Jamaicans together in the same facility and Jamaicans make thelives a living hell I would often have to come to their rescue,but WOW thanks again for this explosive piece of info and I promise I will behave smh hmmm!!