Keeping the bastards honest in Haiti (as the profitable smell of blood is whetting contractors appetite)
Why it is important to keep the bastards honest in Haiti as aid money is pouring in, heartbreaking images dominate the international news, and the profitable smell of blood is whetting contractors appetite.
Naomi Klein articulated in great details the systemic issues faced by countries in the aftermaths of disasters.
In The Shock Doctrine, she explained “how crises are often used as the pretext for pushing through policies that you cannot push through under times of stability. Countries in periods of extreme crisis are desperate for any kind of aid, any kind of money, and are not in a position to negotiate fairly the terms of that exchange.”
Naomi Klein’s work is not a rhetorical or theoretical thesis. It is about real situations such as what is unfolding in Haiti right now. More than ever is heightened public awareness necessary to prevent “disaster capitalists” from taking advantage of post-crisis chaos.
Support for the emergency relief to the natural disaster is unequivocal.
First, let’s be clear and pre-empt comments: the point of this post is not to whinge or to be cynical about public sympathy for the victims.
The immediate focus on the emergency response is an absolute necessity and a cause that public opinion needs to support. Collecting the dead, healing the wounded, establishing access to clean water and setting-up emergency shelters for those who lost their homes: that will be the full-time task for the next couple of months, at least, for organizations like the United Nations, the Red Cross and Médecins sans frontières (MSF), which have been (sadly and ironically) present on the ground because of a string of previous problems – including recent hurricanes.
Logistical support is needed: quickly. Money is needed: lots of it.
We won’t try to explain here the reason why the simple, decent and rational thought about the disaster is not enough to raise money. It will remain part of the unbearable lightness of human nature that Hollywood celebrities seem to do a better job than foreign correspondents and editorials. Or maybe we need both… in any case, the masses need dramatization.
So when common decency is not enough, the Barnum Circus of Charity Entertainment kicks in to ask people to reach deep in their pockets and donate. With it comes sensationalism of the news and appeal to raw emotions (the good, the bad and the tarty).
Forget about the way it was raised, at least the money collected by the telethon ‘Hope for Haiti’ seems to meet the short term requirement to mobilize emergency funds quickly.
But as raw emotion runs high, the public sense of critical thinking and awareness must not vanish when it is most needed: to prevent a second man-made after-shock menacing the people of Haiti.
As Katie Paul wrote in Newsweek “Bottom feeders follow closely on the heels of disaster. After Hurricane Katrina, private security contractors landed in New Orleans, hired to guard against looters. After the Indian Ocean tsunami, governments in Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, and the Maldives pushed aside coastal villages to make way for resort developers. That’s what author Naomi Klein says in her book The Shock Doctrine, arguing that “disaster capitalists” take advantage of post-crisis chaos to push through a set of free-market reforms that further their own interests, rather than those of the victims.”
Naomi Klein argues that it is the case in Haiti right now, even as rescue operations are still underway.
“The shock doctrine is the use of disasters to avoid democracy—using the state of dislocation following a disaster to say that people aren’t able to make decisions, so someone else needs to do it for them. But that means policies are pushed through very quickly—unpopular policies that were often on a wish list for elites anyway, but that can suddenly be implemented because people are either traumatized or literally wiped out.”
In the case of Haiti, the Heritage Foundation cannot wait for the dust to settle to call for pro-corporate so-called reforms™.
“They didn’t even wait 24 hours before they called for the Obama administration to reform Haiti’s economy. They also suggested that George W. Bush be appointed and, lo and behold, he was appointed the next day. So they appear to have an audience.”
They are one of the leading organisations devoted to expend the kingdom of market’s invisible hand as part of what Naomie Klein branded the Shock Doctrine, already calls for the US to take this opportunity warned Naomi in a recent address in NewYork:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/14/naomi_klein_issues_haiti_disaster_capitalism
Rush transcript:
But as I write about in The Shock Doctrine, crises are often used now as the pretext for pushing through policies that you cannot push through under times of stability. Countries in periods of extreme crisis are desperate for any kind of aid, any kind of money, and are not in a position to negotiate fairly the terms of that exchange.
And I just want to pause for a second and read you something, which is pretty extraordinary. I just put this up on my website. The headline is “Haiti: Stop Them Before They Shock Again.” This went up a few hours ago, three hours ago, I believe, on the Heritage Foundation website.
Here is an excerpt of the Heritage Foundation website:
[…] In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake should address long-held concerns over the fragile political environment that exists in the region. The U.S. government response should be bold and decisive. It must mobilize U.S. civilian and military capabilities for short-term rescue and relief and long-term recovery and reform. […] Long-term reforms for Haitian democracy and its economy are also badly overdue. Congress should immediately begin work on a package of assistance, trade, and reconstruction efforts needed to put Haiti on its feet and open the way for deep and lasting democratic reforms. […]The following quote was hastily yanked by the Heritage Foundation and replaced with a more diplomatic quote, but their first instinct is revealing: “In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region.”
Is this avoidable? Yes it is.
Naomi Klein gives the example of the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in The Shock Doctrine (republished by NewsWeek )
In Thailand. Dozens of coastal villages were flattened by the wave, but unlike in Sri Lanka, many Thai settlements were successfully rebuilt within months. The difference did not come from the government. Thailand’s politicians were just as eager as those elsewhere to use the storm as an excuse to evict fishing people and hand over land tenure to large resorts. Yet what set Thailand apart was that villagers approached all government promises with intense skepticism and refused to wait patiently in camps for an official reconstruction plan. Instead, within weeks, hundreds of villagers engaged in what they called land “reinvasions.”
[…]
They marched past the armed guards on the payroll of developers, tools in hand, and began marking off the sites where their old houses had been”
[…]
The most daring reinvasions were performed by Thailand’s indigenous fishing peoples called the Moken, or “sea gypsies.” After centuries of disenfranchisement, the Moken had no illusions that a benevolent state would give them a decent piece of land in exchange for the coastal properties that had been seized.
So, in one dramatic case, […] the villagers negotiated a deal with the government to give up part of their oceanfront property in exchange for legal security on the rest of their ancestral land. Today, the rebuilt village is a showcase of Moken culture, complete with museum, community centre, school and market. “Now, officials from the sub-district come to Ban Tung Wah to learn about ‘people-managed tsunami rehabilitation’ while researchers and university students turn up there by the bus-full to study ‘indigenous people’s wisdom.’”
In the case of Haiti public opinion’s pressure is applying on the IMF to make good on its promise to forgive all $265 million of debt Haiti owes. The Inter-American Development Bank IDB should do the same with its massive $477 million debt.
As Richard Kim pointed out in The Nation last week, it’s no accident that Haiti lacks infrastructure and is vulnerable to natural disaster Haiti has been burdened for centuries by the bondage of slavery and debt. Freed slaves were forced to pay reparations to their former slave owners, and Kim notes that “by 1900, Haiti was spending 80% of its national budget on repayments.” It’s unconscionable, but it’s not unlike what the right is asking for now.
Meanwhile (no connection) US troops are sent to control the country, read: ‘enforce security for the aid agencies’: Only twisted minds such as satanist Chavez see a problem there “There is not a shortage of guns there, my God. Doctors, medicine, fuel, field hospitals, that’s what the United States should send”.
{ NKN & leLaissezFaire }
Decode the media…
- read more from the good Naomi Klein:
http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2010/01/exploitation-nation-naomi-klein-worries-haitians-wont-have-role-shaping-their-futur
http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2010/01/haiti-disaster-capitalism-alert-stop-them-they-shock-again
- read more from the bad Heritage Foundation:
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/13/things-to-remember-while-helping-haiti
- read more from the ugly Chavez:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60G2DW20100117
- “Bottom feeders follow closely on the heels of disaster”: The profitable smell of blood and a good & efficient sense of business is not lost on everyone:
http://ipoaworld.org/eng/haiti.html
http://www.haiti-security.com/Services.html
- The Heritage Foundation is a well-known conservative American think tank whose stated mission is to “formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.”
- Reforms™ is code name for a new economy with new export zones, tax breaks, public money to rebuild private factories, waving of taxes that would collect necessary funds to rebuild Haiti’s public sector, which is part of what is deeply needed.
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