Notes on Poverty Porn

Today is Haitian Flag Day, a national holiday celebrated around the country by all. This past weekend, while travelling through the country side, I ran into many repetitions and parades with adolescents marching on the streets and stomping out lyrics of national unity. Small paper flags on splintered sticks are carried everywhere and perched in the tautly pulled back hair of young girls and woman alike. Students from all schools come together to march down main roads, and onlookers wave their flags cheerfully. Scouts-- boys, girls and adults-- take the opportunity to don their khaki uniforms and yellow scarves, among others in solid blue and red, the colors of the Haitian flag. The festivities glimmer with the same level of pride from which the country was born. It gives one a good feeling.  

But then I came across this article, "Haiti; The Land Where Children Eat Mud" in the The Sunday Times by Alex von Tunzelmann. Like most people who follow Haiti regularly, I'm tired of the recycled "mudcake" story and I'm tired of sensationalized media stories bent on attracting readers with "the sky is falling" headlines instead of offering readers in-depth analysis and truth telling. But von Tunzelmann's article is worse than recycling. It takes the misrepresentation of a people, the culture and the country to a new level.

This is irresponsible journalism that contributes as much as rice dumping, corrupt politicians, and poor foreign policy to Haiti's oppression, by creating poverty porn images for ignorant audiences. When people far away mention Haiti, Sunday Times readers will have to add to the conversation how they once read this article that said half of all women in Haiti have been raped. Where the hell did the author dig up this static? According to the author Carrefour Feuilles is one of the most dangerous places in Haiti, huh? She starts off her piece by saying, "If you ever hear of Haiti it is usually because of something frightening." The next sentence should be, "And why the heck should this article be any different."

Just yesterday I finished a book called, "Travesty in Haiti" by Timothy T. Schwartz, kudos to this guy. In Appendix E of his book, Timote discusses the absence of data collection by all the major aid institutions in the field of crop yields (pun intended). That is, during the time of his research no institution could say how much food Haiti was producing. Let me repeat this: NO ONE KNEW HOW MUCH FOOD HAITI WAS PRODUCING. But I'm sure that when the author, in her second paragraph, refers to Malthusian theory (Econ 101: when populations outgrow their ability to produce enough food for domestic consumption), she knows exactly how much domestic food production and consumption is taking place in Haiti. As a result, she could say with certainty "...Haiti has not only met but exceeded the conditions of a Malthusian catastrophe." (Econ 101: the Malthusian theory is archaic B.S. because of trade and open markets).  

Now, I don't want to sound like I have my head in the sand. I'm the first to admit that Haiti has serious problems: ideological, political, economical, etc. But let me also be the first to say that this author and her article have serious problems when they print that a recent government clean-up initiative has forced street vendors to resort to serious crimes to make ends meet. The Haitian Department of Public Works (TPTC), now actually functioning under the Preval administration, is enforcing an age-old law that requires property owners to build their property walls two meters from the street. The TPTC then installs sidewalks for people to walk on. Novel idea, eh?

As part of this initiative they require vendors to respect public property as well. Therefore, street vendors are forced to retreat to government-designated market areas to sell their wares. Yes, there are problems with this and there are problems with vendors turning public property into open markets. However, I have a hard time believing that the author found evidence that, after being ejected from her location, a 55-year-old Haitian grandmother who once sold Maggie cubes and bonbon sel on the street is now the person I need to see when I want to score a hit or buy a nine milimeter, and I should be careful because at any moment she may size me up for ransom. If you see through my thick sarcasm I'm referring to the author's second-to-last paragraph on the first page, online version.

I almost didn't make it past the third paragraph but felt that perhaps reading more I'd absolve the writer based on some major discovery she made during her trip. After all, I usually give first-timers the benefit of the doubt. And if they can just come away with something accurate or positive from their visit to Haiti, then I encourage them. You know, positive reinforcement. But I was wrong. And after that I was livid. The Sunday Times print circulation is 1.05 million in 2009 (Audit Bureau Circulations). Telling this many people so many inaccuracies has to be wrong somewhere. Throw a dart at this article and you'll hit one of them.

The author, referring to recent advancements in US legislation to allow textile manufacturers in Haiti to benefit from duty-free status, wrote that since 2006, 3,000 jobs have been created and that "the results look good on paper." Sure, if Haiti were a country of 2,900 people. I wouldn't like to know what the author thinks looks bad on paper.

About two weeks ago I attended a screening of a documentary about PePe (Haitian Second Hand Clothing) in Carrefour Feuilles at the Bibliotheque Soliel. It was mostly attended by young Haitian men from the neighbourhood (they probably told their parents they were going to hang out with their gangbanger friends). After the screening there was a Q&A with the filmmaker. And the very first question and comment came from a young man who said he didn't like the film because the images used were those that always represent Haiti's worst side, the poverty.

In the context of the film and its objective I couldn't disagree more with this young man's observation.  However, I couldn't ignore what he was saying. It was real. Although Haiti is in in real trouble, Haitians are tired of being poor and more so annoyed with foreigners portraying them as poor. Let them speak for their poverty-- not someone else who packages it as their own rough and tough experience through the slums of the most dangerous country in the western hemisphere.  And certainly not by someone who feels that peanut sellers are wary of them. Machann pistach!

In the beginning of the article the author asks the question "Just why is Haiti in such a dire situation...?" leaving you to believe that what follows will reveal why. But for anyone who knows squat about Haiti she does little to really find out. The rest of the article is filled with more recycled snippets about the food crisis, mudcakes, Duvalier, debt, Aristide, The World Bank, hurricanes, restaveks, and all the other "frightening" clichés that readers would have heard about Haiti if they had heard about it at all. Wow! Thanks for the news.

Entwined with this fear is a personal and often inaccurate account of Haiti by the author. But I have some sympathy-- so much so that, since she did little to answer her own question, "...why is Haiti in such a dire situation?", I'll give her an answer or at least a place to start: From the many untruths that plague it.