My heart has been aching for Haiti and for those with loved ones there. I was struck by the words of the Haitian minister of tourism, who a day or two after the earthquake, after losing his family and his home, said “this is bad today, but one must remember that we have the historical memory of slavery here, what can be worse than that?” I have no idea how many people in Haiti feel a connection to the legacy of slavery in their day to day lives. Apparently the minister of tourism does. In my life and worldview, history plays a crucial role in the present. How many people out there feel connected to their history? How many more people draw on their connection to their history in times of suffering?

The past few days, I’ve spent a lot of time on the web reading articles and looking at photographs. The media out here in Argentina seems to be really playing up the “potential for anarchy to break out at any moment” angle. I was surprised, particularly in the US media, post-Katrina, to see the term “looting” used so often. In my mind, the difference is pretty clear: those who take for personal gain = looters. Those who take for survival = survivors, victims, or perhaps they could be described as they are. For example: “A young man searches the ruins of a collapsed grocery store for food and water.”

David Brooks, a journalist who up until recently I respected, wrote an op-ed entitled “The Underlying Tragedy” in the Times that is another example of how accepted racist thought is in the media, in society in general, and also how full of shit a lot of journalists are when they pretend to have compassion for other peoples’ suffering. The tone of the editorial is matter of fact. practical. If you were sitting in Brook’s living room discussing the tragedy, he would’ve led with “I know this isn’t politically correct, but this is one of those times when adhering to political correctness keeps ‘us’ from talking about the real issues. let’s be real.”

Brook’s asks readers to consider why it is that the Dominican Republic withstood this earthquake with relatively minimal damage while Haiti is suffering its greatest national disaster ever and a death toll of tens and tens of thousands of people. His response is “poverty”. And in his explanation for why Haiti has been stuck in such dire poverty, he asks readers to accept four “hard truths”: 1) “we (meaning the US government & other rich nations) don’t know how to use aid to reduce poverty.” 2) “micro-aid is vital but insufficient 3) the role of the “thorny issue of culture” and 4)the need “to promote locally led paternalism” that involves imposing “middle-class assumptions, an achievement ethos and tough, measurable demands.”

Basically, Brook’s asserts that Haitian culture is a main culprit, a root cause in the poverty of the nation and in its history of suffering. And that the failure of outside nations has been a failure to implement what he calls “locally led, paternalistic programs” that root out the negatives of Haitian culture. He outlines three main problems in Haitian culture: 1) “influence of the voodoo religion” (he doesn’t provide any specifics) 2) “high levels of social mistrust” (again no specifics) and 3) “child rearing practices [that] often involve neglect..” that have prohibited the country from embracing the type of change that could have helped build the infrastructure that reduces poverty and thus the degree of suffering in the aftermath of a natural disaster like this earthquake. He uses both the D.R. and Barbados as examples of countries that have endured either slavery or dictatorships and yet have the infrastructure to deal with large-scale natural disasters. Cuba, not surprisingly, isn't mentioned.

Not once in Brook’s article does he mention specific structural forces such as debt-inducing loans or factors such as the nonprofit industrial complex and racism, as playing any role in Haiti’s struggle for economic stability. He gives no supporting data/evidence for his cultural claims. The two main experts he sites throughout the article are Samuel P. Huntington and Lawrence E. Harrison. Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” is used to justify military action by both US military forces and Muslim extremists by proclaiming that the east and west contain inherent contradictions and cannot coexist. That one must go for the other to survive. Harrison recently co-authored an article entitled “Getting Mexico on Track” in which the opening line states that “Mexico has not been able to find its way to development because Mexicans lack confidence in themselves.” These are the experts that support and give credence to Brook’s worldview.

As if it were a new innovative approach, Brook’s suggests that America should go into a country, assert that that country’s religion and culture is backwards, and find local leaders to push a pro-America agenda. And I guess it wouldn’t be all that surprising if it wasn’t for his timing and for the fact that I thought he was a journalist with a degree of integrity. Perhaps I’ve given him too much time and too many words. I started writing this wondering about the past, how it informs our lives, and half wondering how, half praying for, Haitian people to use the past, or whatever else they can, to find strength to keep on surviving…