HAITI: Re-foundation of a Nation

After the Major Earthquake in Haiti, Re-founding the Nation and Rebuilding the state will always refer to regrouping bureaucratic institutions, creating a proper infrastructure, drawing the new foundations of a realistic and pragmatic constitution with appropriate laws, firm principles, sound procedures, and better policies. It means identifying the state’s core functions including justice, police, education, health, etc., and satisfying the needs for each. Rebuilding the Haitian state is also preparing this entity for collective action when the forces of nature hit, because the state is there to ensure safety and protection at all-time according to the concept of institutional risk analysis promoted by David H. Root, Bill Janeway, and others. Working states, like ultimate risk insurers, minimize the effects of natural disasters and save lives by the preventive and reactive actions they take through their functional institutions. The risk insurers’ policy covers everyone, not only the rich or the dominant party in power. …Rebuilding the Haitian state will also mean pouring the cement of national unity and good order on the sand of public safety; it means protection of lives and property, promotion of justice and equity. It means stirring the mortar of a consensus between various authorities and agencies, all with the view of establishing solid walls and a superstructure of earthquake-proof policies and anti-replicas regulations. It is an appeal to move the Haitian state from the geological faults on which it has been sitting since 1804. It also means to decentralize power in such a way that both the center and periphery (including the Diaspora) enjoy equal rights and privileges. In fact, all the institutions must be re-crafted because all the Haitian institutions without a single exception perished on January 12. Before the coup de grace all of them were in fact riddled with alarming weaknesses in all areas. The Birth of a Haitian Nation The Big Earthquake will serve to provide evidence that Haitian nation building is possible. Those who accused us of not being a nation will soon be surprised. Indeed, the international opinion was astonished by the solidarity of all Haitian strata during the disaster. Our observers tell us they have seen our sacrifice in trying to save our brothers and even the foreigners who had piously come to die with us. They have seen us sharing one piece of bread before the arrival of aid. The customary lassitude gave way to a burst of stoicism and heroism. This was the alarm that woke the Haitians. Add to this gift of resilience and willingness to live (and to live together) the vast cultural riches of Haiti, its rich imagination, its creativity, and its sense of family. These attributes that remain strong, or rather that the natural holocaust has strengthened, announce that the state once rebuilt will not struggle to build the nation we all dream of. The Re-foundation of the Haitian State. What does it mean? Refounding the state means to build institutional structures that promote a degree of democracy acceptable to all; it also means to create a viable environment favorable to the development of the country. It means the establishment of the three Branches of the State on a rational basis with a view to ensuring a fair and permanent balance of power. This brings us to a new Constitution able to meet new desiderata and constantly defended by a serious and vigilant Constitutional Court. Having such a legal device without having people who understand and are willing to respect and apply it, would certainly be foolish. So should we, by re-crafting the state, inculcate to the young generation from childhood sufficient education and awareness for them to be willing to comply with the law... To return to our key points we can say again that: Any functioning state raises its foundation on the accumulation of wealth through production.... Haiti needs to increase its production instead of destroying what we have in so-called revolutions. Every state needs a leading class, a thinking elite as well as human resources adept in the art of producing wealth through sustainable technology. Re-founding the Haitian state means creating and strengthening this working elite while we’re gradually defeating the treacherous, lazy and reactionary elite which for over 200 years has made our plans go astray and turned away. Any state worthy of the name must ‒ from its formation‒ promote production and protect producers against both internal and external depredations. The new Haitian state must oppose all obstacles that seek to destroy its production. The first production must be human resources qualified according to international standards. Any potentially viable state bases its economy on large estates and full exploitation of technology by providing a suitable mass production. The new Haitian state must relinquish ownership of the small piece of land for subsistence agriculture and move towards a larger system always protected by law. Any State desperately needs one or more sponsors in the "international community" for support and guidance. The sponsors and friends who came to help after the Earthquake should be maintained but closely monitored so that their intentions are real assistance and cooperation and not otherwise. At the same time Haiti, showing no xenophobia, should not play villain with them. In the new game theory the rule is giving and receiving and not a zero-sum move. Each state is founded under the tutelage of a ruling class in harmonious unity of thought and unity of action. Reforms in governance in general, reforms in justice, the Constitution, the electoral system, reforms in public administration etc.. if they take place properly, will create unity of thought and action generating social cohesion and economic well-being. …This book is not a call for resignation, as if long-term path dependence were a curse thrown against us or as if we could never get rid of it. The purpose of this book is to infuse a “supplement of soul” to all Haitians so that by joining forces in the aftermath of the Big Earthquake we can finally wrest Haiti out of the cruel determinism of the “longue durée” and the ugly path where we are now bogged into because of the events of the past.