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I found these driving video of a Haitian that visited Haiti in late 2014 and took them while traveling through different parts of Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. As everyone know, five years ago this metropolis was severely affected by a massive earthquake that made tremendous destruction. Considering that it's the capital of one of the 10 least developed country in the world and most countries that promised to help haven't sent a single dime, looking at the videos I think the city looks better than expected. I'm not saying it looks great, because I don't think it did before the earthquake, but it doesn't look as destructed as the media made it out to look.
All videos were uploaded on YouTube by Caracrement.
Port-au-Prince is the second largest city on the island of Hispaniola, one of the largest cities in the Caribbean, and the largest black city outside of Africa. Sometimes I wonder why rich African Americans like Oprah do more to help countries in Africa than they do to help Haiti, when Haiti is so close to the USA (flight from Miami is probably an hour and a half.) Its not just AA's that need to help Haiti, but I mention them because they are the richest community of African descent in the world and many have this Pan-African outlook of helping blacks all over the world but I don't see much interest in helping Haiti when its so close to the U.S. and in so much need.
This last video appears to be of a gated community full of mansions.
I was expecting to see much more rubble in this city of 2 million people.
Why does the media not update the world on how Haiti is doing 5 years after the earthquake? They were quick to show the disaster when it happened but now they hardly remember that Haiti even exist. If there is a country that needs to be in people's mind it's Haiti to see if more international help is given to them, especially the 85% of the pledged money by the world in 2010 and have yet to give a dime to Haiti. If countries don't plan to help them, why promise and then not live up to the promise?
If Haiti was populated by Europeans the media would be all over Haiti.
Western media don't care about Non-white people.
Thousand people got killed in Nigeria yet the media was all over 7 people that got killed on the streets of Paris. White lives matter more in this world and whoever that says no, please......
Haiti was able to sustain itself in th 1980's, their farmers (80 percent of the population) were able to survive. Today, many of them are out of business thanks to US governement subsidized rice flooding Haiti from the US. Companies in the US were making a profit at US tax payer expense while farmers in Haiti were losing their farms. What Haiti needs is not for the UN to build them houses, they need to be able to survive as farmers since farmers are such a large part of the population. If farmers can make it, they will be able to build houses. What they have now is a destroyed farming economy thanks to US farming subsidies and dependence on other countries.
If Haiti was populated by Europeans the media would be all over Haiti.
Western media don't care about Non-white people.
Thousand people got killed in Nigeria yet the media was all over 7 people that got killed on the streets of Paris. White lives matter more in this world and whoever that says no, please......
The answer lies in your statement: "Thousand people got killed in Nigeria". Where is the sensation in that?
Haiti was able to sustain itself in th 1980's, their farmers (80 percent of the population) were able to survive. Today, many of them are out of business thanks to US governement subsidized rice flooding Haiti from the US. Companies in the US were making a profit at US tax payer expense while farmers in Haiti were losing their farms. What Haiti needs is not for the UN to build them houses, they need to be able to survive as farmers since farmers are such a large part of the population. If farmers can make it, they will be able to build houses. What they have now is a destroyed farming economy thanks to US farming subsidies and dependence on other countries.
I don't think that explains much of Haiti's decline because the whole island and many other Caribbean islands and Central American nations were flooded with cheap US rice and they didn't went out of the rice business, in fact in neighboring Dominican Republic they are still self sufficient in rice and are one of the largest rice producer in the Central American and Caribbean region. I also doubt most Haitian farmers were into rice farming.
A similar argument is made about the substitution of the traditional pig with an American type of pig due to some disease that was ravaging the original pig population. This substitution was not just done in Haiti but also in Dominican Republic and yet, somehow, Haiti was the most affected.
I have also read some people's work where they basically blame the French for Haiti's heavy deforestation, basically claiming that much of Haiti's forest were wiped out in colonial times. The only problem with that hypothesis is that foreigners that visited Haiti up to the American occupation from 1915 to 1934 all describe Haiti as being heavily forested. One American guy who had been to several Caribbean islands even said Haiti was even more fertile than Dominican Republic and that it was the more beautiful part of the island and the most beautiful place of all the Caribbean islands. French rule of Haiti ended in 1804 and most of them were subsequently massacred by orders of Jean Jacques Dessalines to prevent their future generations from ruling Haiti ever again. How can the French be at fault for Haiti's deforestation? I never quite understood that.
That was then and now much of Haiti looks like this:
I think the effect of deforestation and the expansion of desert like conditions is much more to blame for Haiti's decline in agricultural production. Originally most of Haiti looked like what much of Dominican Republic still looks like:
You can even tell Haiti's scenery was mostly forested by focusing on Haitian popular paintings. They haven't changed the themes of their paintings in centuries and whenever they paint scenes of Haiti's countryside they always paint it as a very lush and heavily forested scenery when today that is true in a tiny part of Haiti. They are simply copying the painting styles of their ancestors who were inspired in the natural beauty of the Haiti of back then, which was full of forests and massive numbers of trees everywhere people went.
I personally think that Haitian politicians are at fault for Haiti's deforestation. They probably secretly carved up the forest for themselves and made fortunes mostly exporting the very luxurious and expensive wood such as Mahogany.
Here is another video from the same account I found the videos I posted at the beginning of this thread.
In this video they are driving to Jacmel on the southern coast and they are crossing from north to south the long southern peninsula. The only reason I wanto to show this video is because it am pleasantly surprised that at least that part of Haiti is still nicely wooded. I don't know if the whole peninsula is like that or if it's only in spots, but I'm glad all of Haiti isn't clean of its trees.
The following videos are of Jacmel. I can see plenty of potential for tourism to develop there due to the nice architecture. If they can give the buildings more maintenance and invest in beautifying and upgrading the road network, and encourage foreign hoteliers to build and open resorts along the coast near the town plus an airport; and Jacmel can definitely become a nice vacation spot. That will also boost employment and the overall economy of the area.
The Beach Area
The Town (notice many of what appear to be French Colonial buildings, it even resembles somewhat the historic area of New Orleans which was a French city in colonial times.)
They should consider building a pier big enough to accomodate cruise ships.
I'm going to come off as imperialistic here with what I say because I believe it needs to be said. My view is that Haiti should've been made a protectorate of the United States by making it a US territory. Yes it would cause an exodus of Haitians to the United States probably a few million of them. Yes it would cause problems in US cities like Miami, New Orleans, NYC, etc. However it would be necessary in my view. Haiti's biggest problems are corruption and lack of good intention (ie investment, charity, aid, etc) from the rest of the world. If Haiti was a US territory it's problems would be brought into clear view with a lot of attention focused on it.
The US should've signed a deal with Haiti giving it territory status for 20 years after which it Haitians get to vote whether it goes back to being an independent country or it gets statehood. The vote has to be decisive either way so that way Haiti doesn't get stuck in limbo like Puerto Rico currently is. This to me would fix the problems in Haiti once and bring Haiti finally into the developed world. Would this be easy? Hell no. It would be a lot two steps forward one step back but I honestly believe Haiti joining the US even only temporarily would be the best chance it has. Haiti was once very developed when the US controlled it. The US pulled out of Haiti and left the place fall apart which the US does deserve **** for since it caused a lot of problems. That and when the US did run Haiti the elected Haitian officials were puppets basically.
Going by history if they actually give Haitians the ability to really elect there leaders and the US does root out corruption and while providing aid. Haiti will do well again and this time would be stable regardless if it goes back to being an independent nation or becomes a State. South Korea was an extremely backward place and in a few decades they have become one of the most developed countries in the world. Haiti could end up being a success story like South Korea if the corruption is rooted out and the US helps build it up like it did South Korea.
Anyway those are my views about Haiti. Feel free to call me an imperialist or racist or whatever but honestly I think what I outlined would be the best possible solution for Haiti.
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