Harper in Haiti

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has made relief and reconstruction for Haiti a major cause for his government, will travel to the earthquake-ravaged nation today to see the recovery efforts firsthand.

His visit comes as international efforts to aid Haiti, still struggling to provide basics such as food and shelter and sweep rubble from roads, increasingly look ahead to the task of rebuilding the poorest nation in the Americas almost from scratch.

— Harper heads to Haiti to see recovery efforts , The Globe and Mail

I wonder how many people they had to arrest in anticipation of this visit?

I should have taken this moment to talk about this...

As I mentioned in my previous post, our Prime Minister went to Haiti today.

There's this photo of his previous visit, in 2007. I've been sketching from it, recently. I want to use it in a cartooning assignment. But here it is:

( This woman is my hero )

In this photo, Harper is in Site Soley. It's a medical clinic in Site Soley that, presumably, Canada provides aid to. In advance of this visit -- which, let's face it, was just a photo opportunity -- several political organizers were arrested. They were planning to protest Harper's visit to Site Soley and make the argument that, really, the cameras shouldn't be pointing at little medical clinics: the big emphasis on Canadian "aid" to Haiti was in the form of the Haitian National Police -- a police force that's been pretty brutal in places like Site Soley.

And, of course, in an ironic twist, that same police force rounded up the leaders of the protest so that journalists wouldn't be confused about where to point their cameras. I should mention that one of the prominent community leaders who spoke out about the arrests was Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.

What I admire most about the picture is the women. Particularly the woman in red. She gets what's going on. Harper is mugging for the cameras. In the presence of poor, tragic Haitians, mired in economic misery.

And she doesn't even deign to notice his presence. What she's denying him is respect -- which, for Haitians, is probably the most valued thing that they have.