On corruption

[bcholmes]

Here's a comment I left in james_nicoll's journal, in response to someone who opined that Haiti really needs a "better class of corrupt politician":

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I've been trying to formulate a response to this. I don't want to deny that there is corruption among Haitian politicians; there clearly are many corrupt politicians in Haiti.

But having said that, I think that the stories of corruption in Haiti are used unfairly against Haiti. I think Aristide, for example, was trashed in the media as having become "another Duvalier" -- both corrupt and involved in human rights abuses -- when those things don't appear to be supported by any available evidence.

I further think that stories of corruption have been used to handwave about why neoliberal reforms in Haiti don't actually appear to be helping the country. "Why, if there wasn't so much corruption, our aid would be more effective." The book, Bad Samaritans talks about this trend, and it manifests in Haiti near-perfectly.

Lastly, the stories of "corrupt politicians" in Haiti has utility for countries like the U.S. and Canada: we use it to justify excluding the Haitian government from having any say over the way that our countries are restructuring the Haitian state. I mean, just eight months ago or thereabouts, Bev Oda, the minister in charge of CIDA rejected the Haitian government's explicit request to have more say over the types of projects that Canada funds in Haiti saying that Haiti must "do more to combat corruption." In my opinion, this emphasis on corruption acts as a smokescreen to disenfranchise the Haitian people from the running of their country.

I've met with Haitian officials at all levels of governments. Most of them seemed like honest folk trying to do something productive with no resources whatsoever. (On the other hand, there are senators I wouldn't trust at all). The western idea that Haiti is overrun with corrupt politicians is part of a narrative that serves our governments' agenda for Haiti.

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[wild_irises]

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