Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier is back in Haiti. After 25 years of exile in France, the former dictator and son of another dictator, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, returned to Port-au-Prince in the waning hours of Monday. A much-loathed autocrat, his corrupt 1reign from 1971 to 1986 saw the squandering of wealth and epic proportions of corruption.
While for many outsiders, Baby Doc is just another colourful name, for the people of Haiti his name invokes terror, disgust, and profound sadness. That is not just because of him but because of the memory of his even more brutal father, who ruled for 14 years in perhaps one of the darkest periods of Haiti’s history.
I think back to last year, when Haiti was hit by a large, deadly earthquake. Corpses piled in shallow graves, babies flung into garbage dumps –-- their lifeless bodies hovering in the air as a photographer snapped shots --- hands, feet and heads sticking out of rubble –-- cold as Arctic glaciers. We all thought things couldn’t get any worse…
Do you think we could wrong?
I don't think I can make you cry anymore with horrific images of Haitian life today. A friend told me recently that he ran out of tears while watching the pictures.
But what could tears really do anyway?
Duvalier’s return sparked anger in many, Haitians and non-Haitians alike. But what can our outrage do when it comes to Baby Doc? Whenever someonedies where nobody cares, vultures show up to pick at the carcass. So Duvalier will have his fill, as will others who are already quashing their hunger with the blood and tears of Haitians.
Should we try to pressure the Haitian Government to try and expel Duvalie? Should we appeal to the conscience of the rich and powerful countries that dictate policy in the "third world"? Or should we just show our moral outrage over this on-line or when talking to our friends and family?
Does anything help?
What astounds me is not that Haiti had hell unleashed upon it by nature. (I’m not gonna give God credit for this one; he’s already buried under the blame for starving children in Africa.) I’m totally unsurprised by the pace of the recovery. And neither is Baby Doc’s re-entry into Haiti a shock to me –-- or anyone else who’s followed events in countries like Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, etc.
What astounds me is that Haiti’s people have still clung onto some form of humanity throughout all of this. They have not picked up sticks and stones and killed each other off to end the misery. The 9 million have not joined hands and overturned Hispaniola to drown every man woman and child. They have not begged the gods to put a stop to it all.
Have you wondered about that?
Beneath that astonishment is a deeper understanding. An understanding of the very nature of humanity. No matter how hard being human is, it is special. And amongst what makes us what we are is one emotion that defines our very future: hope.
Haiti is no stranger to that emotion.
The country was created out of the hope that the slaves of Saint-Domingue had for the future of their children. This was a hope that defeated Napoleonic France, a feat that hadn’t been achieved by Europe up to that point. The strength of that hope snatched the freedom of those slaves and future of their children from the very grasp of a man who had forced a continent bow before him.
Hope, eh?
Yes, that hope still lives. It lives over the rubble of what was Port-au-Prince. It lives in the hearts of the bodies who still bear injuries sustained last year. It lives in the minds that were baffled by how cruel a place the world could be. It lives in the eyes of the children who search for food in a country that has forever been ignored because it had once dared to stand up against its masters.
And that hope –-- no matter how difficult it might be to keep –-- is more important than the damage the earthquake, the Duvaliers, and the inattention of the world did to Haiti all these years. It was that hope that gave birth to a nation. And it is that hope that will define the future of that nation.
The effects of last year’s earthquake will disappear in time. The homes that have been destroyed will be rebuilt. The children who have been orphaned will grow up. The souls that were tortured by the past year of hell will heal. They will rebuild Haiti. They will cleanse it of the vermin that have been feeding off it from inside and outside.
Jean-Claude Duvalier and his saprophytic kin will die.
But hope will live. And with it, Haiti will too.