Quinn Zimmerman
American aid volunteer Quinn Zimmerman has been in Haiti for two years. Lately it’s been tough. People scream curses at him and other international volunteers. He’s getting ready to go home this summer.
perhaps if I really wanted to help, I wouldn’t ever come to Haiti to begin with. I’d keep my fight at home in the United States, rallying people to try and build awareness that places like Haiti suffer because of policies benefitting our government, our corporations, and ultimately, ourselves. Policies created by our politicians, sometimes with our consent (the Iraq War) and sometimes as a result of special interests (the Supreme Court’s campaign finance reform ruling), result in massive problems for other people in the world. Sometimes I wonder if that truly ever can be remedied….
I often think we will have to evolve to the point that the idea of religion is cast aside, that the idea of nation is cast aside, that the way we define ourselves (white, black, Christian, Muslim, American, Haitian) have to be abandoned. Without first accomplishing that, we will always have a way to cordon ourselves off from others, to group up, and to grow to believe that our group is the most important group. Those groups must be broken for us to advance.
It makes me think of something a friend of mine who works in Rwanda told me recently. She told me that the majority of Rwandan children today do not know if they are Tutsi or Hutu. Their parents do not tell them. She told me that it is illegal to ask someone if they are Tutsi or Hutu. She told me that all forms of personal identification no longer have the words “Tutsi” or “Hutu” on them. She also told me Rwanda is one of the more progressive and advanced countries she’s visited in Africa. That came at an incredibly high cost, but maybe that’s what it takes. The EU, flawed though it is, and in and of itself a group, was born out of the desire for integration that was the result of two devastating wars that killed entire generations of Europe’s people. I’d like to think we can learn enough from our history to be able to continue that process of integration without the prerequisite of mass suffering, but maybe that is indeed a prerequisite. If so, there’s certainly suffering enough to go around.
Yes, imagine! Israel with ID-cards which do not say (or hint or imply) “Jewish” or “Muslim” or “Arab” or “Christian” — maybe just “Israeli” and “occupied”.
The hint is not the problem. Palestine’s ID-cards until 1948 said “Jew” or “Arab” under “race”.
I laughed and laughed, and kept on laughing while reading this post. After wiping a blessed tears from my eyes, I’ve decided to respond. Here it is:
First, after 2005 there is no ethnicity being mentioned in the ID card. But that is a minor error. The big one is that it just shows how delusional the poster is and how detached is he from the real world both Israelis and Palestinians live in. How about if I tell you that a majority of Israelis can tell whether the person is Jewish, Arab or Bedouin just after shortly speaking and looking at them? The ID issue is the problem here? The differences between people are huge starting from the cultural to the social aspects of their life. Even among the Palestinians themselves there are a huge gaps between East Jerusalem residents, Schem, Jenin and Gaza for that purpose.
Zimmerman’s link is worth reading for the problems he encounters, although well intentioned. Resentment is going to build when you’re the one driving around town with cell phones and laptops while they live in broken huts. Many of the problems in Haiti are a result of US policies over decades. Take the Creole pig and what occurred after the Asian swine flu in the 1978. This was an poor solution to a complex problem.
The white savior complex may get more mileage if it was called the ‘american (media funded) savior complex’. And many churches across America have always participated in aid and support to countries like Haiti.
Teju Cole seems to seems to spurn the publicity of aid and those who package it. I can see why, when Kristof makes such condescending remarks.
Teju Cole:“The White Savior Industrial Complex is a valve for releasing the unbearable pressures that build in a system built on pillage. We can participate in the economic destruction of Haiti over long years, but when the earthquake strikes it feels good to send $10 each to the rescue fund. I have no opposition, in principle, to such donations (I frequently make them myself), but we must do such things only with awareness of what else is involved.”
the hutu Tutsi thing- without a fair distribution of resources and especially access to education and social protection what’s to say it won’t all blow up again after a generation? Yugoslavia was an attempt to build a communal – identity- less country and it worked for about a generation…