Click here to end child slavery in Haiti through gender equality!
There are so many causes and so much suffering all over the world, there is no doubt about it. Any empath would agree that it is impossible to focus your emotional energy and your hard earned cash on everything that matters, there is just so much it’s overwhelming. Where do we begin? And why should we? Well, if you’re reading this, you obviously care about the world and its vulnerable populations and I’d like to tell you why Haiti deserves your time, your compassion and maybe even some of your money.
For those of us in Europe, Haiti feels like a faraway, distant place. We hardly ever hear, and know very little, about it. But our history is inextricably linked with it. It is a country whose story is of global importance.
It is one of the first territories where Columbus landed in 1492, originally called Ayiti by the native Taino people, and then named Hispaniola by Colombus and his crew. The Tainos were enslaved by the European conquerors and all quickly died off from the harsh treatment and diseases brought to them by their enslavers. As a French colony, then called Saint Domingue, the island was the most wealth producing colony in the entire world! Sugar, sugar, sugar! Saint Domingue was instrumental in the European, and now global, addiction to sugar. It was also the place of some of the worst atrocities in human history. To keep the sugar production high, African slaves were overworked and tortured. Unlike other Caribbean islands where slaves were encouraged to make babies to contribute to the forced labour force, St Domingue plantation owners worked their slaves to death, constantly replacing them with fresh human stock from Africa. That’s maybe why the island’s slaves had such a revolutionary spirit, because they had known freedom, and certainly why modern day Haiti still has such a strong African influence in its culture.
By 1806, the slaves of St Domingue were the first to have risen up, cleansing the island of its white enslaving population and declaring their land an independent country, renaming it Ayiti, Haiti, the Land of Mountains, in honour of its indigenous population that had long vanished.
An inspiration to people trapped in a colonial system of oppression the world over, Ayiti’s success sent ripples of freedom across the world, prompting many other revolts and laying the foundations for sovereignty for other Caribbean islands. During their war of independence, Ayiti’s former slaves had even defeated Napoleon and his armies, stopping him in his tracks as he tried to conquer North America. If it wasn’t for Haiti stalling Napoleon, the U.S could have become a French-speaking country! Oui, oui!
Sadly, though it displayed courage and strength, Haiti’s story does not have a happy ending. Powerful white superpowers in Europe and America would never forgive this island population for its trespasses and they have used sanctions and economic domination to control and impoverish Haiti. Today, Haiti is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. Nowhere in the world is the suffering from poverty more extreme. Spending time there, you will see the impossible every day and your view of humanity will be transformed. I, for one, have never been the same again after coming to understand the Haitian way of life and what Haitian people have had to accept as ‘normal’. The banality of violence. Because extreme poverty is one of the most violent things there is. A slow and invisible violence that creeps into everything.
Haitian people deserve our help and support. Their world was destroyed by ours and we owe them, collectively, reparations for what they have been through and what they continue to go through.
I believe in Haitian people’s intelligence and capabilities. I know that with a little support, they can move mountains. Mountains beyond mountains, as the Haitian proverb says. I am committed to doing what I can to address this imbalance of justice, not just because it is grossly unfair and shockingly traumatic, but because it is part of my personal history as a European. I know that I was born into a wealthy population, comparatively speaking, and that as I stand powerful on the shoulders of those who paved the way for me, I am standing on Haitians, on slaves who toiled and died to make my world richer.
That is why Haiti matters to us.
Donate here if you feel compelled to do so.
See my crowdfunding page for a gender equality project to end child slavery in Haiti!
Fee de Hoog 