This Haitian Life: Doomsdaying

I'm a little behind on my podcast listening, but I am a devotee of Mr. Ira Glass, voice and brain behind an NPR show called "This American Life."  Every week, he and a team of investigative radio reporters start with a broad topic and delve into the illuminating details of topics that shape our collective culture.  Back in May, TAL ran an episode called "Island Time," which considers Haiti in the wake of the catastrophic January earthquake.  How is it, they ask, that the small island nation has been floundering for half a century while 10,000 NGOs and millions in foreign aid have focused attention on the place?

There were some really interesting quotes, my favorites penned and read by an author named Ben Fountain, who went to visit a friend of his in Haiti in the immediate wake of the disaster....

1.  "I've noticed it's as if God gives you 205 years to do something with Haiti, and if you fail, He passes it on to someone else.  The Spanish had it from 1492 to 1697.  Two hundred and five years.  Then the French from 1698 to 1803.  Two hundred and five years.  Then the Haitians from 1804 to 2009.  Two hundred and five years.  So what is coming next?  Maybe revolution."

The Mayans predicted a revolutionary shift to a new world order in 2012.  The timing is getting creepy... plus the weather is nuts here, Guatemala isn't having a great week, and Christchurch, NZ is as flat as it's been in 100 years after the weekend quake there.  In literature we call this "pathetic fallacy."

2.  "I've been hearing how backward Haiti is for as long as I've been going.  What about this?  What if Haiti is ahead of the times?  It seems to be on the leading edge of so many current trends: environmental degradation, serial ecological disasters, crumbling infrastructure, a population that exceeds resources, plus a skewed economic order that channels vast wealth to a privileged few while the great majority of people stagnate and struggle.  By any objective measure, Haiti appears well advanced on the track that the rest of the world seems hell-bent on following."

I don't want to get into politics.  Just reflecting.

3.  [observing the destruction of Port au Prince's cultural institutions]  " 'Art is finished in Haiti,' he said abruptly. 'After what happened here, art has nothing more to say to us.'  And he went on, 'The philosopher Hegel said that before the end of time there will be the end of history.  And before the end of history there will be the end of art.  Maybe this is what we're seeing here: the enacting of Hegel's theory.  Haiti is leading the rest of the world to the end of time.' "

 Buy art.  Buy books.  Support your local chefs, bakers, farmers, and potters.  Drink more fortified wine.   Go back to the land, because --dear Lord-- when the ground itself starts to move underneath us, what in heavens will we all hold onto?


****I am unabashedly plugging "This American Life."  Check it out and download the podcast for illuminating insight on subjects you didn't know were out there (ie. the competitive business of interstate rest stops.... pet life insurance... the hedge fund that shorted their own investments and made a killing just before mid-2008)  One could find worse reasons to walk around the neighborhood for an hour with your iPod.****