A Voice from Haiti

Longtime readers may remember that the Dowbrigade
has long felt underenDOWed in the comments department.  Our single
greatest commenter is our dear Mum, up in Downeast Maine, and it always
surprises us that we are as likely to get comments on the story about
the woman who built the Harley Davidson out of butter we posted last year as about the hot
topic we just posted 15 minutes ago.

But once in a while a comment to an older posting comes
in which deserves a read on its own merits.  The following was in
response to a posting from February titled "Where
are the Haitian Bloggers"? I nominate
Roy:

Haiti currently is nothing more than a gigantic slum,
a cesspool of misery and disease. I am Haitian and I recognize it, no
need to hide it or pretend anything else, we are only fooling ourself
by pretending otherwise. Images don’t lie. Others may choose to pretend
and overlook the facts, let me be extremely clear with all, I have lived
in haiti, I have lived in other countries and I have travelled the world,
Haiti is truly in bad shape. It is everything you see on TV and more:
endless and object poverty, misery and ignorance.We, as Haitians have
to realize that our so called leaders have failed us. Latortue, Aristide,
Preval, Avril, Cedras, Duvalier…etc they have all failed.why? because
of a winner takes all mentality that is still permeating every aspect
of Haitian society. Let us not blame others for what is truly our own
shortcomings. Haitian society is based on extreme raw survival at the
expense of your fellow men. Decency, honesty and respect are not found
in Haiti instead raw individualism, aggressivity, ignorance and selfisness
abound. Is there any solution? time and time again, when faced with great
dangers,human resiliency usually prevails. It will take a new breed of
Haitian leaders to turn Haiti around. Haiti needs right now a Martin
Luther King, a JFK and a Churchill mixed into one. Haiti needs a leader
with vision who truly loves his country, a leader who will put the welfare
of the island above any other agenda. We do not need a messianic figure
or a strong man, Haiti needs a leader with vision and with a plan. But
only when we as Haitians shock ourself silly then such leader will emerge.
It takes sometimes catastrophic event for good people to emerge and I’m
positive it is where we are headed but for now on, please let us not
pretend to overlook the obvious: Haiti is a socioeconomic basket case.
It is up to us to change this situation. The ball has been in our court
for quite some time now…almost 200 yrs. Roy