Haiti's modern history is one of the unfulfilled hope and dashed dreams of a vibrant people. This article taught me some things about Haitian history that make me even sadder. Here's an excerpt:
Haiti's on-going background level of poverty has been persistent. But understanding why one country stays poor while others grow rich is a surprisingly difficult task, even for development experts.
Fixing the problem is even more difficult.
It is not as if foreign donors haven't tried to set the country on the right track, says Yasmine Shamsie, a Wilfrid Laurier professor who specializes in international development and security efforts in Haiti.
"Yes, there have been true attempts," says Shamsie. "Countries like Canada and the United States really want to solve these problems."
Many development experts blame Haiti's problems on its long history as a pariah state, going back as far as the debt Napoleon forced onto the former French colony as the price of independence in 1803.
People had to pay for the land and the slaves they had "stolen." The stolen slaves, of course, were Haiti's own citizens. They had to buy themselves...
Read the rest here:
CBC News - World - A pariah history, some promising starts and now this
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