The US and France are about 80% responsible for Haiti’s modern situation; not to say they’d have necessarily been a developed country but they wouldn’t be this bad.
I guess this is really where we come into conflict. I’m in agreement with everything else, but this ends up as “The broken fingers and the .50 cal through my heart are about 80% responsible for my death.”
The US is a piece of the puzzle, but not really a fundamental one. The situation’s not like Cuba.
In any case, we are certainly in agreement that Haiti was dealt a bad hand from the start, and the entire ‘system’ of colonial international relations in the 19th century bore its full weight against them, with France in particular being vindictive towards its former colony; and the entire post-WW1 system being ‘designed’ (for lack of a better word; I dislike the implication that larger-scope intentions were involved in its creation instead of an ad hoc mess) to privilege importers of raw resources, rather than exporters. And that US exploitation didn’t help Haiti’s situation in the least. A vulture picking at a man not-yet-dead.
I guess this is really where we come into conflict. I’m in agreement with everything else, but this ends up as “The broken fingers and the .50 cal through my heart are about 80% responsible for my death.”
The US is a piece of the puzzle, but not really a fundamental one. The situation’s not like Cuba.
In any case, we are certainly in agreement that Haiti was dealt a bad hand from the start, and the entire ‘system’ of colonial international relations in the 19th century bore its full weight against them, with France in particular being vindictive towards its former colony; and the entire post-WW1 system being ‘designed’ (for lack of a better word; I dislike the implication that larger-scope intentions were involved in its creation instead of an ad hoc mess) to privilege importers of raw resources, rather than exporters. And that US exploitation didn’t help Haiti’s situation in the least. A vulture picking at a man not-yet-dead.