Haiti- Is intervention a good thing?

By Dom Dellamano

Haiti is (and has been) one of the poorest countries in the world. According to research, Haiti is actually the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere (Shah 1). After the Haiti Crisis back in 2010, there have been large amounts of humanitarian efforts to help the people in Haiti. After the earthquake, the government was in shambles. Everything from the buildings to the roads to the government as a whole crumbled as a result of the Earthquake.

But, why did so many countries flood into Haiti? Why did they make this a issue of global security? Looking at the history, Haiti has been plagued by civil strife and poverty. When countries flooded in, they went in for their own interests. As President Obama said in his speech in response to the Haiti crisis in 2010, he wanted to go into save Americans. While I do nto deny his intentions were also to help the Haitians, their main goal was to save American citizens. They placed priority on them over Haitians, and I feel that is wrong. Going into Haiti to save Americans should not be the biggest priority. While it was a smart political move, people should not have wanted to come help just to save Americans. Therefore, it took away greatly from the humanitarian aspect of it all.

This in turn affected how effective our intervention was. We are able to see how Haiti did not necessarily benefit from all this intervention. In essence, they left an even bigger disaster than the one that crippled the country. We came in and tried to help, but poor media coverage plagued the response. People were thinking they were doing well, but in essence they were not. Haiti still remained poor, and little to no actual reconstruction was done by the U.S. Political instability remained after our intervention, and we did not help them establish a legitimate government. We tried, yes, but in essence it was a failure. We aimed to promote democracy, but in turn we helped create a ineffective governmental infrastructure that could not effectively invest in its resources or its people.

There is also the problem of the real endgame of U.S. aid to Haiti. While we did provide aid to Haiti, it was most often on U.S. terms rather than having it governed by Haitian institutions. This basically made U.S. aid conditional. This ties back into Obama’s speech, because he did not mention this other side of the bargain. It also demonstrates how our intervention was based mainly on our own interests. I feel like this makes our aid seem so superficial, as well as the media’s coverage of the whole situation. It looked like we were providing real assistance, but it was only short term repression. In the long term, it did not do anything real. It only made things worse, having Haiti be governed by U.S. and foreign interests. With these powers at play, it is virtually impossible for Haiti to develop its own independence or autonomy. 

Climate Change and Ontological Security

Post by: Brianna Arnold

The Pacific Island Nation of Tuvalu is one nation that is experiencing rising sea levels. These rising sea levels could result in the island completely disappearing. The main industries in the nation are fishing and tourism. The ongoing climate change crisis would result in the population of nearly 11,000 having to relocate and ultimately become migrants or refugees. This threat is a threat to the ontological security of both the citizens of Tuvalu and the citizens of the countries where the migrants will go.

Ontological security is when the identity of an individual or group is threatened. In other words, there is a threat to your normal way of life. Another way to think of ontological security is your worldview is altered and the way you describe who you are is changed. This type of security threat is possible even when there is no physical harm to individuals.

There could be a threat to the ontological security of the people of Tuvalu mainly because their home would disappear. To most people, where they live is one of the first aspects in defining their identity and taking that away is detrimental. In this case, it can be argued that what is happening to the people of Tuvalu is out of their control, therefore it could be more detrimental then other instances of migration in history. The citizens of Tuvalu would also have to adapt to a new climate and a new way of life. As previously mentioned, the main industries in Tuvalu are fishing and tourism. If the people migrate to countries that do not have these industries, they would have to learn new skills to adapt to the new place they are living. According to Eberhard Weber, the author of “Envisioning South-South relations in the fields of environmental change and migration in the Pacific Islands”, these citizens will become “climate-change refugees: with few capacities and skills, little wanted by countries that should receive them, dependent on support and benevolence…”[1] This, as explained in the article, could lead to fighting within the countries.

This connects to the ontological security of the countries receiving the migrants from Tuvalu. The same situation would apply to these citizens. Although the population of Tuvalu is only approximately 11,000 people if there is a large influx of people from a different nation, there could be a sense of losing the identity within these countries. There could be a situation similar to the Syrian refugee crisis where in countries like Germany, there are groups created who are anti-immigrant and they promote negative rhetoric toward the immigrants and the policies that allow them to enter the country. The people who follow these groups do not necessarily have a negative feeling toward the individuals entering their country, but they are seen as a threat to their identity.

In conclusion, the climate change issue, especially in regards to the Pacific Island Nation of Tuvalu, where there is potential for a refugee crisis, is a threat to ontological security both to the migrant nations and the host nations. Although it is unclear whether this refugee crisis will occur, if it does, both sides of the crisis will experience a threat to their way of life and their identity. The best case scenario is for there to be positive assimilation and acceptance and the advantage in this case is there is time to prepare.

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[1] Weber, Eberhard. “Envisioning South-South Relations in the Fields of Environmental Change and Migration in the Pacific Islands - Past, Present and Futures.” Bandung: Journal of the Global South 2, no. 1 (February 5, 2015): 19. http://bandungjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40728-014-0009-z.