Temino de leer este texto de Junot Díaz sobre el terremoto en Haití, con referencias a otras catástrofes. Entre otras cosas que me gustaron mucho, están estos párrafos. Resulta que los países, y sobre todo las personas en ellos, sí cambian. Puedes creer que odias a alguien por algún prjuicio ridíciulo basado en mala evidencia, y después cuando los ves en una situación de debilidad, simplemente te ves a tí mismo, y se te olvidan los prejuicios y la mala evidencia.
Yes, I have hope. We humans are a fractious lot, flawed and often diabolical. But, for all our deficiencies, we are still capable of great deeds. Consider the legendary, divinely inspired endurance of the Haitian people. Consider how they have managed to survive everything the world has thrown at them—from slavery to Sarah Palin, who visited last December. Consider the Haitian people’s superhuman solidarity in the weeks after the quake. Consider the outpouring of support from Haitians across the planet. Consider the impossible sacrifices the Haitian community has made and continues to make to care for those who were shattered on January 12, 2010.
Consider also my people, the Dominicans. In the modern period, few Caribbean populations have been more hostile to Haitians. We are of course neighbors, but what neighbors! In 1937 the dictator Rafael Trujillo launched a genocidal campaign against Haitians and Haitian Dominicans. Tens of thousands were massacred; tens of thousands more were wounded and driven into Haiti, and in the aftermath of that genocide the relationship between the two countries has never thawed. Contemporary Dominican society in many respects strikes me as profoundly anti-Haitian, and Haitian immigrants to my country experience widespread discrimination, abysmal labor conditions, constant harassment, mob violence, and summary deportation without due process.
No one, and I mean no one, expected anything from Dominicans after the quake; yet look at what happened: Dominican rescue workers were the first to enter Haiti. They arrived within hours of the quake, and in the crucial first days of the crisis, while the international community was getting its act together, Dominicans shifted into Haiti vital resources that were the difference between life and death for thousands of victims.
In a shocking reversal of decades of toxic enmity, it seemed as if the entire Dominican society mobilized for the relief effort. Dominican hospitals were emptied to receive the wounded, and all elective surgeries were canceled for months. (Imagine if the United States canceled all elective surgeries for a single month in order to help Haiti, what a different that would have made.) Schools across the political and economic spectrums organized relief drives, and individual citizens delivered caravans of essential materials and personnel in their own vehicles, even as international organizations were claiming that the roads to Port-au-Prince were impassable. The Dominican government transported generators and mobile kitchens and established a field hospital. The Dominican Red Cross was up and running long before anyone else. Dominican communities in New York City, Boston, Providence, and Miami sent supplies and money. This historic shift must have Trujillo rolling in his grave. Sonia Marmolejos, a humble Dominican woman, left her own infant babies at home in order to breastfeed more than twenty Haitian babies whose mothers had either been seriously injured or killed in the earthquake.
Consider Sonia Marmolejos and understand why, despite everything, I still have hope.
Excelente post Andrés. Ademas de que el contenido de esta parte del articulo tiene una persepectiva diferente y mucho mas util o productiva a la ahora de abordar el tema histórico de la relación entre los dos países, resulta muy pertinente a la luz de la lamentable reacción, discurso y posición de los medios y clase política europeos para abordar el problema de la inmigración y la proteccion humanitaria en su territorio, frente a las crisis de medio oriente y económicas que en muy buena medida, ellos mismos ha provocado. Para la sociedad civil tal vez no tengan nada que ver las dos situaciones o tal vez mucho...
Publicado por: CD | 05/05/11 en 3:51