WASHINGTON, D.C. (sentinel.ht) – Washington-based writers, researchers, and institutes are beginning to rewrite the circumstances of Haiti and all should be aware of this.

Expect to read headlines like these, “US must step up to help Haiti’s new leaders end extreme poverty” or “Without international help, Haiti faces a political meltdown.” With comments underneath like “what should we do?” or “Haiti is a basket case, we should give up.”

The paternalizing rhetoric in these articles and certain comments are old, bigoted, prejudicial, and racist, as opposed to the writers or institutions themselves being that way; I felt the need to clarify.

But the true aim of such compositions is to engender those misunderstandings and place the creators of crises in the roles of solvers of crises, thus perpetuating the crises.

I take the previously mentioned headlines as example because I was motivated to comment on them, and a bit harsher than my usual relaxed self. Visit the links.

In both these articles, the writers seek to first make it appear that the United States and the international community – specifically a gang of diplomats calling themselves the “Core Group” in Haiti – have not been present in Haiti or are somehow aloof, as if these entities are just now coming to the show. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is not within the scope of this article to go into how deeply and improperly involved the international community is in Haiti’s affairs; there are plenty of articles on this site and others that can be consulted.

In both these articles they then try to persuade the reader into believing that the only solution is intervention. Nothing could be further from the truth.

And it is, again, not within the scope of this article to go into how Haitians have continued to try to force their governments to act accordingly but have faced the international community’s arms and political pressure against their efforts. There are plenty of articles on this site and others that can be consulted for that.

What is within this article’s scope is to say: stop the paternalization of the international community and infantilization of Haiti.

Haitians and observers need to keen-up their ears to these types of efforts. As Haiti is in a situation where it is highly probable that a transitional government will be needed, these efforts will increase in order to put the creators of problems in a position of solvers of problems, again, thus perpetuating the problems.

Wiktionary’s definitions of paternalization and infantilization hits the nail on the head:

paternalize (v): 2. control organizations, things, etc. disregarding people’s freedom and responsibility under guise and pretense of knowing what would be good and proper for them.

infantilize (v): 1. To reduce (a person) to the state or status of an infant. 2. To treat (a person) like a child.