Haiti is Not Immortal--August 2020

Photo by John Carroll–July 2020

The situation is serious. The Nation is not immortal, it is dying. The country is short of breath, […] the world attended, without illusions, to the sad spectacle of Haitian political impasses that succeed by partisan rivalries and sterile, of inquisition on issues foolish such as dual citizenship, while Haiti needs the cooperation of all his daughters and all his son, to see them answer to the appeal of the ancestors, so often sublimated, become a dead letter: ‘Unity is strength!’ Of the union we have nothing to do, we prefer the division and endless confrontations. […] we have only for force that of sinking further our land and a population in the poverty, the abject poverty, the misery, the confusion.

It happens to me, I confess, to be ashamed of this pathetic betrayal of our achievements and our conquests of yesteryear. Betrayal of our noblest aspirations to freedom, equality and fraternity. Betrayal of our highest dreams to break all the chains.

I hurt in my heart of Haitian to be challenged by them, smile, pulling the line and only see in Haiti a country ruined, deliquescent, without compass, without State, without a future, a rotten trunk, a world of corruption and some don’t hesitate to describe it, of incapable.

Michaelle Jean

2012