A closer look of the state of Haiti, one would most certainly conclude that most of the country’s lack of development is due to a mentality of self-destruction. When I was growing up in Haiti my mother used to tell me to never lend my books to my classmates because it is believed that sometimes people could put a spell on one’s book, and make them go crazy or deter their intelligence. This kind of myth was not just a crazy idea from my mother, but it turned out that many people in Haiti believed in those kinds of superstitions.

Haiti is one of the few countries to have successfully revolted against slavery. The idea of independence was the only vision that our forefathers had for the new republic. Jean Jacques Dessalines, Haiti’s first head of State, made sure in his declaration of independence that we would rather die than to ever submit to a foreign power. The very meaning of such statement has been dividing, and destroying Haiti for most of its two century of existence.

From the very beginning, We, Haitians did not trust one another. That lack of trust played a major role in the capture of Toussaint L’Ouverture by Leclerc, in the death of Dessalines, in the division of the Republic between Alexandre Petion and Henri Christophe, in the American occupation of 1915, in the rise of the Duvalierists, in the coup d’etat of 1991, and in the toppling of President Jean Bertrand Aristide in February 2004.

It is not a coincidence that most successful Haitians have to find success outside of the Haitian community. There is a Haitian mentality that one cannot grow in its own environment. For example, a child could be living in the slum of Cite-Soleil, and is expected to remain there for the rest of his or her life.
The child of a peasant, who turns out to become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, and so on, instead of being revered as an inspiration for his community, often has to flee his very own community to protect his life. The people, who knew him, when he was a “nobody”, always regarded him as a “nobody”; and if he tried to inspire them to be all they could be, they start calling him a sell-out.

This is what I call the mentality of self-destruction. I have no doubt that to experience progress and development one needs some source of inspiration or role model to emulate. In Haiti, anyone that could be a role model is often harshly criticized. Musicians are usually labeled as low lives, politicians as crooks and athletes fear no better.
Sure, Haiti’s suffocating misery could be traced back to the earliest days of its history. Yes, we could blame foreign powers as much as possible for our lack of progress, but there is no greater danger than to refuse to acknowledge that most of our calamity is the result of our self-destroying mentality.

It is time that we start trusting one another, time to believe in the potential of one another, time to lend a hand to a fellow countryman in need without expecting anything in return. Then, and only then we can start seeing a better Haiti.

This article was written for the Haitian Times: http://www.zanmi.com/blog/

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