STAND UP
Four for Bob Shacochis
February 2010
RED! the breakthrough ‘zine asks National Book Award-winning writer, Bob Shacochis, for his impressions on Haiti-after-the-earthquake. Shacochis wrote a fascinating and definitive account of Haiti during the U.S. Special Forces’ 1994 occupation of the country. The book is The Immaculate Invasion.
As an award-winning journalist who has spent a great deal of time in Haiti and written extensively about Haitian culture and politics and its people, what are you hearing or seeing about relief efforts in the last month that really interest you or even concern you?
More than half of American households have opened their wallets and contributed to humanitarian aid to Haiti. On the other hand, relief efforts are still compromised by logistics on the ground and the almost impossible task of pulling together enough resources to feed, clothe and shelter a million helpless, traumatized people and attend to their medical and sanitary needs.
You know the Haitian people extremely well. What’s it going to honestly take for them to rebuild much of what they lost?
A generation of perseverance, with international governments and organizations approaching the recovery in the spirit of a barn-raising, rather than as the green light we have come to expect to throw open the gates to the cattle rustlers. And, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, if the country is going to be rebuilt, the Haitians have to do it themselves–their own vision, their own labor, their own determination, their own refusal to allow bad governance to contaminate the process.
What are you sensing now about the future of the Haitian government or its current president, Rene Preval? Do you think the government’s cosmology will change in any way, given that it will inevitably continue to need greater support from the U.S. and U.N. than ever before?
The Haitian government right now is basically being held in a form of political escrow by the United States, United Nations, and the international community. They can step back into control, or quasi-control, of their own fate whenever they shake themselves out of their daze and act with wisdom and selflessness, which would require a change in the very nature and character of Haiti’s ruling class. Nevertheless, despite the criticism he’s received from inside and outside Haiti, I admire the way Preval has conducted himself throughout this catastrophe. Preval has always been underestimated as a leader.
Do you have any plans to return to Port-au-Prince this year – professionally or personally?
That remains to be seen. I don’t want to become part of the problem, and the only problem I can affect at the moment is to help ensure that the story of Haiti’s struggle doesn’t disappear from view. I’ve spent the last month writing an Afterward for my book that chronicles the American intervention in Haiti in 1994, THE IMMACULATE INVASION, which will be reissued by GroveAtlantic next month.
Award-winning writer, Bob Shacochis in 1994. Photograph by Jeffrey Hillard.
Related Stories:
Bill Lambers on Food for Haiti As RED! has covered previously, the World Food Programme focuses comprehensively on food distribution and nutritional relief. In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, read how the WFP responded.