The Legacy of the Geronts

Decades of poverty, extreme environmental degradation, violence, instability, dictatorship, zero investment in education, zero investment in agriculture, systematic oppression against the poor, tyranny, hatred, classicism, poor health services, ‘boat-peopleism’ and maximum investment in international banks. The result: Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas and one of the poorest in the world.
How could we expect the people not to believe that some how any other land in the world might be better than the land of Haiti? They destroyed every inch of freedom and by all the above means trampled on the country’s real profile which is: the world’s first black –led republic and the first Caribbean state to achieve independence.
It took two religious faces to destroy all the prospects of Haiti’s potential as a tourist hot spot. This is so true that even people in their 50s are not so sure about the existence of white sand beaches in Haiti. They would often ask such questions as: Do you guys have hotels, you have nice beaches? Or even, do you have schools? I forgive their ignorance because the Geronts did not promote the positive; they did their best to make Haiti a casualty of Western Consciousness rather than a force to reckon with.
When I teach young people in the Caribbean I am some times forced to give an account about what has happened to my country. The young children would ask me why is HAITI so poor? When that happen I wish I could call a member of the gerontocratic society to answer, but alas! They are no where to be found. So the new generation is obligated to answer for the legacies of the old. Although they have left us with absolutely no foundation, we must not remain silent. Not at this time or in this era, because the younger generation of leaders in our neighboring nations will continue to ask us questions about our country.
We must rebuild the institutions of Haiti so that other nations don’t decide when to change our government and who should be our government. We must not allow the Geronts to push us to the street to blindly protest on behalf of their politics of mud and dust. We must elevate our thinking, raise our standard and look to the horizon of new dawn for Haiti.
If we are going to change Haiti for good, we must be willing to suffer a little longer, we must sacrifice our cravings within the context of the principle of postponement of our wants in order to cater to our fundamental needs. We need a strong education system, a strong agriculture, a strong justice system and a police force free of corruption that protects and serves the people within the context of a true democratic society where the rights of the people become sacrosanct.
The Geronts have shown that they have no concern for our dignity. This is why we have our people collecting water from unsanitary pipes and carry it on their heads for long distances .We have a great number of our schools, private and public remain unsanitized. We have no electricity, no significant road network etc… and they did not seem to have a proper strategy on how to solve these problems.
My dream is to see the new generation of Haitian leaders defy the legacy of the Geronts by building a road network that will allow one to tour Haiti in one day. Cutting through the mountains of Haiti we will build the railways and bring supersonic trains to the nation. Also, if we have to build toll roads, let it be. It is unacceptable that the hard working people of Haiti have no way to transport their goods for sale after long days of manual, traditional agricultural labor. We must acknowledge that the political culture of the Geronts has left us with no country, no pride, so that we may be able to rise from our psychological deficit and build our land.
Louinel JEAN