Haiti is about the size of Maryland and a big chunk of the population lives in or near Port-Au-Prince, maybe a third of the total, depending on what you count as a suburb. So the collapse of Port-Au-Prince is a big, big deal for the country as a whole. It's a dominant city for Haiti. Plus Jacmel seems to be leveled. From the reports I have seen, my tentative conclusion is that the country as a whole is currently below the subsistence level and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Hundreds of thousands of people have died, the U.N. Mission has collapsed, the government is not working (was it ever?), and hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of people are living in the streets without reliable food or water supplies. The hospitals and schools have collapsed. The airport is shut down. The port is very badly damaged. The Haitian Penitentiary has collapsed and the inmates -- tough guys most of them -- are running free for the foreseeable future. There is no viable police force or army.
In other words, it's not just a matter of offering extra food aid for two or three years.
Very rapidly, President Obama needs to come to terms with the idea that the country of Haiti, as we knew it, probably does not exist any more.
In what sense does Haiti still have a government? How bad will it have to get before the U.N. or U.S. moves in and simply governs the place? How long will this governance last? What will happen to Haiti as a route for the drug trade, the dominant development in the country's economy over the last fifteen years? What does the new structure of interest groups look like, say five years from now?
Is there any scenario in which the survivors, twenty years from now, are better off, compared to the quake never having taken place?
Let me say first that there is something very, very wrong with the idea that Americans or the U.N. might have to come in and "run the place." It smacks of imperialism. But there is something to the idea that we--as in the world--should not focus only on the immediate tragedy, but one the broader one as well. That is: we should be there for them now--provide what we can to help with the most immediate problems--but we also should help to ensure that, as the country comes out of the rubble, it emerges as a country.
Because, as if the loss of life weren't enough, the main city of Haiti has disappeared. My read is that, in some sense, the country itself--as an idea--was hit in this earthquake, too. And our humanity should compel us to help in the rebuilding of not just Haiti as a physical place, but Haiti as a concept as well.
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