Haiti - The Next Afghanistan?

Haiti has long been a beautiful but very poor country. It experienced a catastrophic natural disaster, and now money is pouring in to help save it's inhabitants (and visitors from abroad) whose houses have collapsed, and are living with sparse food, clean water and medical supplies - not to mention the corpses. There is practically no police force and the government seems to have disappeared. It's all a horrific picture, and what I am hoping is that money continues to pour in after the earthquake slips from the front page of the newspaper, when it's the twelfth item on The National instead of the first. If it doesn't, Haiti will not only return to the state it was in before the quake, but will in fact be far worse off due to the collapse of it's infrastructure.



If money does continue to be donated by the international community, will we step in further and try to rebuild Haiti's government? Will we get too involved in re-structuring a broken country? Will the army step in? Will the USA try and invade Haiti, as they have been accused of doing already? Will Haiti turn into another Afghanistan, with foreign troops running the whole place and trying to stabilize a government that doesn't want help from the West?

I hope not. I hope we can just get in there and help, first with rebuilding the lives of Haitians, then with the physical structures. I hope it doesn't become an awkward situation, and that we can focus on saving lives instead of remodelling governments.

To Vaccinate, Or Not To Vaccinate

While the hype about getting the H1N1 vaccine has definately not worn off (especially not with that cool new commercial showing in movie theatres everywhere), it seems Canadians have breathed a sigh of relief. They have made the decision to either get the vaccine or not, and within a couple hectic months nearly forty-five percent of all Canadians were vaccinated. So, what's the next step? Whatever it is, I think we can all agree it doesn't involve vaccinations. That part of the pandemic is over and done with; either you got it, or you don't.

When I read in an article that Canada has lent Mexico five million doses of the vaccine as the Mexican shipment won't arrive in their country till late January, I wondered why we "lent" the vaccines and didn't just give them. In fact, I almost wrote this piece about how we should be giving the vaccines to Mexico and not asking for any repayment. But, I have changed my mind. Mexico will hopefully receive it's shipment of vaccines within the month and will easily be able to repay the borrowed vaccines. The question is then, what will Canada do with the surplus of vaccinations?

My hope is that they are donated to the World Health Organization, who will then distribute them to developing countries that cannot afford their own vaccinations. Apparantly there are many countries who have pledged donations, and I strongly hope Canada becomes one of them.

The President's Choice

In this article from the BBC website outlines the details of Karzai's latest struggle as President of Afghanistan. Seventeen of the twenty-four cabinet nominees (that's 70%) recently put forward by Karzai were rejected by Afghanistan's parliament. What does this reflect?

Karzai's government doesn't trust him to choose competent and worthy cabinet members. Karzai's government think him unable to tell who should be making decisions. Karzai's government openly shut him down.



This vote will make it very tough for the citizens of Afghanistan to trust and support him when his own parliament body does not. It certainly puts him in a dim and dirty light, especially seeing as the parliament body may have had the right idea. The man Karzai nominated for energy minister is "a warlord from a western province". Why would Hamid Karzai, whose validity as president has been fiercely attacked since he won the election through fraud, nominate a warlord to be in charge of energy production and natural resources preservation?

It will also put more strain on the international community, who have been fighting to rebuild a stable democratic government in Afghanistan for years. They must now face up to the fact that this government will not function unless Karzai and his government are seeing eye to eye and cooperating. Or perhaps they don't need to deal with this just yet... after all, if seventeen were rejected that means seven weren't, and any progress if good progress as far as Afghanistan is concerned.

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day

With the Christmas holidays drawing to a close, so ends the incredible surge of love and compassion that mankind seems to feel around this time of year. This odd influx of caring never ceases to amaze me, but the hopeful feeling it leaves is always tainted by shame. Why is it that we need a pine tree decorated with lights, and carols blasting at us for hearts to be inflamed with sympathy? Why is it that we need to hear the words, "Well, it's Christmas!" to prompt us to spend an afternoon in a soup kitchen peeling potatoes or donate to a charity? We know how fortunate we in North America are. We live in a fully developed country with readily available clean water. You, the reader of this blog, have access to a computer. Perhaps you are in a library, where you can educate yourself for free, or sitting comfortably in your safe home. We know that others are far less fortunate, so shouldn't we be this generous all year round? Why is it that most of us only open our eyes at Christmas?




In an uncomfortably similar way, much of the North American public turns a blind eye towards the fate of the citizens of Afghanistan and Pakistan. While we are aware that the reason our troops are in these countries is to protect civilians from the Taliban, we pass quickly over news of civilian deaths. Is it because we are ashamed that we cannot stop the deaths? Is it that so many of them occur that another car bomb or suicide bomber is old news? Or is it that many people do not consider the deaths of Afghan and Pakistani citizens to be as significant as those of American and Canadian soldiers?

Now, many of us would say unabashedly that this last point is, in fact, true. These are, after all, our countrymen dying - our boys - those brave souls who give their lives to protect others. They have families, and they have nations praying for them. But think about what you are saying - that any one life is worth more than another. The issue is not that the casualties are not being reported - they are. The issue is that they do not seem to be worth more than a sigh and a shake of the head, whereas a soldier's death generates much more of a response. Perhaps we would feel differently if we knew the civilians personally - but we should remember that they too are fighting a war, and with much less armour than our troops.

So, in the spirit of Christmas, click on the link below and read the brief article outlining the most recent of tragedies to befall Pakistan. Think of the families who have lost, think of what the men and women who died have given to their own country, and hope for a peaceful ending to this long war.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/01/01/pakistan-bomb-volleyball.html?ref=rss