(18q) Haiti. How colonialism impoverished a country

Haiti, an example why developing countries became failed states.

Why is Haiti such a disaster as a country? Who saw the movie about General Toussaint Louverture who led Haiti to independence knows a lot of the answer; the Guardian article summarises it and goes further. In short, inspired by the French Revolution, black slaves of Haiti revolted against their French owners who refused that slaves in colonies can fight for the same ideals of "liberty, equality and fraternity" as the French themselves against the aristocratic and religious elite in France. In the end, Mr Louverture hoped to negotiate peace with Napoleon but, who refused to meet him so Mr Louverture died imprisoned far from his country. Ironically, Napoleon also died imprisoned far from his country. 

Cover of the 2-part movie Toussaint Louverture

But, after Haiti's independence, the French managed to force Haitians to pay enormous amounts of money plus interest as condition for France to recognise Haiti's independence, and for the loss of property by France that included their slaves who no longer worked for free for the French. It took 200 years before France agreed to let go of the debt Haiti needed to pay to France. As a result, because of these huge payments, Haiti became one of the poorest countries while developed countries benefited as Haiti needed loans from French and US banks to pay their debts, further enriching the banks' shareholders while the USA even invaded Haiti at one time when Haiti couldn't repay its American loans. 

In addition, natural disasters regularly break down any achievements as even the Presidential Palace collapsed during the 2010 earthquake that also killed more than 100,000 people. Other times strong hurricanes destroy and kill. As a result of this chaos, Haitian politicians are often corrupt or ousted from office, even killed. Is Haiti an island where humans can live, or should it be a natural resource where animals can flourish as they don't need to restart over and over again?

This is why, certainly, Europe needs to help developing countries as we did great injustice, including my own country Belgium in Congo as I wrote before. But, it didn't stop in the past as even today Europe, but also the USA enrich themselves in developing countries, although wealthy white families are now also impoverishing the population of Europe and the USA by not paying their rightful part of taxes but instead they manage to reclaim taxes while these rich tell ordinary people to pay their taxes correctly and not cheat. Nothing wrong when tax reductions exist to help ordinary people and starting companies, but a problem when those with huge wealth don't contribute to society so the rest needs to pay more.

Thus, whether Europeans like it or not, the chances are big that Europe will have to repay developing countries to compensate for the past during which Europe accumulated wealth by exploiting, even killing those who lived in other continents, as I argued in earlier posts. Thus, the Conference of the Parties, ie COP27 (about climate change) and COP15 (about biodiversity and the environment) agreement that wealthy countries will help developing countries that suffer from climate change, but also to not exploit natural resources, is a step forward. However, also work needs to be exported to developing countries, or people will continue to migrate to developed countries so developing countries remain poor because of the brain-drain of those who are educated. But also Western societies become too much out of balance because, when too many people from another background arrive, societies become extreme. 

In my summary,  European countries invaded other places, destroyed the culture to replace it with their own, enslaved the population, or imported slaves of whom many died. Europe exploited the land, animals and people to enrich the "home countries". Colonisers granted with little enthusiasm independence to colonies, but on condition that the exploitation could continue: sometimes old colonies had to pay money to compensate the "home countries" for loss of land and slaves, but more often because the "home countries" continued to have their own companies in the previous colonies to continue the exploitation of the country with little benefits for the local people in terms of income but also destruction and pollution of the environment as workers rights and environmental laws are much weaker than the laws in the "home countries". 

However, this is changing as local people start to go to court to defend their own rights. And thus Europe needs to accept they need to apologise and help developing countries to develop in the direction of a sustainable economy. Then developed countries can also speak out against governments in other countries that abuse human rights and violate against environmental laws; indeed, the planet is one big organism with local and widespread effects so everyone has the right to have their voices heard. This also means a reform of the United Nations so more countries have influence.