Pockets of Love and Fear

Haiti, a Catholic nation that was once called the gold mine of the New World, is now the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. A history of foreign occupation, corrupt military dictatorships, continued U.S. support of Haitian regimes with long records of human rights abuses, and economic exploitation by foreign business interests have left the country in shambles. Eighty percent of Haitians live in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank.

Pax Christi USA, the national Catholic peace movement, sponsored a fact-finding tour in September 1989 to experience firsthand the reality of Haiti. Two members of the delegation, artist Helen David Brancato, IHM, and Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB, national coordinator of Pax Christi when this article appeared, introduce us to the faces and voices of Haiti. - The Editors

This thin, frail, bird-like man is Aristide, the revolutionary priest? There must be some mistake.

WHAT IS SO DANGEROUS about giving penicillin to the poor? In Haiti, one child dies every five minutes from malnutrition, dehydration, or diarrhea. What is so threatening about putting thin mattresses on concrete floors for hundreds of homeless boys? One million people inhabit Port-au-Prince; 40,000 of them live on the street. What is so frightening about teaching boys and girls to read and write? In Haiti 80 percent of the population is illiterate. What is so revolutionary about running a clinic, an orphanage, a school?

Only when Aristide opens his mouth do we understand. A firebrand prophet, his words detonate the dreams dormant for centuries in city slums and countryside shacks, setting peasant hearts aflame. He preaches human dignity. He demands equal distribution of wealth and land. He insists that the church divest itself of power and privilege and stand with the poor.

If it's true that dictatorships totter when one person dares to say no, then Haiti's foundation is crumbling. In slumblock after slumblock the poor have scribbled the name ARISTIDE on public walls and fences and billboards.

A poet once said, "Revolution only needs good dreamers who remember their dreams, and the love of the people." Aristide has both.

For this reason the soldiers shot at him in the night. For this reason the military tried to machete him. For this reason his church was fire bombed and torched. For this reason his order expelled him. For this reason the bishops stripped him of his pulpit. For this reason Aristide is a dangerous man, a revolutionary priest.

The peasants of Papaye pound this Haitian proverb into the hearts of the poor: "If the bull knew its strength, the child could not put a rope around its neck."

AND ALL THE WOULD-BE SAMSONS of Haiti flex their muscles and begin to organize. They organize for land distribution, credit unions, literacy programs, and national elections. They organize against unjust taxation, corrupt courts, arbitrary arrest, and detention.

The peasant movement of Papaye, which started with two groups, has grown to 5,000 base communities with 75,000 members. "Unless we organize, we will be washed away just as the soil and rock is washed away," they told us.

"Is it worth the risk?" we asked one of the leaders who had been jailed and tortured by the military. "Is it worth your life?"

"Now that I've been tortured, I have more strength," he explained. "We have the example of the martyrs. They can kill me, but thousands more will follow."

"It is indeed necessary that things change here," Pope John Paul II insisted when he visited Haiti in 1983. The people of God took him at his word.

THE CATHOLIC RADIO STATION spoke truth to power and served as a school for a mostly illiterate population. Twenty-four hours a day Radio Soleil broadcast news about corruption in government, about military attacks on peasant movements, about the right to free elections.

More than once it was forced off the air, its offices fire bombed by the armed forces.

To teach three million adult Haitians to read and write became the goal of the Catholic bishops conference. They titled the basic textbook Goute Sel, Creole for Taste Salt. On one level it reminded the people that Jesus called his followers "salt of the earth." But for Haitians it drew upon deeper memories: In voodoo, salt is given to the zombie, the walking dead, to enable one to be born again.

Ti legliz, "little churches," sprang up everywhere. Base communities studied their situation in the light of scripture. Was it God's will that one third of their children die before the age of 5? That the average daily income is one dollar in U.S. money and most Haitians must survive on far less? That the world economic powers decide Haiti is to become "the low-wage capital of the world, the Taiwan of the '80s"?

Things did change in Haiti. In 1985, the power of the people forced "Baby Doc" Duvalier to flee the country. Bells rang out, people danced in the streets, churches filled to overflowing. Indeed, it seemed as if every tear would be wiped away.

No one knows what caused the church to retreat. Pressure from the Vatican? Threats from the United States for political stability or else? The potential for violent revolution? Reluctance by those in authority to share power?

Whatever the reasons, by 1989 the staff of Radio Soleil was fired and "spiritual" programs flooded the airwaves. The literacy program was dismantled and thousands of lay volunteers were dismissed. The base communities were accused of communist infiltration and abandoned by the hierarchy.

"There are only two institutions in Haiti capable of affecting change -- the church and the military," lay leaders told us. "Now the church is divided between the church of the bishops and the church of the poor. The people feel betrayed."

But the people are not hopeless, because they hold a memory, one that empowers. For a brief, shining moment, the church proclaimed the reign of God on earth as it is in heaven. By holding fast to that promise, the church of the poor will change Haiti.

Her name is Lesley Ann, and she is the 11-year-old daughter of our host and guide, Claudette Werleigh.

LESLEY'S PARENTS ARE INVOLVED in the justice movement in Haiti. Highly educated and deeply committed to the gospel, they struggle at great personal risk for a new Haiti. Last year when there was a crackdown by the military government, both of them were whisked into hiding.

Lesley worries about matters no 11-year-old should have to face. Her father attends dangerous meetings, and she is afraid he will be betrayed and arrested. Her mother is under surveillance. When violence forced the cancellation of the November '87 elections, soldiers stopped in front of their house and fired rifles in the air. "Are we going to die?" she asked her parents. "Of course not, " said her father. "It is possible," said her mother.

The next day Lesley sat down and wrote to her aunt in the United States: "I hate this country. I want to leave it and never come back. "

Such words cut her mother to the core. She understands, of course, that they were spat out from deep pockets of love and fear. Still she wrestles with burdensome questions. How much trauma can a child endure? Has she robbed Lesley of her youth? Should she listen to relatives and spend more time caring for her family than for the suffering of the masses of Haiti? Will Lesley grow up resenting her and the very cause she is willing to die for? She prays not. Because the mother knows that on Lesley's shoulders rests the hope of Haiti.

Not to fear too much, mother. You have taught your daughter more than you realize.

When we were in the marketplace and an old withered woman approached us for money, it was Lesley -- not any of our delegation -- who first reached in her change purse and handed the woman a coin. She has your compassion.

When she spent the night with us, this was Lesley's prayer: "God, I ask you to bless Haiti, to give us a good president and help the poor people to have enough to eat ... and to make all bad people go away or else join the good people." She has your love for Haiti.

When asked if she was frightened in April during the military standoff, Lesley said, "Not really. My cousin and I watched the battle from the upstairs of my house. It lit up the sky, and I imagined it was God showing anger at what the president was doing to the poor." She has your sense of divine justice.

And of course, she has your heroic, faith-filled example. All she needs is your passion.

In the meantime, she has this promise from us: We will stand with Lesley until her prayer is fulfilled. Another Haitian proverb says, "A promise is a debt." So be it.

A priest begged us, "When you leave Haiti, please remember the voices you heard here." And these are the words that haunt my dreams:

"WE DON'T WANT to be rich, " the peasant woman pleaded. "We want only not to be poor."

"Why are the dogs so thin?" someone asked the guide. "They are thin because the people eat the garbage," was the answer.

"Women are used as brooms," explained the young feminist organizer. "Used and then thrown in the corner."

The political analyst instructed: "This is the attitude of the powerful toward our nation: 'Some countries have no reason to exist. They should be dropped in the ocean. One is Haiti.'"

"Haiti? It's like we're lying on a hospital bed in a coma but are still able to hear," said the bishop. "Gathered around the bedside, people are discussing us as if we were already dead. But Haiti is not a corpse and resents being treated as one."

The peace activist was passionate: "Tell our friends in the United States not to forget us. As long as we know there are people who stand with us, we can go on."

"J'ai faim. I am hungry," said the old woman, lifting her dress to show an infection. "J'ai faim. I am hungry," pleaded the young boy pressing his face against the window of our locked van and following us for blocks through Port-au-Prince traffic. "J'ai faim. I am hungry," the child begged, tugging at my skirt and pointing silently to her swollen stomach and her mouth. "J'ai faim. I am hungry. I am hungry."

"Please, listen to the voices you heard in Haiti," the priest begged us. "Listen to the voices and follow your conscience."