The Comedians in Haiti

As the ouster of Haiti’s Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis was negotiated last week, I happened to be reading The Comedians, by Graham Greene. Published in 1966, set in Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s Haiti.

It’s a great book, and a tough book now to read because I really, really wanted it to be dated. I wanted the troubles I read about to be clearly and safely in the past. I’m an American – I like the idea of the straight upward trajectory of progress, even when I know in the real world it’s rarely true.

But, The Comedians, brought recognition after recognition – right down to the loss of Haiti’s trees.

In some ways, too, it made me smile because I also recognized the wry spirit of the Haitian people who keep trying even as they wait for the next inevitable shoe to fall – Haiti is a land of neverending shoes falling – and even though 48 of the 52 cards in a deck may be stacked against them. It’s not like they don’t know what’s going on, but they keep trying anyway. 

I don’t really know much about Michele Pierre-Louis. The way it works in Haiti is you have an elected president – currently Rene Preval – who appoints a prime minister, that the Haitian Senate has the power to remove. 

It seems Pierre-Louis was popular with the international community, who decried her ouster. And clearly unpopular with the senate, which voted to get rid of her just after midnight Friday morning. 

The main things I had read about her before were her pleas to the countries who had pledged hundreds of millions of dollars at an international donors conference in April, but most of whom hadn’t followed through. So, I’ll remain skeptical of the international community’s true support and investment in her. If they thought she was so great, they could have helped her out by making her look really effective at bringing in international dough and then putting it to work to help the people of Haiti.

The world weary part of me suspects that her ouster just gives them cover not to follow through on the pledges – needed to help rebuild the country after four hurricanes hit it last year – that they were never going to give more than lip service to anyway. Like comedians putting on a show.

I hope not.

To most of the Haitian people, I’m guessing she probably wasn’t much of a factor in their daily lives one way or the other. Maybe just the next shoe. They’ll keep trying as another work week begins in Haiti.

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