Twenty-five years after its first democratic elections in decades, Haiti has become poorer, more fractured and less trusting of the outside world.

There have been coup d’états, economic restructuring and earthquakes, all of which have crippled the country’s ability to sustain consistent economic growth. But the biggest impact has been the loss of hope for the future.

On December 16, 1990, a Catholic priest named Jean-Betrand Aristide became the president of Haiti. He was voted into power with over 50 per cent of the vote, ending years of rule under dictatorships that had alienated and impoverished most Haitians.
Aristide campaigned as a spokesperson for the marginalized and poor. He promised them a better life.

“There was a lot of excitement and a huge sense of hope,” said Marylynn Steckley, who lived and worked in Haiti as a food policy analyst in 2007, and then returned for two years after the devastating earthquake in 2010.

“He was put on a pedestal as someone who would help people, lessen the divide between rich and poor and make their lives better. That is gone now”

Despite the hope that fueled his rise to power, Aristide’s government did not fulfill its promises. Over the next 15 years he was exiled twice, overthrown by the military, and placed the country on an economic path that crippled its development.

“The popular movement lost its momentum,” says Ron Blunschli, who was an activist during the Aristide’s first presidency, and has seen the public sentiment in the country change over the last 25 years.

“By the end of the 90s, the mood was very depressing. People lost faith. People have lost faith”

This loss of faith has been reinforced by the fact that Haiti no longer receives the attention that it did at the time of the elections or the military takeovers. Haitians believe that the world has moved on without them.

“The light was on this country before, but it’s gone now,” says Blunschli.

Haitians are struggling to survive in a global economic system that punishes island states with chronic under-development and weak leadership.

“The liberal policy being imposed on Haiti is strangling it,” says Blunschli.

Developing countries like Haiti depend heavily on aid from other countries to provide essential services and maintain infrastructure. However, to receive this aid, governments are required to liberalize their economies, making it easier for foreign companies to do business there. The hope is that the process will bring money, stability and provide the foundation for a stable economy.

The reality is that countries need strong, accountable governments for economic reforms to be effective. It is a quality Haiti has lacked for decades.

“They knew the structural adjustment programs weren’t going to work in Haiti,” saiys Blunschli.

Haitians are still poor despite these restructuring efforts, and they have become increasingly distrustful both of their own governments and international governments that are trying to help them.

These feelings were reinforced after the devastating earthquake in 2010 which killed more than 200,000 people. The underdeveloped infrastructure was ill-equipped to recover from the damage the earthquake cause, and the international aid and support that was supposed to help Haiti recover never made its way there.

Haitians have become increasingly cynical towards the outside world as a result.

“Before, the cynicism was focussed inwards,” says Blunschli. “There was a general recognition that the culture and history had put them in a particular position. Since the earthquake they believe that NGO’s in all forms are a bunch of thieves.”

Documentation:
Haiti’s Leftist Priest-President Faces Economic Quagmire

This is a Reuters article published days after Aristide was first elected into government. I obtained it from Factiva. It gave me a good sense of the mood of the country right after Aristide won the election in 1991. There was optimism and hope in the country, but there was also wariness from the outside world at a leader who won on such a populist platform.

5 Years later; Impoverished nation still on shaky ground; Rebuilding strides have been made, but thousands call tent cities home

This is a recent USA today article about the state of Haiti following the earthquake and efforts to rebuild. This was also obtained through a Factiva search. It helped me to get a sense of what have been happening since the media attention on the earthquake moved elsewhere. It was useful because it discussed the challenges that still have to be overcome despite the money donated.

By Evelyn Harford

Nelson Mandela, a black South African anti-apartheid activist, was released from prison 25 years ago. Crowds gathered to watch Mandela’s walk to freedom from the Cape Town prison where he was held.

Mandela’s freedom marked a symbolic movement away from racism and inequality that was institutionalized in South Africa by the near 30 decades of apartheid.

Denzil Feinberg, a white Cape Town native remembers the day well. Feinberg watched Mandela walk through the streets of Cape Town as a free man.

“There was great elation,” he said.

Mandela addressed the world in a speech immediately after release. In it, Mandela preached the end of apartheid and looked ahead to a free, equal and democratic South Africa.

Feinberg listen closely to the message.

“I thought finally, we got a change,” he said. “And because he was so respected there wasn’t a fear of anything going wrong. We thought that South Africans would just make it work.”

Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years for his resistance against the apartheid government of South Africa. His release marked a significant shift in hope for the black population of South Africa.

Kuhle Mthembu, a black South African was only eight-years-old at the time of his release.

“I knew that his release was a massive moment,” said Mthembu.

“It was all over the news, all over the papers, and there was an air about the country. One of hope and fear,” she said.

“Black people were hopeful that finally they could live like and be treated as humans in their own home, and white people were fearful that black folk would want to retaliate and possibly a civil war would break out. ”

Instead of violence, Mandela tried to rally the nation into peace, reconciliation and trust. A fair and free election was held four years after Mandela’s release in which, Mandela became the first black President of South Africa.

However, Mandela’s vision of peace, tolerance and reconciliation have been met with disappointment since his release in 1990.

“People invested in Mandela at a symbolic level and their expectations were over the moon,” explained Chris Brown, a professor of South African politics at Carleton University.

“There are these huge expectations, combined with a real lack of knowledge of what he believed and what he would do,” said Brown.

The high expectation of Mandela’s power and vision for reconciliation in South Africa caused part of the disappointment in South Africa.

Feinberg said that in South Africa today, “There is more violence and fear than ever before.”

Feinberg now, 71 lives in Canada; he is Treasurer of the South African Rainbow Nation Association in Ottawa. He says although he will visit his home country he would never live in South Africa again.

The increase in violence is largely equated with economic inequality. Mandela wanted to reduce the large gaps between the rich white population and the poor black population.

“You have not seen the transformation of economic inequality between the black elite and the poor. The white population remains well off for the most part and the black pop remains in the same place that they were,” said Brown.

“Economics is the biggest issue in this country,” agreed Mthembu. “Race is not number one. Simple economics. Race is no more an issue here than it is in most other countries.”

Mandela’s legacy of peace, equality and reconciliation will never be forgotten. However, Methembu warns however that South Africans need to have realistic expectations of his impact.

“He was not God,” said Mthembu. “Like all freedom fighters across the ages, he along with his fellow comrades, was a man, with a dream.”

Mthembu does recognize that as a public and political figure, Mandela did change fundamental rights for black South Africans–including the right to vote.

However, Mthembu worries South Africans lean too much on the symbolism that Mandela represents.

Mthembu admitted, “He had not been active for a long time. And South Africans have been hiding behind his dream for long enough.”

Blame on the past will not change the future said Mthembu.

“Until people stop thinking that over 400 years of colonialism can be rectified in two decades, we will keep having problems.”

Documentation:

Mandela’s Speech—Washington Post, Feb. 12, 1990.

1) This document provided the transcribed version of Mandela’s first speech that he made to a crowd in Cape Town, South Africa upon his release from prison.
2a) I obtained this document through the newspaper archive search on Proquest.
2b) This document gave me the background to understand how Mandela’s vision was outlined and indeed eluded to in the speech he addressed South Africa with. It allowed me to chart the expectations Mandela set out for South Africa and analyze how these expectations have been a source of disappointment in South African 25 years later.

Exiles Jubilant, Cautious About Mandela’s Release—Washington Post, Feb. 11, 1990.

1) This document appeared in the Washington Post on the day of Mandela’s release.
2a) I obtained this document through Proquest archive searches.
2b) This document gave the perspective of the South African Diaspora on Mandela’s release. The article brings home the idea that although most South Africans have never personally met Mandela they feel connected to his message and what his symbolized at the time of his release (resistance, freedom and change).

“In the interior…people don’t think of education beyond grade 12. The questions they ask at the end of the day are ‘How many trees did you cut today?’ or ‘How were things down in the mine?’’

That’s what then-minister of advanced education Stan Hagen said in the Globe and Mail in 1989, when asked about the possibility of a university in northern BC.

But almost 25 years after its founding in June 1990, UNBC in Prince George is going strong with more than 4,000 current students. This year it is second in its category in the Maclean’s university rankings. It consistently attracts research funding and even has its own medical school, which specializes in training doctors to practice in the rural north.

Bruce Strachan, who was a member of the legislative assembly at the time of the founding and who became minister of advanced education, presented the petition to found the university to the provincial government.

“I just happened to be the right cabinet minister in the right place at the right time,” says Strachan. “It was a community effort.”

That community included 16,000 residents of northern BC, who each paid five dollars to sign the petition and become founders.

Even with that community support, Strachan says there were many skeptics.

“The ministry didn’t think we could have any interest. But it turned out there were a lot of really first-class academics who wanted to come here,” says Strachan.

Strachan says the university has heavily influenced the intellectual life of Prince George. “You get 450 academics in a town, that will change it,” he says. “We’ve seen a real gentrification in the city.”

Rob Budde, a professor in the English department for the past 14 years, says that the university built on an arts culture that was already there and is now stronger than ever. He says the university has been a home for writers who are uniquely northern.

“The university has contributed a lot to creating a kind of counterculture,” says Budde. “There’s almost a freedom to write up here, whereas in places like Vancouver you’re almost told how to write a certain way.”

Not all UNBC’s programs have been without struggle. Andrea Fredeen was one of the first students in the joint Bachelor of Fine Arts program that was shared with the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. She is also one of its last graduates, since it is no longer accepting new students.

Fredeen’s program consisted of creative writing courses offered by UNBC and visual arts instruction from Emily Carr, but as time went on Fredeen says it was harder and harder to get the face-to-face instruction needed for studio art.

Eventually, the partnership with Emily Carr ended when that school got university accreditation itself.

“I have no regrets at all and I think the degree had so much potential,” says Fredeen, who is now doing a master’s in creative writing at UNBC. “I think it just got lost in the growing pains of a young university.”

Fredeen says she hopes the program will be resurrected one day. “UNBC just has to figure out a way to do it on their own,” she says.

Another challenge UNBC faces in the coming years is enrollment. Although numbers have not declined, Bruce Strachan says enrollment is stagnant right now.

“The north’s economy is doing really well, and a healthy economy has an inverse relationship to post-secondary education,” Strachan says, adding that when young people can get jobs right away they don’t necessarily think of going back to school.

When Strachan considers the next 25 years, he says he has no idea what they will bring. “When you go back and think about what we didn’t know at the beginning,” he says, “I couldn’t even speculate.”

Documents obtained:

UNBC History
“Founding the University of Northern British Columbia”