The pictures in this collection were taken in May, 2000,
at Fondwa in Haiti's mountains between Leogane and Jacmel, when I
was leading a delegation from Witness for Peace. On this, my
third visit to the place, we spent four days as guests of the
Peasant Association of Fondwa (APF).
When people in the USA ask me if there is "any hope for
Haiti," I reply that when I am up here in the States looking down
at the Haiti portrayed in our news media, I don't think so, but
that when I am down in Haiti looking back up, I do think so.
It's not the Haitian state but the Haitian nation that I am
thinking of. That is, neither the government nor the elite who
have long controlled it but ordinary people who have learned how
to survive against all odds. (We owe the distinction between
Haiti's state and its nation to Michel-Rolph Trouillot. See his
Haiti: State Against Nation; Monthly Review Press, 1990.)
This year when I returned from Haiti I told people that
the news from the top was bad but the news from the bottom is
good. I was thinking of grassroots places like Fondwa where
people are taking charge of their own future in education and
sustainable economic development.
"Why are you involved in community projects?" we asked
members of KOJEDAF, the Fondwa youth organization.
"Because we think life in the future here can be better
than in the past," they promptly answered. "We can learn from
our parents, but we can also learn new ways to make our lives
better."
It is dangerous to try to change things in Haiti.
Powerful forces are arrayed against it, for the history of
exploitation there is long and lucrative. The youth know this.
The leaders of the APF know this. It doesn't stop them. There
is hope for Haiti. When I go there, I try to photograph it.
