Haitian Relief and the Guilt Tax

I’ve been wrestling philosophically for a few weeks about the situation at Haiti. Obviously, the imagery is heartbreaking to anyone with an ounce of humanity. We see new widows mourning their husbands, new orphans mourning their parents, homes and buildings in ruins, crowds mobbing aid workers for food…truly the picture of need and desperation.

The appeals for aid have been frequent. Michelle Obama has appeared on public service spots asking Americans to contribute. Celebrities appeared on a telethon, some even answering phones to take pledges. Musicians re-recorded “We Are the World” as a benefit for Haiti. Employers, churches and schools have all initiated collections for contributions to Haiti. While money is clearly needed to recover and rebuild, how much money is enough? How are we really helping the people of Haiti?

Recall the tsunami relief fundraising for Indonesia a few years back. Tens of millions of dollars were raised and sent to the victims of that natural disaster. What happened to it? How was it spent? Does anyone know? Does anyone care? Recall also the massive collections for those who lost family in the 9/11 attacks. Some received enough to be set for life; never having to work again. Was this the goal of the fundraising?

This is a sensitive topic. Nobody can question how much is enough without being accused of weighing human life and tragedy against a dollar value. Yet pragmatically, it’s fair to ask what kind of help these victims of disaster need.

In the case of Haiti, an objective analysis would show that although their quake was no more powerful than the one which shook Northridge sixteen years earlier, the devastation was incomparable. Its not just luck; the US has agreed to adopt building codes and safety standards that minimize our vulnerability to these events. Haiti has not. One could argue that Haiti is too poor to afford the cost of safety standards, and that we should not expect a society as poor as theirs to be held to the same standards. But why are they poor? Why are African nations poor? What is it fundamentally about the makeup of a society that determines whether it is poor or prosperous? Is it simply the luck of the draw?

That is a deep and wide philosophical question that reasonable experts can disagree about. But one thing we know is that unlike hurricane Katrina, a farmer’s field is not destroyed by an earthquake in Haiti. Yet the farmer might as well abandon his fields when truck loads of food show up as humanitarian aid. We have completely destroyed the market for his crop. Who would pay local farmers for food when they can get it for free from the sympathetic Americans? Same can be said of local merchants for food, shoes, clothes, etc. We roll in with the benevolent dump truck, drop millions of dollars of goods off, then leave feeling satisfied that we have ‘given something’. But have we really helped the people of Haiti or merely succeeded in setting their economy back another decade?

Corruption in Haiti’s government is another root cause of their poverty. When aid does arrive, politicians can funnel it to their own districts to boost their reelection chances, or take outright bribes from the highest bidder. Politicians spend generations in office, claming to be concerned about the welfare of the Haitian people but neglecting to change their perpetual poverty. Yes the Hatitians need medical care from international volunteers, but they really need functioning hospitals and full time doctors. They need food, but they really need farmers. They need the proverbial fish, but they really need to learn how to fish for themselves.

But our concern, our outpouring, our sacrificial giving for victims fades just as the headlines of the incident. Are Indonesians better off today than they were before the Tsunami? Will Haitians be better off in 2011 than they were 3 weeks ago? Do we really care? We’ve done little or nothing to really improve their quality of life past the current crises, or to help them avert the next one. Yet as long as we give something, we feel better about ourselves. We have fed our conscience and can go back to our own endeavors.

This is also a fundamental motivation behind the green movement. People feel guilty about enjoying luxuries that they didn’t earn, conveniences that they didn’t create, and freedoms they didn’t fight for. They don’t understand it, but they have a nagging feeling that if they don’t pay some guilt tax that they are no more than spoiled rich brats. And the earth makes the ideal candidate to save: voiceless and apolitical. It doesn’t fight. It doesn’t ‘take’. It is the perfect victim that deserves our sympathy. Ironically the inhabitants of poorest countries, who green advocates claim will be helped most by global agreements like the Kyoto Treaty, can’t even imagine the benefits their great-grandchildren would reap because they need to focus all their attention on surviving for another day. Yet we tell ourselves that we have their welfare at heart. If we were really interested in helping them, we would be more engaged in solving their political and socio-economic problems than addressing hypothetical problems in the next century based on increasingly shady science.

But this is easier said than done. There is a fine line between helping and meddling. Imposing our own social infrastructure and values looks ominously similar to imperialism and indoctrination. Principles of a thriving society cannot be imposed onto a populous that is not mentally and emotionally vested in its own future. Rather, it is a fabric weaved from the common values and efforts of people who believe in something greater than basic survival. They understand that law and order, education, commerce, health care, and democracy are worth working for and defending. They elect leaders who share these values, shun corruption and put words into action. And they measure their progress, correcting course as they go. Fledgling societies will make mistakes, encounter setbacks, and face resistance from the old guard who benefited from their helplessness. We will help the Haitians most by teaching them to help themselves.

So there it is. I’ll stop short of saying that giving humanitarian money or aid is disingenuous, or that we shouldn’t do it. Jesus helped people without regard for their past or future actions. We would do well to follow that example. But there is a slippery truth hiding somewhere in here. Guilt is a powerful force that drives social behavior. We can and do find grand ways to feed that beast and make ourselves feel good about it.