« Ne
laisse pas tomber, c’est la culture qui nous sauvera. Fais ce que tu sais
faire. Ce tremblement de terre est un événement tragique, mais la culture,
c’est ce qui structure ce pays…Lorsque les repères physiques tombent, il reste
les repères humaines. »
– Dany Laferrière, écrivain haïtien
Translation:
“Do not give up, it is culture that will save us. Do that
which you know. This earthquake is a tragic event, but culture, it is what
structures this country…. While physical markers fall, there remain markings of
humanity.”
Introduction & Historical
Background
Dany Laferrière spoke these words in the aftermath of the earthquake
which struck Haiti
on January 12th, 2010. While spoken in the spirit of reassurance,
his words reflect the belief, widely-held by anthropologists, that disasters
are not natural events but are socially constructed phenomenon (Oliver-Smith
1996: 303) which reveal the fundamental structure of a society (Hoffman 2005:
19; Oliver-Smith 1996: 304). At 16h53, the impact of more than two centuries
worth of history was revealed. Why, for example, was Laferrière speaking
French, the language of a country that was 4,500 miles and an ocean away? The
answer? Because the French colonized the Haitian-side (Sainte-Domingue) of the
island in the 17th century (Katz 2013:36).
Sainte-Domingue was France ’s
richest colony. The French established a plantation system on the island to
grow various crops, most notably sugarcane and coffee, two products high in
demand in Europe . With the help of slave labor
from Africa , their enterprise was extremely
successful economically but created a hierarchical society that relied on
violence to keep the slaves, who greatly outnumbered their owners, in
submission. In order to protect their merchandise from pirates, a new port was
established in the South and called Port-au-Prince .
It was declared the capital of Sainte-Domingue in 1749. The earthquake which
occurred on January 12th was neither the first nor the highest on
the Richter scale to devastate Port-au-Prince .
In the two decades following its induction as the capital, the city experienced
two earthquakes that leveled it each time. However, knowledge of these
earthquakes was forgotten as the slaves, who comprised the majority of the
population, typically had a short life-span and were quickly replaced by new
arrivals. Additionally, the turmoil and confusion created by the Haitian
Revolution further led the population to forget as they dealt with more
pressing matters. The Revolution marked the first successful slave revolt, an
event which, while progressive and estimable from a modern day perspective,
impeded their start as a new country. Leading world powers, notably the United States and France ,
refused to recognize the newly christened Haiti as an independent country.
Eventually, Haiti was
recognized but only at the cost of paying France to compensate them for their
loss of property (i.e. slaves). As a result of this indemnity, Haiti
started out their independence in debt. The island experienced political
instability from the beginning, an instability which was only elevated by the
American occupation from 1915-1934. Policies implemented by the United States ultimately benefited the American
economy and left Haiti
in a worse position to achieve successful economic independence. In the
following decades, Haiti
experienced overpopulation, deforestation, and centralization which resulted in
the formation of urban slums in Port-au-Prince .
After two dictatorships, that of François Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude, and
the reign of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, three million people, nearly a third of
the population, lived in Port-au-Prince
with a declining economy and a government that was slowly losing control to
foreign NGOs. A vulnerability assessment of Haiti
conducted by the United
States in 2005 revealed that an earthquake
would be “catastrophic” to the country, especially in the overpopulated
capital. From being the richest colony of one of the leading world powers to
being commonly described as the poorest country in the world, Haiti was ripe for a “disaster”
(Katz 2013: 35-52; Chasè 2014: 1-24).
This
overview of the shared history between France
and Haiti illustrates the
preexisting vulnerabilities that were present in Haiti before January 12th.
Vulnerability is defined here as “the potential for
loss” which “varies over time and space” and is a “product of social inequalities”
(Cutter et al. 2003, 242-243). Existing literature shows that colonization plays a significant role in creating the vulnerabilities of many
populations (Oliver-Smith, 1999: 75). This project attempts to answer
the following: In the aftermath of the earthquake, how did the French
communicate about their shared history and in what ways did they acknowledge
the impact this history had on creating vulnerability? These questions are
becoming increasingly important in a globalizing world because it is imperative
that countries start realizing the long-term consequences that interacting with
other countries has. In understanding these questions, the potential exists to
encourage countries to recognize their liability and take preventative steps to
avoid future disasters.
Overall,
my findings show that while some articles acknowledge the relationship between
colonization and the magnitude of this disaster, only one article argues that
this connection entails a responsibility to act now to rectify a past mistake.
My results confirm those of researchers concerning the role media plays in
disasters. The French media used common framing techniques to suggest a lack of
agency by the Haitian people and government and to suggest that social
instability would ensue without the intervention of foreign military and police
forces. Taken as a whole, my research indicates that institutional change to
include recognition and action against potential future disasters seems
unlikely.
Data/Methods
While existing literature, such as Jonathan Katz’s The Big Truck that
Went by: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left behind a Disaster, has
identified a connection between France and Haiti’s shared history and the
magnitude of the disaster on January 2010, an analysis of France’s own
perceptions through media has not yet been attempted. To accomplish this, I
analyze a nonrandom sample of articles published in Le Monde written in
the immediate aftermath of the earthquake (published Jan. 14 through Jan. 19).
A content and spatial analysis of these articles will provide insight into the
ways in which France
either acknowledges or avoids responsibility for their role in the disaster by
recognizing the long-term social, political, and economic effects of
colonization.
I chose to examine articles published in Le Monde, as opposed to
other newspapers for a multitude of reasons. First, using a French newspaper in
its original language and format presents the point of view of individuals who
are part of the francophone world. Those articles written by journalists (all
except for one) who work for Le Monde represent a group who is providing a
voice for the majority. Furthermore, it is a national newspaper making it consistent
with my intention to assess France ’s
perceptions of its role in this disaster. Le Monde is the second most
widely circulated newspaper out of the existing daily national newspapers published
in France .
I chose it, over the most widely circulated newspaper Le Figaro, because
its target audience is the educated class (Press Reference 2015). This
corresponds with my research question because the history of French
colonization and the historical reasons for why Haiti is one of the poorest
countries in the world are more likely to be known by the formally educated.
Table 1
|
|||||
Newspaper
|
Political Alignment
|
Circulation
|
|||
1
|
Le Figaro
|
Right
|
321,500
|
||
2
|
Le Monde
|
Centre-left
|
314,000
|
||
3
|
Libération
|
Left
|
134,800
|
||
4
|
La Croix
|
Centre-left
|
104,901
|
||
5
|
L'Humanité
|
Commnist/far-left
|
52,800
|
I collected the
articles in a two-step process. First, I requisitioned microfilm for January of
2010. The microfilm preserved the newspaper’s original format while also
providing the titles of articles which appeared in the subsequent week
following the earthquake. I was then able to retrieve the articles electronically
from Le Monde’s website. I found 31 articles written in response to the
earthquake. Per the methodology of Czaja (2007), I coded the articles through
both deductive and inductive reasoning along three variables: identity,
responsibility, and action (see Table 2); however, I tailored the sub-groups to
fit the history of Haiti .
First, I looked at how the media constructed the disaster through the framing
process and then I performed both a textual and a spatial analysis of the 2
articles which directly mentioned the colonial history of France with respect to Haiti .
Data & Analysis
Disasters are an
opportunity to study the social and cultural construction of reality (Klienman
& Kleinman 1996; Oliver-Smith 1996, 1999, 2002; Tierney et al. 2006).
Button (Oliver-Smith 1999) asserts that media is one way in which these
constructions can be perceived (113). He further maintains that not only does
the media reveal society’s preconceived notions but it helps to shape them as
well through framing. Frames influence perceptions by organizing or structuring
the message or meaning (Goffman 1974; Oliver-Smith 1999). Framing is invariably
present in all forms of communication, thus I found examples of it throughout
the articles I read. The most frequently occurring frames utilized were the
“poverty,” “civil unrest,” and “war zone” frames.
Table 2
|
|||||||
Le Monde
Discussion Content
|
|||||||
Identity: Who is
|
|||||||
Part of the Francophone World
|
32%
|
||||||
Ex-Colony of
|
13%
|
||||||
"Le pays
le plus pauvre du monde"
|
26%
|
||||||
Responsibility: Who or what is to blame?
|
|||||||
Social factors (i.e. poverty, sickness, etc.)
|
35%
|
||||||
Social factors mentioned in connection with the impacts of
colonization
|
6%
|
||||||
Haitian Government
|
23%
|
||||||
Nature
|
26%
|
||||||
Action: Involvement in the aftermath - Who's helping?
|
|||||||
0% /
16%
|
|||||||
10% / 39%
|
|||||||
World
|
39%
|
||||||
19%
|
|||||||
In eight of the
thirty-one articles (26%), the “poverty” frame was employed by journalists.
This was evident from the use of the phrase “le plus pauvre du monde” (the
poorest in the world) to describe Haiti . The use of this description
was, in all likelihood, an example of “moral sentiment [being used] to mobilize support for
social action” (1996: 4); however, it contributed to the impression that this
happened to Haiti
because of its poverty. With respect to what was responsible for causing the
disaster, social factors including poverty, were described in 35% of articles,
the second highest percentage of any of the categories. Button (1999) asserts
that “frames – particularly those influenced by the media – tend to support
reestablishment narratives. Consequently, they severely constrain alternative
interpretations and influence which interpretations prevail in public discourse
and endure in historical consciousness” (114). By framing Haiti as a country that suffers from extreme
poverty, the French journalists were placing the focus on the negative effects
of poverty without addressing the reasons for which Haiti suffers from such poverty. Furthermore,
this framework contradicts the evidence I found in these articles of who is in
fact responding in the aftermath. Nineteen percent of the articles cited
Haitians providing aid in the aftermath, while only 16% mentioned France
sending aid.
In 26% of
articles, the “civil unrest” and/or “warzone” frames were utilized. Journalists
evoked these frames through descriptions and titles such as “émeutes de la
faim” (riots of hunger), “gendarmes français
pour protéger les secouristes et empêcher les pillages” (French military to
protect the first aid workers and put a stop to looting), “le chaos” (the
chaos), “M. Obama fait de l’aide une ‘priorité,’ et envoie 10 000 soldats en Haïti”
(President Obama makes aid a priority and sends 10,000 soldiers to Haiti), and
“l’armée américain a pris le contrôle” (the american army takes control). Tierney
et al. (2006) argue that “media depictions of events as they unfolded during
the disaster provided strong evidence for arguments that strict social control
should be the first priority during disaster events and that the military is
the only institution capable of managing disasters” (62). The same reaction
that was seen in this case, was observed post-Katrina: control of the situation
by military or law enforcement personnel “were seen as necessary to replace
social breakdown with the rule of law and order” (Tierney et al. 2006: 74). Yet
again, this ignores the agency of Haitians which is refuted by my findings documenting
Haitians helping other Haitians more than aid from some other foreign
countries, namely France ,
the country sending people from their law enforcement agency.
Overall, I found journalists most
often employed the “poverty” frame, the “civil unrest” frame, and the “warzone”
frame in the week following the earthquake. These frameworks suggested that the
Haitian people and government lacked agency, a perception that was contradicted
by my observations of the content Le Monde published. Frames are frequently
“unchallenged assumptions about the world that are taken for granted” which
aren’t acknowledged as the social constructions they really are (Button
1999:115). By recognizing the inconsistencies between the frames used and the
content of the articles, one can determine that a socially constructed
perception exists in France
that Haitians need them to intervene because they are too poor and unorganized
to help themselves.
Analysis of “Haïti La malédiction” and “Haïti nous
oblige, par Frank Nouchi”
While four out of
the 31 articles (13%) referenced the colonization of Haiti by France using
words such as “colonie” (colony), “colons,” (colonists), “esclaves noirs,”
(black slaves), and “l’ancienne puissance coloniale” (the ancient colonial
power), only two out of the 31 articles (6%) connected their shared history to
Haiti’s current state of affairs. It is important to note the difference
between the number of articles which acknowledge the role their shared history
played in shaping modern Haitian society (35%) in comparison with the number of
articles which identified present social factors which influenced the enormity
of the disaster but avoided admitting liability (6%).
The two
aforementioned articles were both published on January 15th, three
days after the earthquake occurred and two days after the first article about
it was published in Le Monde. On January 15th half of the
front page was allocated to a story on the earthquake entitled “En Haïti, la
mort, la désolation, et la ruine” (In Haiti, the death, the desolation, and the
ruin). It was accompanied by an image depicting a man carrying a hurt child
(one can deduce from the rubble as she’s covered in dust) while a crowd of
onlookers appears dismayed. The image takes up almost the entire area allocated
to talking about the earthquake demonstrating Kleinman and Kleinman’s (1996)
findings that “images of victims are commercialized” because they have the
“potential to mobilize popular sentiment and collective action” (1).
Furthermore, they discussed an image’s ability to provoke the feeling that
“something must be done, and it must be done soon, but from the outside the
local setting” producing “an almost neocolonial ideology” (Kleinman and
Kleinman 1996: 7). This image suggests that the Haitian’s need help which they
cannot provide themselves as the majority is depicted as observing but not
acting reiterating the “poverty” frame that was found in the earlier, overall
textual analysis.
In the bottom
right corner of the area it lets the reader know where other articles relating
to the subject can be found. There are four headings: Reconstruire (Reconstruction),
ONG (NGO), Malediction, and Obligations (Obligations). The first two headings
address the structural failure of buildings (pg. 3), the need for clean
drinking water (pg. 4), and the presence of the French police to protect the
aid-workers (pg. 5). Found on pages 15 and 24 are the two articles pertaining
to the colonization of Haiti
and France ’s
role in the disaster. It’s important to note that colonization is a delicate
subject in France
at the best of times. Therefore, the placement of these articles further back
in the newspaper behind articles discussing ways in which Haiti needs help from
international aid highlights the idea maintained by Tierney et al. (2006) that “media
treatments of disasters both reflect and reinforce broader societal and
cultural trends, socially constructed metanarratives, and hegemonic discourse
practices that support the status quo and the interests of elites” (62).
The first article
is entitled “Haïti La malédiction” which translates to “Haiti the curse.” This
title suggests a lack of responsibility by evoking this omnipotent force which
appeals to the superstitious. However, the author outlines the history of the
country from its time as a colony of France , to its successful
revolution, and subsequent trials and tribulations up until the present day.
Most notably, he discusses that Haiti
constructed itself to be exactly the opposite of how it operated under colonial
rule. This led to the plantations being deserted and a decentralization of the
population which ultimately led to deforestation and the declining economy of
the country. Additionally, he discusses the existence of class differences, and
the consequent power differences, and that “cet affrontement structurera la
société haïtienne, jusqu’à aujourd’hui” (this confrontation [between classes]
continues to structure Haitian society today). Oliver-Smith asserts that “most
disasters are ultimately explainable in terms of the normal order. That…the
forms and structure of ordinary life, particularly those associated with the
disadvantages suffered by third-world societies, accentuate the risk and the
resulting disaster impact” (1999:23). Thus, by outlining how the history
between the two countries led to the development of a society with an unequal
class system, an unstable economy, and an unsteady political system, the author
is recognizing the role France
played in the disaster. Yet, he refrains from arguing that this recognition of
the effects of the past necessitates France taking responsibility for
the consequent impacts of its actions.
The second article is from a weekly column. It
was entitled, “Haïti nous oblige, par Frank Nouchi” (Haiti makes us, by Frank
Nouchi). His column is found on page 24, the same page where news about the
weather is found, in addition to the daily crossword puzzle and a game of
Sudoku. As previously discussed, this placement reflects the underlying
“societal and cultural trends” and practices (Tierney et al. 2006:62) which
illustrates the general point of view differs from Nouchi. In his article, he
didn’t explicitly recount the shared history between the two countries;
however, he discusses the interminable link they share. Nicolas Sarkozy, the
French president in 2010, is quoted as saying, “j’ai une pensée toute
particulière pour le people haïtien que tant de liens unissent à la France” (I
have a particular mind for the Haitian people of which there are so many ties that
unite us). Nouchi stresses that “les liens evoqués par le chef de l’Etat nous
obligent” [emphasis added] (the connections evoked by the president oblige
us). He is proposing that the French not only acknowledge their role in what
happened but take responsibility for it and act accordingly.
Overall, the
relatively inconsequential placement of these two articles reveals that their
content and arguments are not shared by all of France . Moreover, these articles
concerning the impact of colonization on modern day societies were only found
on one day out of the six included in the study. While I found that 32% of the
articles mentioned Haiti as
a part of the Francophone world, only 13% of them identified Haiti as an ex-colony of France . With regard to Tierney et
al.’s argument that “decisions about what and how much to cover with respect to
specific disaster events are often rooted in judgments about the social value
of disaster victims and on conceptions of social distance and difference” (Tierney
et al. 2006:62), I think the relatively small amount of coverage their shared
history received (6%) but a general acceptance of Haiti as part of their world
(32%) indicates a desire by many to forget an unfavorable past.
Conclusions
Media accounts reflect
the social constructions of the society which produces them. Thus, the frames
used by Le Monde’s journalists illustrate France ’s
perceptions of Haiti .
While two journalists, acknowledged the role history had in shaping the current
circumstances in Haiti ,
the writers of the other 29 articles focused on the poverty and disorganization
found in the country and used it to argue that it was necessary for the
international community to intervene. They stressed the need for a military and
police presence which “stands in sharp contrast with foundational assumptions
concerning how disasters should be managed” (Tierney et al. 2006:76). By doing
so, they took agency away from the Haitian people, an agency which was in fact
reflected in the content of the same articles.
Only
one article acknowledged the shared history of the two countries and argued
that it created an everlasting relationship between the two. The author of the
article insisted that it was necessary for France
to do everything in its power to help Haiti because of this relationship.
He ends the article by saying “A nous, durablement, de savoir tender la main
aux Haïtiens” (It’s up to us, for the long-term, to know to offer our hand to the
Haitians). This idea coincides with how Waugh (2000), Haddow and Bullock (2003)
believe how disasters should be managed: with “strengthening community
resilience” and “reaching out to marginalized community residents and their
trusted institutions” (Tierney et al. 2006:76). However, the appearance of this
one article in the back of the newspaper does not represent the outlook of the
majority. Overall, I found that France
does not feel that the role they played in shaping Haiti does not necessitate a
rectification of the mistakes that were made in that past.
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