Letter to the Publishers: Amy Martin on Chomsky's Earthquake Commentary

From the pages of the newest edition of ¡Reclama! magazine:

I just read the first edition of ¡Reclama! and had some questions for a statement made by Noam Chomsky and highlighted by the ¡Reclama! staff by being placed on the front page of the magazine. Chomsky states that the earthquake in Haiti was a “class-based catastrophe,” affecting the “the people living in the miserable urban slums” more than the wealthy. During my two stays in Jimaní working at both the public and private hospitals, I had contact with many different relief workers and first responders from numerous organizations that had seen the destruction in both the wealthy areas and the slums. Hearing firsthand accounts from the situation and devastation in and around Port-au-Prince, I was convinced of exactly the opposite.

It seemed to me an interesting twist of fate that in this particular natural disaster, quite uncommonly, the upper and lower classes were affected unequally with the upper classes hit with more severity than the slums. Chomsky states, “It didn’t much harm the wealthy elite up in the hills...” This is where, through first hand accounts, it seems that the population was hit the hardest. I do not take this point of view from media coverage because I tend to have a healthy skepticism for what stories the media concentrates on; and I have read both supporting and opposing accounts published simultaneously from different sources. I take this point of view from those who were there and saw the situation with their own eyes.

How could this specific event immediately affect the wealthy more than the impoverished when 9 out of 10 natural disasters affect the opposite socioeconomic group? Well, let’s think of the infrastructure and lifestyle differences between the two demographics. The wealthy have the luxury to build with cement blocks. They are more worried about their structures withstanding hurricanes than earthquakes. They build structures that can topple and kill and trap in an earthquake. The lower classes, those “living in the miserable urban slums,” do not have this luxury. Their homes are built out of cardboard and palm board which fall with ease and cannot hold up in a hurricane, but in an earthquake is exactly what can fall on your head without crushing you.

Let’s talk about lifestyle. In early evening the wealthy are still in their hurricane-proof, but not earthquake-proof, cement block offices, in commute, in block grocery stores, or in their block houses. After school or work in Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas, many more-privileged citizens head straight to internet cafes. At the time that the earthquake hit, internet cafes were full and constituted one of the public locations with the highest rates of mortality. In the slums, there are no internet cafes of block, only cardboard or palm-board structures. There is not the luxury to shop in block supermarkets, only buying food in open-air markets.

What I can say from my first hand experiences at the hospital in Jimani is that the a good portion of the patients there were of the middle-upper class. They were well educated, spoke French, English and Spanish, and hadprofessional careers in Haiti. Initially, I thought that the patients were able to leave Haiti and arrive at the hospital in Jimaní based on wealth or class. After talking with doctors and transportation coordinators, I was informed that patients arrived based on their medical priority and their needs matched the available resources. I took this as being non-biased and a semi-accurate glimpse of the population affected. However, of course, I am not sure how the patients were actually chosen.

My writing this is not to make light of the current situation with the lower classes in Haiti or say that they survived this unscathed, or even that we should see their devastation as anything less. They have suffered incomprehensible tragedy and devastation, and they are the ones without the resources to recover. It is true, as well, that after the initial acute phase of rescue and relief that the people of this demographic are and will be the ones to feel the long-term effect of the earthquake. They are the subset of the population where lack of food, water, and protection from communicable disease are grave threats. Whereas the wealthy have the finances and means to rise out of the rubble, the poor do not.

After I read Chomsky’s statement, I initially assumed that he was referring to these long-term effects that the earthquake will have on the lower class. Indeed, the lower classes face more challenges with basic needs now and into the foreseeable future, without the resources to cope--this IS a “class based-catastrophe,” but it is the same class-based catastrophe that has been present in Haiti before the earthquake, albeit now more intensified.

But Chomsky makes this statement in the past tense--and suggests that the immediate effect of the earthquake on those in the slums (whose living situation may have in fact saved their lives) is what destroyed them, and he dismisses the devastation it had for the upper class in Haiti. He writes: “It didn’t much harm the wealthy elite up in the hills, they were shaken and not destroyed. On the other hand the people living in the miserable urban slums, huge numbers of them have been devastated...” To me, to so easily dismiss the effect that the earthquake had on the wealthy is erroneous. To all of us who had the opportunity to work with patients that were not from the slums in Jimani and elsewhere, we know they too are survivors and that to dismiss their suffering is tragic. The entire country suffered. This should be acknowledged.

I believe deeply in the representation of the underprivileged; giving a voice to those who do not have a voice is necessary. But above this, I believe in searching for the truth and reporting the truth. Automatically siding with one side or another without the necessary research can lead you to lose credibility for the causes you fight for and give the opposition a weakness to attack.

I write this because to me it was an interesting anomaly pertaining to the social effects of natural disasters, and it gave me hope that the lower classes in Haiti might have found some resilience in this earthquake with which to rebuild. I also believe that every victim of the earthquake, regardless of socioeconomic status, deserves equal acknowledgment.

Chomsky interview on Haiti incites flame war: New Yorker staff writer Jon Lee Anderson throws temper tantrum after being debunked

¡Reclama!'s interview with Noam Chomsky is already becoming the subject of controversy at the Indypendent blog.

In one of the questions to Chomsky regarding the treatment of Haiti in the media, ¡Reclama! mentions various comments made in the U.S. media regarding the country:

Any comments on the U.S. media regarding Haiti following the earthquake? For example, Pat Robertson’s “pact with the devil,” David Brooks’ “progress-resistant culture,” pleas with transnational capital to create more sweatshops (Kirstof), Aristide being a despot and a cheat (Jon Lee Anderson). Even Amy Wilentz has compared Aristide to Duvalier in The New York Times.

Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer for The New Yorker and one of the most celebrated mainstream commentators on Latin America, took exception. He spouted a wide range of allegations--none of which was borne out by the facts--including serious accusations that ¡Reclama! had misquoted him, taken his comments out of context, unfairly and unjustifiably included him with the rest of mainstream media (again, he's a staff writer for The New Yorker), and that ¡Reclama! had carelessly referred to Pat Robertson as a journalist, among other invective. He didn't attempt to address any of ¡Reclama!'s points in the following exchange. He has yet to retract any of his defamatory claims, or even reconcile the argument of his original article with the meaning he had intended, described below:

**jon lee Anderson Says:
March 8th, 2010 at 2:29 pm

Please dont misquote me. To clarify, in my recently published piece on haiti in The New Yorker, I called Papa Doc and Baby Doc ‘despots’, and Aristide a ‘cheat.’ And I stand by that statement. Based on all the available evidence i have seen, that is precisely what he was. To take it out of context as you have done, in an apparent attempt to paint me with some kind of “mainstream media” tarbrush is both unjustified and unfair; my characterization of Aristide as a cheat is part of a sentence in a six thousand-word piece I wrote recently about Haiti, and was meant only to illustrate the idea that, overall, Haiti has been poorly served by some of its leaders in the past half-century. Few people could quibble with that assertion, I believe,


**Keane Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 11:32 am

I’m sorry Mr. Anderson feels misrepresented. My intention was to give a very brief flavor of the commentary regarding Haiti in the US. If the information I present below is simply due to a careless, honest mistake on the part of Anderson, I hope he can clarify the matter for his readers. I would promptly change the quote in any reproduction of this interview. My larger point is that careless mistakes, like comparing Aristide with real despots, is something that is not corrected within the establishment press.

The direct quote from Mr. Anderson’s piece, “Neighbor’s Keeper,” with context:

“[Haiti’s] traditional exports, coffee and sugar, have collapsed, and manufacturing has been in decline for decades. It has suffered riots and hideous violence and depressingly regular political upheavals, led by a succession of despots and cheats: Papa Doc, Baby Doc, the priest Aristide.”

From the sentence in question, it is impossible to logically infer a distinction between the first two persons, Papa Doc and Baby Doc as being solely despots, and Aristide being exclusively a cheat. To belabor the point, both qualifiers are in the plural form; two terms are used to describe three people. Therefore my attribution to Anderson in the interview, “Aristide being a despot and a cheat” is a logical inference.

For Mr. Anderson’s complaint to achieve a level of plausibility, he would have had to write: “It has suffered riots and hideous violence and depressingly regular political upheavals, led by a succession of despots and *a cheat*: Papa Doc, Baby Doc, the priest Aristide.”

Certainly with context added, Anderson’s original claim is even bolder, attributing in an even less specific way the riots, violence and political upheaval to the three leaders in question, further muddying up any way to clearly and discretely attribute the events and roles of the three leaders.

Again, if Mr. Anderson would like to clarify his point to the readers of the New Yorker in an addendum, I will promptly change my extraction in future versions of the interview.

This is not the proper forum to rebut Anderson’s characterization of Aristide as a cheat and I will let readers do the research. A good place to start is with the works of Chomsky, Paul Farmer, Mark Weisbrot and Peter Hallward, particularly his “Damming the Flood.” Mainstream critics of the 2004 coup like Jeffrey Sachs also make important points. I hope the readers’ research will provide more information than all the available evidence Mr. Anderson has seen.


**jon lee Anderson Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 12:52 pm

Mr. Bhatt: Thanks so much for that lesson in grammar and ethics. I feel much better now about being made to share a pew alongside with Pat Roberston in your characterization of the “U.S. media,” whom I now learn, in your inference, is an actual journalist and not, as I have long thought, a Christian “televangelist.” Perhaps the distinction was unintended, a mistake made by Mr. Bhatt in a moment of carelessness. Am I splitting hairs here?


**Josephus P. Franks Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 2:34 pm

Keane’s reply was the kindest, most grandfatherly b***h slap I have ever read.

As if additional proof other than his original article were needed, what Jon Lee’s responses prove is his ignorance of Haiti, which he wrote about for… whatever the name of that magazine I always see lying around dentists’ offices is.

As for his hair-splitting, it is a transparently ineffectual attempt to distract attention from the fact that by casting aspersions against Aristide in the same breath, so to speak, as the Duvaliers, John Lee in effect put on a dunce cap and leaned sloppily on the pulp passing for journalism in the United States.


**Michael Galhouse Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 3:37 pm

I fail to see where the interviewer suggests that “US media” figures are equivalent to journalists. The names are lumped together because as members of the media they influence public opinion. In fact, it seems quite generous that he named Mr. Anderson after Brooks and Kristof. If one reads carefully, Bhatt seems to provide a logical progression of journalistic authority regarding Haiti. The appropriate response would have been for Mr. Anderson to realize his mistake and clarify his intended meaning.


**jon lee Anderson Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 6:59 pm

Keane, Josephus, Michael, thanks a whole bunch! I enjoyed our little repartee down the Indy alley here, even if it has felt a little-one-sided at times. But I must leave now and get back to Main Street, out there where all those other ineffectual dimwits in dunce caps are. Whenever I feel the need of some bitch-slapping by you guys — if you can get out of the group-grope long enough to o it — I’ll be sure to check back in. Au-revoir!

We were hoping for a more civil, well-constructed response from one of the contributors to a well-respected publication like The New Yorker. Guess we shouldn't have held our breath.