30530: Pierre (Reply) Re: 30514: Merrefield (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Kawonabo1500@aol.com


Good Evening Dan,
In John's earlier post, I think, #30503, referring to people's responses,
namely, they do not want to be slaves to banana plants, he said that his "sad
response" was that you will be a slave to your poverty. I found that to be a
bitter reply but I understood it even if I disagreed with it. However, I  did
not let that fact determine what I was going to say on my post. If I did,
believe me, the Corbet list would not be enough to contain me. We fought 
against
slavery on this land of Haiti until we put an end to it 200 years ago. Any
mention of it with reference to Haiti irks me greatly. Therefore, I chose  the
more productive road by giving John and others who do charity work the  benefit
of the doubt. I am going to tell you what I told John and all charity
workers, your ministry should be determined by what people are fighting for, 
and  if
you can afford it, help them achieve it or part of it. You should not go  by
what you think is best for them or just where you a priori  determine
unilaterally there is the most need. That's all. It  would be very unfair to 
take my
comments as somewhat a derision or disrespect  for charity work. NO, NO, NO!
What I am basically saying is that before you go  anywhere to do charity work,
your mindset should be to inquire from the  population in the community itself
what it needs and work with them to achieve  it. And it should not be done
with the intention of squelching the  people's independent struggles for
fundamental changes in their  society. From experience, I know that there are 
agents
of other  countries that go to Haiti and elsewhere under the guise of doing
charity  work to pacify, divide, distract the people from carrying out their
independent struggles for fundamental changes in society. This is a genuine
concern of all progressives around the world.






************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.