Your Turn: Those Haiti Cruises — The Fun Is Just Beginning

Dear BAG Editor,
The Caribbean as a whole, even Cuba, is a chain of service economies, where tourism leads in most. After the conquistadors exhausted the gold, plantations exhausted the soil with sugar, coffee, and tobacco, and the United States after 1898 finished the job by putting in dictators and elites who were petty as they were brutal, and who sold off the islands to the highest corporate bidders, the coast lines and whatever ecosystems could not be cultivated are all that’s left to sell. And people, who will cater to the first world’s every need with a smile.
With that vision in mind, I find it interesting that the man in “Discover Haiti” is not smiling, and neither is the dancer. The nurse’s smile is an uncomfortable one. Could she have said no to having her picture taken? It appears that in Haiti, consent before a photo has been abandoned altogether.
The cruise reminds me of Wall-e–as long as people are pampered, they cannot imagine a world outside what they know. And in our world, as long as we’re comfortable, the fun never stops—— regardless of how many bodies are under the rubble.

Of course we had photos of NOLA’s Mardi Gras in 2006. These pictures are published solely for the titillation of those of us who want to feel superior to somebody else.
There are real people on that ship, and I have no knowledge of their reaction to pain and suffering. Maybe they gave more money than I did. That nurse’s reaction was to volunteer. Should we then berate her for taking a break at the beach?
Upon hearing of the relocation of 200,000 survivors from Port au Prince, I was struck by the similar reaction to the destruction of New Orleans. Perhaps the PTB can only see playgrounds where poor people live. I don’t know.

At some point “normalcy” must return to places who have suffered catastrophic devastation, and the sooner it happens the better. After search and rescue, clearing and rebuilding, then comes restoration of the social fabric. First of all, the cruises don’t seem to be interfering with the search and rescue work; secondly, it is stated that this area didn’t suffer any damage.
It would be an entirely different matter if these tourists were brought in to gawk, but that evidently isn’t the case. It is a resumption of normalcy far away from the horrific scenes of destruction. To the extent that Haiti depends upon tourism, I don’t see the problem with this at all.
As for the nurse there, who would sit in judgment of a volunteer disaster worker taking a respite from such horrific death and destruction? I don’t see where anyone was “calling her out” unless I misunderstand your meaning here.

As I recall, the people of NOLA themselves wanted to resume Mardi Gras as they attempted to return to normalcy. Everyone was invited. I can’t see where these photos, or the ones from Mardi Gras 2006, “titillate” anyone or make anyone feel “superior” to anyone. How so?
If anything, there is an irony about them: they obviously could have been taken at any time in the past before the earthquake, and could even have been used in a cruise brochure. So the irony assumes knowledge of the disaster. I don’t get the faux moralizing.

Tourism is essentially all the Haitians have, especially now. Would you deny them the use of their natural resources, especially when one part of the plan to increase tourism would be to PRESERVE those resources?
I’m pretty liberal, but I get a little impatient with folks who see such scenes as ONLY “exploitation” on the part of nefarious elites. That assumption in and of itself is distastefully condescending, because it assumes that the population is utterly helpless against the marauding First World, and/or that people who are employed by the tourism industry are the equivalent of enemy collaborators.
Yes, of course there’s exploiting going on, it goes on EVERYWHERE in a capitalist system (you’re supposed to make use of your competitive advantages, remember) but what else would you have these people do for a living? If the tourists were turned away as dangerous imperialist running dogs, the sign holder and the dancer would be out of work.
This also reminds me of the objections some South American leaders have had to the fact that we sent troops to help, just like many other nations did. Would they really have preferred us to just sit back and do nothing? It’s the equivalent of Rush Limbaugh’s default assumption that anything Obama/America does is just…totally, fundamentally, cynically BAD and — mustache twirl, Mwahahaha! — there’s nothing the locals can do (or would do, because they’re essentially a bunch of innocent children) to stop our Eeeevil Plans for world domination and domestic political advantage.
These pictures illustrate something much more complicated than our “librul knee jerk” reaction can encompass.
And — wait a minute — why is the nurse supposed to be uncomfortable having her picture taken, or want to refuse (and of COURSE she could have)? I don’t get it — unless we’re making some kind of unwarranted assumptions…….nah.

It’s not clear to me how any person in a public place could refuse to have a photo taken. Unless Haiti has unusual privacy laws, no one in a public place has a ny reasonable expectation of privacy, and cannot prevent o picture being taken or published.
(If there was such a right, Haitian earthquake victims might object to the hundreds of shots published of them in various degrees of undress and distress…)

As far as people working in tourism goes, I would think that many are victims of the earthquake, who have either lost loved ones, are facing medical expenses for loved ones, or who have suffered property losses. If they can get back to work, it gives them an income, which they can use to help their family, friends, and community.
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As far as the nurse goes:
While search and rescue relief work is a sprint, requiring a lot of work to be done in a few days, while there is still a chance, so that workers can afford to work day and night for a little while and then stop, providing health care is a marathon. There are many injured, their needs will continue for weeks and months, and other medical issues will need long term care.
So doctors, nurses, and other health care workers need to pace themselves. They need to organize to work in shifts from day one, with time for work, time for sleep, and time for mental and emotional rest in order to face the horrors they are addressing for days and weeks.
If resorts are allowing medical workers to use some or all of their facilities, this is good.
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I would guess that there is a sort of ideal balance to be found. Resorts allow some of their facilities to be used to house and care for medical workers, so they can do their work, while bringing tourists in to other parts of the facilities, who pay money which lets the resorts keep running, and pay locals both for working with the tourists and helping support the medical staff.
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I don’t know if the resorts are striving for this balance. But the pictures suggest that the elements are there – tourists to bring money in, local workers to keep the resorts running and bring money into the stricken communities, and medical workers being able to use the resort as a safe spot to rest and rejuvenate to continue their work.

If these resorts _need_ to exist (to at least supply income for hopefully _some_ of the locals) then at least they should be for those who really deserve the R&R, this nurse for example.
If she is embarrassed to have her picture taken, well, wouldn’t you, knowing how far and wide these images go?

But if she raised some kind of fuss, put a towel over her head or deliberately turned her face away, the photographer couldn’t get the shot.
I’m not talking about law, I’m talking about the situation of the one human standing in front of another taking a photograph. I understand that sometimes photographers are shameless, especially (some of them) when taking photos of people they consider their inferiors in terms of class or situation (“victims”), but if seriously objected to by a person of their own class and nationality, I think most of them would back off and go find something else to take a picture of.
But the thing I’m really questioning is why some of us have the idea that she might be — or even SHOULD be — ashamed about taking a break on the beach. And if she in fact was embarrassed somehow, what does that say about her (our) culture? Do we really think people’s dedication isn’t “real” or — worse — that their morality is somehow called into question if they aren’t slaving and sweating every waking moment of every day? Are they “imperialist hypocrites,” perhaps, just because they have a Mai Tai in their scrubs?

I should probably also point out that I’m not universally condemning all “shamelessness” on the part of photographers. It’s their job to try to show us the world as it is. Sometimes it gets egregious, but at other times we can be grateful that a photographer DIDN’T back off from an arguably “exploitative” shot.
(Setting things up, overt staging, or mindlessly pursuing a shot so you can congratulate yourself for just being there, as seems to have happened in re: Anderson Cooper’s report on CNN, is NOT one of those times.)

If she is embarrassed to have her picture taken, well, wouldn’t you … ?
No.
And I don’t think a person unencumbered by ridiculous expectations would be. But there you are. What does her culture expect of her that would MAKE her feel embarrassed about it?

To continue my point (which I realized I wasn’t clear on) when it comes to the images, individually, they look heartless – people involved in seemingly frivolous work at a resort when there is such need, tourists indulging, resort owners making a profit and ignoring the need, a nurse lounging rather than working.
Yet collectively they create the possibility for a different story – resort owners working to help restore normal economic activity, locals working to help their family and community, resort owners giving some of their resources to help hardworking nurses keep their strength for the long-haul while ensuring they have enough money coming in to meet their obligations to their workers and keep up with the commitment to help house aide workers.
I’m not sure which version is true, but it takes thought to see the possible good.

Where I live in Michigan, in the north and on the beach, we have essentially a tourist/lake resort economy. Point is, the Americans are out of money to spend on tourism. Relying on rich white people to patronize your little sea shell stand or restaurant is not development; its just a stop gap. Because the rich white Westerners are not a reliable income source. They go somewhere else, a new fad destination develops (northern Michigan is NOT trendy), or they themselves get sucked dry by even richer and more ruthless people. Used to be middle class Chicagoans and Detroiters were the backbone of our little economy. Now none of those people have any jobs either, so our motels and restaurants are going bust.
Counting on tourism is shortsighted. It’s fine for the moment, but Haiti needs a longer term plan.
Well, as for the dark side of empirialistic tourism–the sex trade, the slummers, the misery tourists, the corruption of culture and history to exploit the “quaint” and the “colorful”, the inequity of it all–there’s enough to be said to fill a book. No use trying to address it here.

Well said, tinwoman, well said.

All I can ever think, when I see a photo of a modern cruise ship, is “wow, those things are incredibly ugly.” Like a sow standing belly-deep in a mud puddle, only a thousand feet long.