Blessed Are We ?

As we hurtle into the new millennium at ten times the speed of light, it is becoming more and more difficult for us to stop and smell the roses. The breakneck pace of modern civilization has transformed us into a society in constant motion, with an insatiable appetite for discovery and progress. It seems though that as much as we have, we always want more; the less time we have, the more we want to do.

The Caribbean region has grown leaps and bounds since the turn of the century. Most countries have seen tremendous growth and development, even in the latter half of a decade in which most of the world was wallowing in economic woes. Yet, while it may be something to be the head and shoulders of the developing world, we need to be careful of how we measure our own success; failure to account for the human condition could inevitably cause us to be materially rich yet morally bankrupt.

While the 2000s were marked by modernization and economic growth, they were also littered with crime, corruption, disaster and unrest in the region. The plight of the people was greater than ever, yet it seems that globalization has desensitized the powers that be from the real issues. And as a wise man once said, “The measure of a man (or a country) is not his successes, but how he deals with his failures”.
The recent disaster in Haiti reminds us all of the vulnerability of human life. It also shows how devastating a lack of infrastructure and coordinated support network can be to an island already in ruins because of poverty, social injustice and corruption. In a world of vast wealth, of technological and medical advancement, with so many feats of engineering, or forecasting, and with an overarching power such as the UN, Haiti represents a colossal failure on the part of society to correct some of the most fundamental problems of our own “civilization”. It is inconsequential whether or not we can predict when or where a massive disaster such as an earthquake or a hurricane will strike and wreak havoc. The failure is the fact that we can still allow a place so rife with social problems such as exists in Haiti to remain this way, leaving the people ever more vulnerable to the perils of life on Planet Earth.

As we try to rebuild the pride and unity of the region, the lessons from Haiti may be the most important we can learn. We need to recognize that in order to truly be prosperous and remain this way, we need to protect our most precious resource: the people. After all, what good is economic growth if we still cannot ensure that our fellow men have the basics they need for a peaceful and happy life? As a people, we will do well to take a moment ever so often to examine ourselves, our actions, and our inactions. We need to make the promotion of unity, the correction of social inequity and injustice, and the protection of our fellow men the top of our resolution lists for the New Year, the new decade and the new millennium. Then and only then can we, as a region, say that we are truly prosperous.