Life has become hellish for many Haitians. Since the establishment of the Ethical Reflection Space of Haiti (EREH), we have been receiving heavy testimonies of anxiety. Here are three simple markers to rebuild, without fleeing from reality.
It is a fact: the quality of life in Haiti is declining. In every area, living here today is to bear a heavy burden on one's shoulder. But it is also to become more aware of one's fragilities, doubts, and also of possibilities and hopes.
This article is addressed to all those who, physically or mentally, are overwhelmed by Haitian misfortune and who wonder how to position themselves in this strange country where one finds both the best and the worst everywhere. I propose three ethical pillars to hold on: having feet on the ground, taking care of unconditional ties, transforming space-time.
1. Having Feet on the Ground: A Rooted Ethics
Ethics is primarily a resistance to barbarism. In the face of a reality that generates suffering obscuring possibilities, in the face of feelings of helplessness, humiliation, and renunciation, ethical commitment remains one of the last attempts at resistance. It is about preserving a conception of dignity recognized in the person, solidly rooted.
Before any theory, citizens must pay attention to a very noble function of the lower body: that of the feet. This attention brings us back to our territorial rooting. Meditating on rooted feet is meditating on the foundations of our presence in our living environment. It is reflecting on the meaning of our cultural, historical, and social anchoring.
Our feet have two extraordinary functions: when still, they maintain vertical balance. In the movement of walking, they initiate an imbalance that the body recovers into a new equilibrium, and so on. Maintaining or regaining balance requires a subtle coordination of all the muscles of the feet with each other and with the rest of the body. That is why the expression 'having feet on the ground' refers to someone who demonstrates a just relationship to their own rooted human condition.
Keeping the feet in direct contact with the ground from which we have been shaped is to open the eyes and consciousness in order to preserve balance. Rooted in reality, this rooted ethics allows us to improve our living spaces and orient our choices. It establishes markers to ensure balance between personal good and common good.
2. Taking Care of Unconditional Links
A second experience may take over: the concern for links. This involves a particular attention to all the relationships that have supported our existence: family, educators, friends, mentors, and even institutions. These links are not always visible; they have slowly and discreetly been woven. They are very precious and are among those most put to the test today.
The disconnection of these ties makes us witness the disintegration of Haitian society. Because without them, society is in a void, nothing holds, nothing grows. Only scattered and fleeting elements remain, weighing no more than 'the straw blown by the wind.'
What I am stating here does not solely concern interpersonal relationships. It applies also at the collective level and can be implemented within institutional frameworks: schools, social protection systems, justice, public goods.
Political engagement is not simply running for the presidency or other elective offices. It is also recognizing the importance of these institutional links and deciding to take care of them: to feed them, nourish them, and allow them to flourish. For example, when a school director in Turgeau or Carrefour decides to keep the institution open despite the challenges, they are taking care of a link.
This attention to links, theorized in the writings of Jesuit theologian Etienne Grieu, relates to the concern of caring for the social body, the common good. For it is through these links that we stand, as individuals and as a nation.
3. Transforming Space-Time
The third marker is a highly spiritual act. I draw my fellow citizens' attention to the necessity of sanctifying our space. It is about making generations sensitive to the importance of living places and the relationship to space. It is the basic ethical construction of individuals, communities, and society as a whole.
To appreciate the value of Haitian living space is to recognize each place at its true worth. This recognition supports a relationship that respects, protects, and cares. It is therefore important to encourage every creative effort to make our spaces more organized, cleaner, greener, and more habitable.
To sanctify should not be confused with to sacralize. Sanctifying Haitian space is to act on the present to transform our living places into a love story. Sanctifying urban space, for example, is to promote an organization of the city based on the greatest possible social justice, which fosters a good political dynamic, that is to say, a present and future time lived in peace and harmony.
Similarly, to sanctify time is to remember the history of such or such city; this reflects on urban space, if only through the building of places of memory: restored old neighborhoods, valued old houses, places of worship, commemorative monuments, pilgrimage sites, museums.
These reflections invite me to define ethical life, to borrow the expression from moral theologian Xavier Thévenot, as the simultaneous and patient transformation of territory and time into the most human possible living space and into the most joyful and meaningful possible history.
References:
Xavier Thévenot, Avance en eau profonde! Carnet spirituel, Cerf, Paris 1997, pp 62-66.
Etienne Grieu, un lien si fort: quand l’amour de Dieu se fait diaconie, NOVALIS, Québec, 2009, pp 20-37.
