The exceptional resilience demonstrated by the Haitian people during and after the deadly earthquake reflects the intelligence and determination of parents, especially mothers, to keep their children alive and to give them a better future, and the eagerness of youth to learn – all this despite economic challenges, social barriers, political crisis, and psychological trauma. Even though their basic needs have increased exponentially, their readiness to learn is manifest. This natural thirst for education is the foundation for a successful learning process: what is freely learned is best learned. Of course, learning is strengthened and solidified when it occurs in a safe, secure and normal environment. Hence our responsibility to promote social cohesion, democratic growth, sustainable development, self-determination; in short, the goals set forth for this new millennium. All of which represent steps towards a return to a better environment.

On this anniversary, while remembering the dead and celebrating those still living, I also want to recognize more than ever the marginalized members of Haitian society—people like my grandparents and their grandparents, poor, urban and rural, self-reliant and proud men and women who are the backbone of Haiti. Without their full inclusion and participation in the reconstruction of their country, Haiti will never fully succeed.

Haiti is a world of extreme gaps and contrasts. For the past forty years, the gaps have become bigger and bigger. One has the feeling that there are multiple spaces and countries within the same country. Each group for numerous reasons stays in its own environment, making the encounters between the different groups rare and unlikely. As a citizen I think that we have to find ways to force different types of Haitians to live together. Evidently, this requires social justice and the end of abject poverty for the majority while a minority is living in luxury. As a writer I like to envision such situations where, for one reason or another, individuals with different backgrounds meet, and then I explore what the results could be. To go beyond what is apparent and delve into emotions and let the readers also envision what is possible.

Violence can prevent us from looking at the bigger picture and make us prisoners of the mundane – on guard so we don’t catch stray bullets. We should not be prisoners of this manufactured violence, which keeps us in a state of despair and constant fear. We have to keep our capacity to reflect on the situation and continue to look for and find solutions that take into account the dire realities of violence, while addressing the deeper structural problems of our society. The solution does not involve sending foreign soldiers to land in a country they do not know. The solution must go further than killing thugs. Rather, the solution requires that foreign governments stop butting into the country’s affairs. The solution is within. It demands that we, as Haitians, are not afraid to look properly at the problems, find a way to establish justice, break with the impunity, distribute our resources fairly, and gather our strength and dignity to establish a society that can work for us. It will not be an easy task, but it is possible. I still believe that.

By these recent successes the re-inauguration of the national authority — reconstruction — which has had a large share of thought from the first, is pressed much more closely upon our attention. It is fraught with great difficulty. Unlike a case of a war between independent nations, there is no authorized organ for us to treat with. No one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man. We simply must begin with, and mould from, disorganized and discordant elements. Nor is it a small additional embarrassment that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and means of reconstruction.

The process of recovery is not a simple one. ... We cannot be satisfied merely with makeshift arrangements which will tide us over the present emergencies. We must devise plans that will not merely alleviate the ills of today, but will prevent, as far as it is humanly possible to do so, their recurrence in the future.

Environmental problems frequently affect us here in Haiti and are a wake-up call. Our country is very vulnerable to natural disasters. However, I refuse to hear it called a cursed country. The Lord gave the earth to the children of Adam to till and cultivate it. Our happiness comes from something beyond, originating in the loving heart of the Creator. Geography alone cannot determine our happiness or unhappiness. On the contrary, we see ourselves as children blessed and loved by God.

You know, we in this country, we all have this starting point of our own struggle, our own existence. And so equitable disaster recovery means you have to acknowledge the past in your action, for the moment and for the future. This is about repair, it’s not just about response. And we in this country have a real problem with that part, right, because blame, for us, is shameful. Responsibility is shameful. But we’re all responsible. If we’re maintaining this system, we are all responsible for the inequities, and therefore, we are all responsible for solutions that are equitable. And it means we have to start at those places that we have created vulnerabilities in, and then go from there. We have enough resources to help everybody. This is about where you start.

The Haitian people are a people who have dignity, they want to get up. People need a helping hand. Enough talk about this ordeal. Enough with the controversies. This should be a time for reflection.

The battle for reconstruction has just begun, so let us all join hands and seek God’s help to create a bright future for a glorious country and people who deserve.

Well, I think that when I’m writing about Haiti, I’m just writing one long, ongoing story. But I really did feel, like a lot of people did, that after the earthquake, there were suddenly two Haitis: the Haiti of before the earthquake and the Haiti of after the earthquake. So I feel that I’ve been writing about the first one much longer. And writing about the earthquake... it’s been such a short period of time and it’s still such a raw experience that the few things that I’ve written about it, I feel like I’ve written them to process it myself.

Haiti fell over? Who built Haiti? Two of the three little pigs?!

people had been planning for years to go and celebrate that anniversary [the 200th anniversary of Haiti's independence in 2004]. And then we had this happen again, where we had these so-called rebels who — and then the coup and this replay of tragedies, you know? But it seemed so ironic at that time, but I think when — you know, as President Aristide — and one of the first statements that he made outside of Haiti was an echo to Toussaint L’Ouverture, where he said, you know, the tree of Negro liberty has been — the branches have been cut down, paraphrasing Toussaint L’Ouverture, but the roots are strong, and there are many. And this is this part of Haiti’s history, this revolution, I think, that continues to inspire, even — because it’s one of those things that people in difficult moments will quote, because on some level, with all the tragedies that followed, it was the last time that we were great, that we taught the world a lesson, and that we created something in a way that I think Haiti has been punished over and over for, for this revolution, this spirit of — you know, of these roots that won’t die.

The intervening time to my first inauguration was filled up with wranglings between Congress and the new Executive as to the best mode of "reconstruction," or, to speak plainly, as to whether the control of the Government should be thrown immediately into the hands of those who had so recently and persistently tried to destroy it, or whether the victors should continue to have an equal voice with them in this control. Reconstruction, as finally agreed upon, means this and only this, except that the late slave was enfranchised, giving an increase, as was supposed, to the Union-loving and Union-supporting votes. If free in the full sense of the word, they would not disappoint this expectation. Hence at the beginning of my first Administration the work of reconstruction, much embarrassed by the long delay, virtually commenced. It was the work of the legislative branch of the Government.