On 22^nd August 1791beside the dense forest close to Morne- Roughe on a mountain that looms over Cap-Haitien on Haiti there was aVoodoo priest called Boukman. That day, this priest had a ceremony in which heasked the slaves to listen to the voice of freedom and act against the slaveryand overwhelm the Frenchmen that had Haiti (former “Saint-Domingue”) as one oftheir slave colonies. Not only that, this colony was one of the biggest andmost important trading places for the French economy.
After thirteen years of bloodshed and the overwhelming of the French government(both from Haitian and the French population) the government was forced to giveup. At that time it wasn’t parliamentary power, but despotic power thatmattered. That means that the king had the power of everything and was rulingover every law and authority. This was the cause of the French revolution thatalso had a good effect on the Haitian revolution.

On 12^th January 2010 close to Port-au-Prince at the marsh, began the natural disasterthat today not only is rated as the most destructive, but also the mostexpensive because of the planned reconstruction costs that are about 100million SEK. This kind of natural disasters are one of the most occurringdisasters even thought the most of them are very small so that a human beingcan not feel when they happens.
Have you figured out what kind of natural disaster I’m talking about?
Yes exactly, the earthquake. It’s the most occurring natural disaster going on,maybe there is an earthquake just under you while you’re reading.

In both of these historical events the religion had a major impact on people’s thoughtsand plans. I think that in some events, religion can be a burden in suchsituations. I don’t mean that religion literally is bad, but the opposite.Religion sets limits, but sometimes those limits can be too much or its rulesare not adapted after today’s society. As you maybe already know, the religionVoodoo is the most occurring religion in Haiti. It all started when theFrenchmen started to transport slaves from Africa to Haiti. The religion wasshipped with the slaves and spread across the entire country after the arrivalof the first slaves. And now, I hope that this is the end for this insanity.I’m not saying that the Haitians should throw away their religion, but startchanging it. I don’t say that the religion should be thrown away, but that theyshould learn and change their rules after what the society is requiring, justlike the Christianity and Islam.

In the Future:
If we look back atHaiti’s history then we can see where the chain reaction began (1751). If youdidn’t know, Haiti is actually split apart in two different continental platesthat actually now are rubbing against each other, which led to the earthquake,past and future earthquakes in Haiti. Haiti has regularly been hit byearthquakes, which led to the devastating after effects. Yet the Haitiangovernment hasn’t learned how to be proactive. Some people that I have beendiscussing with have told me that perhaps it’s so that the Haitian governmentuses the money that is granted from other countries for their own privatepurposes (like buying cars, food and clothes for themselves) instead ofbuilding a good infrastructure. To even make Haiti evolve we have to make thecorruption disappear, that’s where the political press comes in. The UN has tomake as the USA made in the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions. An invasion is theonly way to make the regime in Haiti to get lost and lose their power. A newcountry with new plans and thought will be made.

The main reason for that the houses collapsed is not as you think, that they were allcheat built, but it was the phenomenon “amplification” that was the reason forthe house collapsing. The documentary “Haiti’s Killer Quake-Why It Happened”shows that it’s obvious that houses built on hard rock close to the epicenterwas less damaged than the houses built on the soft settlement that’s far awayfrom the epicenter, and that it what is called amplification. There is alsoanother thing that I should remind you of, between one and another Richterdegree, it sets apart about a thousand times. So if you compare the earthquakethat happened here in Sweden with the one on Haiti, you can see a really bigdifference.

The whole idea of rebuilding Haiti is a very large area. As I said before, thereconstruction is planned to cost about 100 000 000 000kr (100miljarder). The most upcoming subject in the rescue organizations like the RedCross is sanitary. Many people don’t think that good sanitation is as importantas access to clean water. A single person gives rise to about three deciliter stoolsin a day, and there will be several cubic meters of shit in a city with nofunctioning sewers. You can imagine how viruses and diseases are spread and inwhat speed.