Ethan Casey, Ben Owen, and Haitian friends at Saut Mathurin waterfall, southern Haiti, August 2010. Photo by Pete Sabo.

For me personally Haiti feels like home, because I was sixteen years old the first time I set foot here. It has taught me much, if not most, of whatever I now know about the world, and my early experience of Haiti suffused my later responses to very different countries, particularly during the five years I lived in Asia in the 1990s. I saw chronically desperate Cambodia, and tortured Burma, and deforested Thailand, with the eyes of one who had seen Haiti. In a phone conversation in 2004 Tracy Kidder, author of the celebrated book Mountains Beyond Mountains, told me something I implicitly understand and relate to: “I’ve learned so much about the world from Haiti – some of which I almost wish I hadn’t learned.”

Two things have been on my mind since Ben Owen, Pete Sabo and I arrived here on August 25. One is how, not quite eight months after the January 12 earthquake that killed perhaps 300,000 people, life here seems to have returned to something like normal. I hasten to add that that doesn’t mean everything’s fine – it’s not. Normal in Haiti is far from fine.

But my friend Gerald Oriol Jr., of Fondation J’Aime Haiti, notes how the tent cities that have taken over virtually all open spaces in Port-au-Prince have settled into a version of regular neighborhood life, with cyber cafes and hair salons. “It’s funny how an abnormal situation can be normal,” says Gerald, who belongs to Haiti’s elite class. “The only people who are truly shocked right now are people like me. But for the poor, things were so hard for them already that it’s just another way to organize themselves. Maybe it’s even better for them now.”

“The other difference is that many of them lost family and friends,” I pointed out.

“Yes, of course,” agreed Gerald. “I know a guy who lost his five children and his wife. But materially they are no worse off.”

Saut Mathurin waterfall, southern Haiti. Photo by Pete Sabo.

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is the disturbingly weird coincidence of the two countries that are most important to me personally being struck in the same year by appalling disasters. The outpouring of generosity towards Haiti after the earthquake was extraordinary and welcome, but it will remain meaningful only if Americans continue noticing Haiti and, beyond giving money, make the effort to understand its situation. The earthquake was a natural disaster, but it didn’t happen in a geopolitical vacuum. This country, these people, that we cared so deeply about circa January and February – who are they, and what are they all about? Haitians are more and other than charity cases. They’re human beings with a culture and a politics and a national history closely intertwined with our own. We owe it to them and to ourselves to know them.

I came here because I share the human tendency to forget, and I want to do my part to work against it. But just as I was preparing for this trip in late July and early August, I was distracted by the floods in Pakistan, about which suffice it to say that they’re proving as devastating in every way as the Haitian earthquake, with the difference that Pakistan is a nation of not 8 million but 170 million people. It’s also a Muslim nation with nuclear weapons, but that’s not the point. The point – which I fear many Americans have ignored or denied – is that Pakistanis are people who are suffering and will continue to suffer, as food shortages caused by the destruction of crops ramify through Pakistani society over the coming months and beyond.

My question for Americans is: If we failed or refused to understand at the time it happened that the flooding was not some divine comeuppance safely distant from us, but an immense human tragedy, will we understand a year from now when, God forbid, the ricochets from it hit us closer to home?

On the road outside Les Cayes, Haiti, August 2010. Photo by Pete Sabo.

Many Pakistani friends of mine responded immediately and with real sympathy, concretely expressed, after the Haitian earthquake. Todd Shea claims that, of the 200 or so physicians from North America who volunteered with him in Haiti, most were Pakistani. We have a golden opportunity to show similar human concern for Pakistanis, now and later.

An August 23 note from Uzma Shah is typical of the many messages I’ve received since publishing my previous article “Pakistan Floods: Why Should We Care?”: “It’s hard to see pictures from Pakistan, and I can’t help but choke back tears when I see all that desperation. And amidst all the furor about all things bad and hard about Pakistan and ‘Islam,’ it’s comforting to read your article. Because at the end of the day, we are all human, living in one world, sharing the same life.”

It’s dismaying to me that I’ve gotten very few such messages from non-Muslims.

ETHAN CASEY is the author of the travel books Alive and Well in Pakistan: A Human Journey in a Dangerous Time (2004) and Overtaken By Events: A Pakistan Road Trip (2010). He is currently writing Bearing the Bruise: A Lifetime in Haiti for publication in spring 2011. He can be emailed at ethan@ethancasey.com and his books and articles are available online at www.ethancasey.com/books/ and www.facebook.com/ethancaseyfans. Until further notice, he is donating 20% of profits from sales of his Pakistan books to flood relief in Pakistan, and from his Haiti book to Fondation J’Aime Haiti and the Colorado Haiti Project.

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The following is an interview with Gerald Oriol Jr., founder of Fondation J’aime Haiti and an advocate for disabled people in Haiti. The purpose of Fondation J’aime Haiti (I Love Haiti Foundation) is to implement a profound change in Haitian society by creating individual social and economic opportunities for Haitian youth, by removing barriers to individual choice. Gerald asserts that as many as 10 percent of Haitians are disabled, and that disabled people’s talents and skills are a great untapped resource for national development.

Gerald Oriol Jr. and Ethan Casey, Port-au-Prince, March 2010

During our three-week trip to Haiti from August 24 to September 13, we will be visiting Fondation J’aime Haiti programs and having further conversations with Gerald. These will be incorporated into Ethan’s new book about Haiti, Bearing the Bruise: A Lifetime in Haiti, and the video footage Ben will be producing on our return.

Watch Fondation J’aime Haiti’s four-minute video “Timoun Ke Kontan” (Children with Happy Hearts) on Facebook.

- Ethan Casey and Ben Owen

What is it like for you yourself, as a disabled person, to get around and do work daily in Haiti?

It is certainly a very challenging environment. The needs of people with disabilities are rarely considered in public works and construction. Most buildings lack ramps, the sidewalks are usually occupied with street vendors trying to make a living, there are very few parking spots reserved for people with disabilities – to cite a few examples. However, I must admit that I am very much fortunate. I have been able to overcome these barriers and participate actively in economic and social activities. I view these barriers in my life as an adventure, and I take it as a duty to fight to annihilate their impact in order to allow people with disabilities to have an active and fulfilling life.

Describe the work that Fondation J’Aime Haiti does.

Fondation J’Aime Haiti strives to provide development opportunities to disadvantaged youths. Furthermore, we aim to foster cooperation and understanding among communities in order to contribute to the emergence of a much stronger and more cohesive society. With that mission in place, we have implemented several programs, including a basketball and scholarship initiative. In regards to disability, we firmly believe that disability is first and foremost a social issue. If, as a society, we consider the needs of people with disabilities, there is no reason that this marginalized group of people can’t be productive and autonomous. To help raise consciousness, we have developed a radio and awareness program called The Voice of People with Disabilities in Action.

What sorts of programs would you like to see implemented, by either the government or NGOs or both, for disabled people in Haiti?

It is imperative that we develop an accessible environment. It is not acceptable, for instance, that a wheelchair-bound person must pay double fare for transportation (i.e. for himself/herself and the wheelchair) or that he/she can’t attend school because the sidewalks and buildings do not have ramps. Furthermore, I believe it is important that we put in place training and work placement programs. The vast majority of people with disabilities are living in abject poverty and do not have the professional experience to find adequate employment, nor the training to participate in income-generating activities. In addition, I cannot stress too much the importance of an inclusive educational system. Although specialized schooling might be needed in certain cases, the vast majority of people with disabilities can be integrated in regular schools with a minimum of arrangements and training for teachers. This will open doors to many, many people with disabilities and offer a positive experience to non-disabled children.

How can disabled people contribute to Haiti’s rebuilding and economy?

Under current conditions, Haiti does not have the resources to meet the needs of people with disabilities. Although this is a serious problem, it represents an opportunity to find alternative, out of the box, and sustainable opportunities. Indeed, the difficult economic situation makes the case for integration from a competitiveness point of view, as assistive services are extremely limited and underfunded. People with disabilities can be as effective as non-disabled people in the workplace, and in many instances even more effective. Furthermore, the integration of people with disabilities can offer a positive image of the country and even help reinforce solidarity in the country. Disability affects families from all backgrounds, rich and poor, and can offer an opportunity to build a better and stronger society, based on inclusive principles.

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SEATTLE, AUGUST 13 – Yesterday a non-Pakistani friend here emailed me: “I wanted to ask you which you think would be the best organization to make a donation to for the current crisis in Pakistan. We usually give to MSF, but their website doesn’t seem to offer the opportunity to give specifically for Pakistan. Can you offer advice?”

This friend is British and greatly prefers British media outlets, but I need to believe that there are many Americans who also want to help flood victims in Pakistan – or who would want to, if they knew the scale and severity of the disaster.

Why don’t they know? We can, and I do, blame “the media,” but that’s unhelpful and ultimately a cop-out. Each of us individually has the opportunity and responsibility to be aware of every tragedy in our world, and we should be willing to exert ourselves to redress them. We’re all in this together. But the real problem is that there’s too much tragedy, and it’s happening too fast, and these days Americans are distracted and confused and worried about serious problems close to home, like our own jobs and mortgages.

This is understandable. But you need to know that all indicators are pointing toward an enormous, long-term human tragedy unfolding in Pakistan, and we need to do something about it, for several good reasons. The New York Times acknowledged one of these when – belatedly, in its first significant coverage of the floods that I noticed – it headlined an August 6 article “Hard-Line Islam Fills Void in Flooded Pakistan.”

A related point is that we Americans owe Pakistanis a measure of basic human respect and compassion, as well as gratitude specifically for the sacrifices they’ve made at our behest in several wars in Afghanistan. When we repay this debt, it will also redound to our benefit. “It’s high time we showed Pakistanis the best of America,” disaster relief specialist Todd Shea told me last year. “If you’re a true friend, you don’t run out on somebody when you don’t need them anymore. … Pakistanis don’t trust America anymore. We need to show Pakistanis who we really are.”

Todd Shea runs a charity hospital in the Pakistan-administered portion of the disputed region of Kashmir, where he has been working since the October 2005 earthquake that killed 80,000 people. He also responded urgently and effectively to the World Trade Center attack, the Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and the earthquake this January in Haiti. He’s currently on the ground in Pakistan, running medical camps and providing drinking water, food, and other relief. An August 11 update on his organization’s website suggests the scale of the challenge:

In a recent statement appealing for more aid to Pakistan, UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said: “While the death toll may be much lower than in some major disasters, taking together the vast geographical area affected, the numbers of people requiring assistance and the access difficulties currently affecting operations in many parts of the country, it is clear that this disaster is one of the most challenging that any country has faced in recent years.“

Thousands of people are camped out on roads, bridges and railway tracks – any dry ground they could find – often with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and perhaps a plastic sheet to keep off the rain. ”I have no utensils. I have no food for my children. I have no money,” said one survivor, sitting on a rain-soaked road in Sukkur along with hundreds of other people. ”We were able to escape the floodwaters, but hunger may kill us.” …

There is a desperate need to send more well-equipped medical teams to the flood-hit areas to prevent the further spread of disease. The victims of the flood have lost everything and cannot cope with potential epidemics on their own.

I’m writing this article because I live and work between two worlds: the mainstream North America that I come from, and the Pakistani immigrant community. My job is to help bridge the gulf in awareness and sympathy between those worlds. What I’m seeing right now is that Pakistani-Americans and their admirable and effective nonprofit groups are jumping once more into the breach, as they always do. And, as always, they’re confined – and confining themselves – to soliciting funds from each other.

The flooding is “well timed” in the sense that the fasting month of Ramadan has just begun, and many Muslims will be directing their annual zakat charity contributions toward flood relief. Pakistani-Americans are generally an affluent community, but there’s a limit to what they can do. Wealthy Pakistanis in Pakistan also need to help, and surely are helping. Just as important, we non-Pakistani Americans and Canadians must help. We also must somehow self-raise our own awareness, given the paucity of decent media coverage. This is important both for obvious-enough political reasons, and simply because it’s the right thing to do.

I see troubling contrasts between the outpouring of generosity and attention that followed the earthquake in Haiti and the averting of eyes from the flooding in Pakistan. I see several reasons for this: Haiti is nearby; the earthquake killed 200,000 or more people all at once. In addition, though, there’s the fact that Haiti is not a Muslim country. The earthquake fit right in with the story we were already telling ourselves about Haiti, which is all about poverty and tragedy. Dr. Paul Farmer sums it up pithily in the title of his book The Uses of Haiti. The uses of Pakistan are different. We need to move beyond the uses of both countries and toward understanding them accurately and respectfully, in their own terms. Our awareness of Haiti should be more political and of Pakistan less so, or differently so.

Anyway, back to my friend’s question. The short answer is that, as always, grassroots groups are more nimble and effective, and your money will be put to better use if you give it to groups that are nearer the ground. This is why the nonprofit groups founded and run by Pakistani-Americans are crucially important. I’m including links to several of these below, and I recommend them all.

I was jolted the other day when another friend suggested that being asked to donate to the excellent Islamic Medical Association of North America “could possibly turn some people off.” He’s probably right, but we goras need to get over our knee-jerk aversion to the word “Islamic.” Your doctor might be a member of IMANA. As a Haitian woman told Paul Farmer years ago, “Tout moun se moun” – all people are people. We’re all in this together.

Please contribute to flood relief in Pakistan through one of these organizations (listed in alphabetical order):

APPNA

Central Asia Institute

The Citizens Foundation

Developments in Literacy

Edhi Foundation

Human Development Foundation

Humanity First

IMANA

Islamic Relief USA

Relief International

SHINE Humanity

UNICEF

ETHAN CASEY is the author of the travel books Alive and Well in Pakistan: A Human Journey in a Dangerous Time (2004) and Overtaken By Events: A Pakistan Road Trip (2010). He is currently writing Bearing the Bruise: A Lifetime in Haiti for publication in spring 2011. He can be emailed at  ethan@ethancasey.com and his books and articles are available online at www.ethancasey.com/books/ and www.facebook.com/ethancaseyfans. Until further notice, he is donating 20% of profits from sales of his Pakistan books to flood relief in Pakistan, and from his Haiti book to the Colorado Haiti Project.

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After a too-busy winter and spring, I’ve been enjoying the summer at home in Seattle. This message is a brief interim update on my books and related travel. I plan to send out one more update before I leave for Haiti on August 24.

If you’ve read my new book Overtaken By Events: A Pakistan Road Trip, please do me a favor by posting a comment about it on this Web page:
http://www.ethancasey.com/2010/06/have-you-read-overtaken-by-events/

Word of mouth is important to selling books. You can help me do that with this simple step, and by posting about the book on Facebook and Twitter, telling your friends about it verbally and by email, etc.

If you haven’t yet bought Overtaken By Events but have been meaning to, please do, from one of these two pages:

http://www.ethancasey.com/books/

http://www.ethancasey.com/books/overtaken-by-events/

In addition to hopefully being entertaining and edifying to you, your purchases help me sustain my work, and I donate part of all proceeds to nonprofits doing important work in Pakistan and Haiti. Purchases made during August will help support relief to victims of the flooding in northwest Pakistan.

As many of you know, I’ve visited Haiti many times since 1982 and was there most recently briefly this March. The horrific January 12 earthquake has compelled me to spend this summer and fall writing a long-planned book on Haiti. I’m traveling to Haiti for three weeks starting August 24, and will be finalizing the book after that and publishing it next spring. The title will be Bearing the Bruise: A Lifetime in Haiti.

I’m publishing Bearing the Bruise the same way I published Overtaken By Events: independently. (If you want to know why, please read http://www.ethancasey.com/what-i-do-and-why/.) You can support that project by pre-purchasing a copy, which I’ll send to you with thanks as soon as it’s published. To cover publishing costs, I need to pre-sell several hundred copies. Please help me do that by pre-purchasing your copy from this page:

http://www.ethancasey.com/books/bearing-the-bruise/

Finally for now, I invite you to visit and browse my new website, www.ethancasey.com. I’ll continue to post comments and updates there on both Pakistan and Haiti, as well as short reviews of books and articles I read and recommend. My travel calendar is also there. I have a full speaking schedule around North America throughout the fall and am hoping to visit Pakistan to launch Overtaken By Events there in February.

Join my Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/ethancaseyfans

and follow me on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/ethancasey

More soon,

Ethan

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This is to say that, while he is fallible like any of us, I take – and we all should take – any assessment or prognostication by him quite seriously as part of the conversation on Pakistan and Afghanistan. Below is part of what he says now about the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, and what its involvement in Afghanistan might portend for the region. Especially damning is his claim about the ISI and the Taliban – i.e. not the well-attested truth that it was involved in nurturing the Taliban in the first place, but his subtler but equally disturbing point that the ISI has never, at any crucial moment, been able to control the Taliban.

The quote below comes from Ahmed Rashid’s July 14 post “Petraeus’s Baby” on the New York Review of Books blog:

“The ISI knows it is holding more cards than any of the other regional powers—Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, and there is little they can do about its interference in Afghanistan for the moment. Still, most of these countries would not tolerate an ISI-Taliban dominated government in Kabul, and eventually they will gang up against Pakistan, creating still more turmoil in the region.

“Moreover it is highly unlikely that the ISI will ever be able to control the Taliban. It failed to control the outcome of the fall of Kabul in 1992 or the rise of the Taliban in 1994, and it lost all control of the Taliban just before September 11. …”

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“Like the defenders of the ban in Pakistan, many in the West also imagine a monolithic Islamic community. Incendiary Facebook pages, the French burka ban, and the anti-Islam advertisements placed on New York City buses by the right-wing blogger Pamela Geller and the Stop the Islamization of America campaign are just some of the West’s reactions to that community. All of this – combined with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and drone attacks in Pakistan – has led many young Pakistanis to understand that they are being attacked because they are Muslims.”

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“No doubt Osama bin Laden, if apprised of the situation, would hope that Rauf will cave in to these demands and ritually denounce Hamas. Because the Muslims who are most vulnerable to bin Laden’s recruiting pitch are, it’s safe to say, at least somewhat sympathetic to Hamas. And if moderate Muslims like Rauf can be pressured into adopting Israel’s position, and thus be depicted by truly radical Muslims as Zionist tools, that will make them less effective in their tug of war with bin Laden for the hearts and minds of the vulnerable.”

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Am back at my desk, online, and in the swing of things, after ten days or so in an undisclosed location recuperating from an extremely busy and exhausting winter and spring. Am feeling refreshed and looking forward to meeting old and new friends in my travel this fall to Haiti and around the US, and hopefully to Pakistan early in 2011 to launch Overtaken By Events there.

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“Loved your book! Must read again because I am finally understanding some of the headlines I’ve read in recent years. Very interesting, and again the personal reads like a novel. It is great!!!!!!” - Kathy Sheetz, Richmond, California

“It was great meeting you. I am really enjoying the books! They will be a great asset to the multi-cultural reading assignments I give out!” - Seema Gul, Mission Viejo, California

Overtaken By Events is an independent project, and its sales support my livelihood and my continued travel and speaking on behalf of a better human relationship between Pakistanis and Americans. Word of mouth is the most effective way to market books – and you can help. If you’ve read Overtaken By Events, post a comment on this page – and of course tell your family and friends, or even better buy copies for them.

I’ll be returning to Southern California and the Bay Area in the fall, and between September and November I also have trips scheduled to Colorado and the Southwest, the Northwest, Detroit, and the East Coast. See my calendar online, and consider inviting me to your city. I’m also working to make Overtaken By Events available in stores and other venues in Pakistan, hopefully before the end of this year.

I’m going to be offline until just after the July 4 holiday, then home in Seattle for the rest of the summer writing my new book with the working title Bearing the Bruise: A Lifetime in Haiti. I’m planning to publish Bearing the Bruise in late spring 2011. You can support it the way many of you supported Overtaken By Events - by pre-purchasing copies. It will include stories of Pakistani-American friends of mine who visited Haiti after the earthquake there this January, as well as stories from my own many visits to Haiti since 1982. I visited Haiti for five days this March and am planning a longer follow-up trip there in September.

So – I’ll be back in touch in early July. In the meantime, please post a comment here about Overtaken By Events, and continue helping me spread the word. I still need to send out some copies to people who purchased multiple copies – thank you for your patience; it’s been a very busy spring for me!

And here are links to two articles. One is my own short article about the May visit to Seattle by Todd Shea of SHINE Humanity. Todd and I will be doing some speaking together this fall in Colorado and elsewhere around the US:

Pakistan-Based “Go-to Guy for Disaster Relief” Visits UW

And here’s Ras Siddiqui’s very nice article in Pakistan Link about the May 28 fundraiser in Fremont, California for The Citizens Foundation, at which I spoke:

As a traveler who likes to learn from the people he meets, Casey adds himself in their lives and does not appear to be the detached foreigner in his writings. “I am not an expert on Pakistan,” he said. “I am a friend of Pakistan.” He added that he was the guy that keeps coming back. His recent article “Some of My Best Friends are Pakistanis” was widely read and appreciated by Pakistani-Americans during a very troubled time when the Times Square, New York attempted bombing associated with someone from within the community. He said that this kind of message needed to be sent to the mainstream community here in America by a non-Pakistani-American.

TCF Fundraiser in the San Francisco Bay Area, by Ras H. Siddiqui

Don’t forget to leave a comment below!

Thanks,

Ethan

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