The beginning of 2010 is marked by a terrible tragedy.
Of course I'm talking about the Haiti earthquake.
The number of deaths is between 30,000 and 100,000 and at least three million people have been devastated by the disaster.
I will not dwell too much in citing the article in Le Matin, which publishes the warning of the geologist Charles Patrick, professor of the Institute of Applied Geology of Havana, who apparently had already planned earthquake.
I don’t want to be caught in controversy if earthquakes can be predicted or not.
Until otherwise proven, the earthquake is a natural event, a phenomenon that is part of our planet’s life.
Moreover, many of you could warn me and remind me that now is not the time for polemics, but for solidarity and aid.
It’s time to open the bag.
It’s time for us, fortunate of having one.
From what I read, apart from the various interventions of doctors and officials of the various humanitarian organizations, the world is sending millions of dollars and euro, showing that in times of need humanity takes care of the most unfortunate people.
Unfortunate or affected by a hostile randomness.
In these days, since I learned of the accident, I was to write something, but just right now I did.
I felt within myself that this was the news, the fact before which everything else becomes dust in the wind, but I could not find the words to translate what I sensed about it.
A mix of emotions, above all there are impotence and anger.
Especially anger, anger and questions, which feed it.
Questions like this: why does nature strike just the most unlucky persons?! And what about God?! Where is God in these moments? I am not an example, I’m not a believer, I said it and repeat it. I'm just a hopeful terrified by death man, which could believe anything, even the prophecies of a magician, if he might stop my anxiety before the end of everything. However, if I were a man of faith, I would look to the sky, asking the creator: why you do you hit the latest like that?! You should protect them first!
Okay, it’s enough. Now is not the time for polemics, especially mine, that I live in a land that has so many problems, but incomparable to those of countries like Haiti.
It’s not the time of the controversy, it is true, but it is certainly an opportunity to learn something from what happened, so that the unfortunate people didn’t die in vain.
At the beginning of the third millennium, Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world.
80% of the population is in a state of utter destitution and more than 50% survive on less than a dollar a day.
A dollar, or 70 cents euro.
This was true even before the earthquake...
The quake could not be predicted? But if we had sent before only half of that money to a land partly impoverished because of colonialism and exploitation by countries like ours, probably today Haiti would have been much less damage, don’t you think?
Forgive me, I made a mistake.
Today is not the time of the controversy.
Okay.
So here are some countries that United Nations say have the lowest Human Development Index (2009 data):
159. Togo
160. Malawi
161. Benin
162. Timor-Leste
163. Côte d'Ivoire
164. Zambia
165. Eritrea
166. Senegal
167. Rwanda
168. Gambia
169. Liberia
170. Guinea
171. Ethiopia
172. Mozambique
173. Guinea-Bissau
174. Burundi
175. Chad
176. Congo (Democratic Republic of the)
177. Burkina Faso
178. Mali
179. Central African Republic
180. Sierra Leone
181. Afghanistan
182. Niger
We can start from the last, as we want.
If you think that Haiti is, or was, at 149th place...
World map indicating the Human Development Index (Green means high development, from yellow to orange medium, from red to black low, gray not reached...)
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