James:

This is more less what I don’t like about Brooks’ critique of Haitian
culture:

“It is not the fact that Brooks is questioning culture that should bother us, it is the fact that he does so without offering anything of substance to support his ideas, and without it his ideas just look callous and crude (especially coming only two days after the earthquake).”

So yes , I think culture certainly has something to do with poverty (along with a lot of other things), I don’t really know how much, nor does anyone really. I would really enjoy ready an intelligent argument about how changing Haitian culture would lead to decreasing poverty. Unfortunately Brooks does not do that.

arryq:

My point in linking ‘locally lead paternalism’ to Yew was just to point out the inherent danger of any paternalism (it was not to draw a direct comparison): it is dependent on the leadership skills of one person, and has a danger of breaking down once that person is gone. It doesn’t matter if that person is a dictator of a country or in charge of a tiny rural village. The benefit of having a community participating in, and taking ownership of development projects themselves is a much higher chance of being sustainable. The drawback is this type of development takes longer because it is from the bottom up. The siren song of paternalism is that positive change can happen much faster. So maybe one way forward is a combination of the two: strong leadership vision coupled with active community particiapation. I don’t know if Brooks’ examples demonstrate local ownership or participation or not. There will always be a tension between the top (paternal) and the bottom of any organization. So, I think, by definition if Brooks commends some organizations for being paternalistic then there will certainly be less “participation” by the bottom.

sara:

The only thing I would disagree with is your support for investing that changes culture. I’m not exactly sure how one would do this, but culture needs to change because people want it to change, not because someone from the outside thinks it would be a good idea. I think Penny hit the nail on the head when she said “What we CAN do, is step out the way, decline to impose our own culturally-specific solutions, and honor and affirm the intelligence, resilience, and participation of the people who will remain after our outpouring of aid ceases. It’s not that we don’t have good ideas and solutions, but that if we impose them on people they’ll fail. We should have learned this lesson by now.” We know aid has failed, but solutions will come from the bottom up, not the top down.

I honestly think Brooks cares about the people of Haiti and wants to help. But I think his certitude is what gets him in trouble. Since we don’t know all the answers, caution and humility, are what is needed most. There certainly are some people for whom some questions are off limits (culture, race, etc.), but my generation of development practitioners and economists is much more concerned about what works than offending someone’s delicate sensibilities.

The next year they returned to take more pictures of “their” church and found 4 families living in the building and the church meeting in the same old tent down the road. They asked the pastor what happened and he told them the owner of the property demanded more money for rent, but since the church could not afford it they moved back to the tent.

The American “missions team” was enraged and asked why they weren’t told that the church did not own the property. The answer was simple, “Because you didn’t ask.” When asked what they needed the pastor said mats to sit on.

We can spend all the time in the world debating why Haiti is in the state it is in, but like Penny said, we can’t help them OUR way. Lets not make the same mistake with them that this church, and many other well intentioned savior complexed North Americans make every day throughout the 3rd and emerging worlds.

The very best people to be heading the relief efforts are the Haitians. Who knows the needs of the Haitian people better than their own? Now I am not saying we should leave the corrupt politicians nor the people on the take in charge, but rather the PEOPLE. If you want to give your money to help the rebuild look for groups that are headed, or working closely with the Haitian people. They cannot afford our egotism.

I must mention, however, that your critique of his idea of “locally led paternalism” seemed problematic to me. Your critique of it jumps from his suggestion of “locally led paternalism” similar to that (as he sees it) in the Children’s Zone, and No Excuses Program to the paternalism of Lee Kuan Yew. You then eviscerate that type of paternalism as insufficient due to it’s lack of”local ownership and participation”.

While I don’t know that I buy Brooks’ argument that those two programs are effective solely due to their “locally led paternalism”, you can not honestly argue that those examples demonstrate a lack of local ownership or participation (even if he does use the hot-button word “paternalism”).

In short, whether his argument is bull or not, comparing The Children’s Zone to the paternalism of Singapore is comparing apples to oranges.