“Transformation is only valid if it is carried out with the people, not for them. Liberation is like a childbirth, and a painful one. The person who emerges is a new person: no longer either oppressor or oppressed, but a person in the process of achieving freedom. It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors” -- Paulo Freire

for the first time, about what Ezili Dantò has been publishing on the
narcissism and false charity of UN Deputy Envoy to Haiti, Paul Farmer and his partner, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim.

It's a worthwhile read and I am grateful that, for once, our work at Ezili's
HLLN is not simply ignored as usual by the folks who regularly publish at the main "Leftist" US outlets such as Counterpunch.

"Dying for Capitalism" references our work in the context of the Paulo Freire quote above we're constantly repeating and describes Ezili Dantò as an "organic intellectual."

Don't know for certain what that means, but I asked an agriculture expert
whose job it is to authorize "certified as organic" on lands where food are
being sold in the US with that label.

He works daily as a special investigator doing field inspections to be sure
when farmers say their fertilizer and fields are organic with no synthetic
fertilizers, it's actually organic as advertised. My expert says "organic"
means "not synthetic, not made in a laboratory and mass produced."

I am with that indeed, what a good compliment. My heartfelt thanks to the very insightful authors. Lol.

Haiti, nay, the entire indigenous world, needs some pest control to weed out the NGOs and World Bank false charity. These mass produced folks are today led by the Paul Farmer and Jim Yong Kim ilk. Their progressive credentials are tainted in convenient alliances. A weeding up, a decontamination is required.

Brian McKenna and Hans Baer begin that pest and weed control process, for the academic crowd, with "Dying for Capitalism."

What Haiti needs is more "organic" decision-makers not contaminated by
synthetic fertilizers like Farmer and Kim.

"The slavemaster took Tom and dressed him well, and fed him well, and even gave him a little education -- a little education; gave him a long coat and a top hat and made all the other slaves look up to him. Then he used Tom to control them. The same strategy that was used in those days is used today, by the same white man. He takes a Negro, a so-called Negro, and make [sic] him prominent, build [sic] him up, publicize [sic] him, make [sic] him a celebrity. And then he becomes a spokesman for Negroes -- and a Negro leader." - Malcom X, Message to the Grassroots

Alright, I am appreciating and having too much fun with the connections that "organic" metaphor provides when this Black woman's mind thinks about Haiti's policymaker and spokesman, Paul Farmer.

It must be noted though, that after reading the article in its totality, I am
mostly convinced the authors and I actually do not see Paulo Freire's work within the same non-colonial prism or level of importance

 

The false charity of the "missionary" or "humanitarian" saviors is a  colonial blueprint. These saviors with their finance capitalists' rulers, pillage - through chaos, disenfranchisement and dictatorship - create the instability or the disease. (UN brings in cholera, UN envoy Famer cholera vaccines, Bush disenfranchises with coup d'etat, Clinton agricultural devastation). Then rush in to "cure it" or "bring order" to the "natives." That's a given.

 The Freire work that most resonates with me speaks, though, to the pedagogy of the oppressed - the colonial victims' mental colonization and victim-making-victim capacity and the clueless narcissism of the imperialist.

I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves. --Harriet Tubman.

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” --Lily Watson

Also at one point the authors write:

"In short, there is a major conflict (mostly unreported in the anthropology literature) between two leading Leftist intellectuals on Haitian health and politics, Paul Farmer and Ezili Danto."

I must say, I don't wish to even be in the same sentence as that Jake
Sully exploiter. If the mass produced imperialist Paul Farmer is a "Leftist
intellectual"  I'd choose something without the engrafted Western codes and backstories of such "Leftist intellectual." I'd say I am a pagan, a maroon intellectual, an indigenous intellectual dedicated to undoing the Western programming called "education" we've been taught. The poverty pimp Farmer selling his soul to serve power, privilege and especially big pharmaceutical and Ezili Dantò are opposites. HLLN recommends the article. See excerpts below from "Good Growth" at the World Bank? Dying for Capitalism by Brian McKenna and Hans Baer).

Ezili Dantò of HLLN
September, 2012
***

Standing Alone
"One who often stands alone is Ezili Danto, Founder and President of the
Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network. She is an organic intellectual and artist who was born in Port au Prince. Her organization once awarded a medal to Paul Farmer, but today she is one of Dr. Farmer’s most vocal critics. Danto cites Freire to inform her practice, choosing a quote to countermand Farmer’s focus on “true charity” work. Here is the quote, “Transformation is only valid if it is carried out with the people, not for them. Liberation is like a childbirth, and a painful one. The person who emerges is a new person: no longer either oppressor or oppressed, but a person in the process of achieving freedom. It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors” (from Freire 1970).

"In short, there is a major conflict (mostly unreported in the anthropology
literature) between two leading Leftist intellectuals on Haitian health and
politics, Paul Farmer and Ezili Danto. Both cite Paulo Freire to justify their positions. Clearly, an independent assessment to ascertain the strength of their respective arguments is called for.... One must ask why are so many anthropologists reluctant to investigate the claims?"

“...(Paul Farmer and Kim) by not challenging the ways in which profit-
motivated economic processes cause the kind of illness that they claim to
cure...this kind of pragmatism risks sacrificing future generations for
current exigencies” (Hodge 2011).

"There are two sets of principles. They are the principles of power and
privilege and the principles of truth and justice. If you pursue truth and
justice, it will always mean a diminution of power and privilege. If you
pursue power and privilege it will always be at the expense of truth and
justice" -- Chris Hedges ("Good Growth" at the World Bank? Dying for
Capitalism by Brian McKenna and Hans Baer )

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Forwarded by Ezili's Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN)
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“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” --Lily Watson