Images from the devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti. Photo: Matthew Marek/American Red Cross

There are those who ask why Haiti has been hopelessly poor for so long. Yes, it is one of the first independent republics, but the Haitian people have suffered just as long, victims of colonial folly. It’s assumed benefactors in France and the United States have hardly been constant. I agree with Paul Farmer, who has long advocated a Marshall Plan for Haiti.

Here is part of what he wrote in the October 6, 2008 edition of The Nation.

Haiti is a veritable graveyard of development projects has less to do with Haitian culture and more to do with the nation’s place in the world. The history that turned the world’s wealthiest slave colony into the hemisphere’s poorest country has been tough, in part because of a lack of respect for democracy both among Haiti’s small elite and in successive French and US governments. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the US simply refused to acknowledge Haiti’s existence. In the latter half, gunboats pre-empted diplomacy. And in 1915 US Marines began a twenty-year military occupation and formed the modern Haitian army (whose only target has been the Haitian people). After the fall of Duvalier in 1986, Washington continued to support unelected, mainly military, governments. Indeed, it was not until after 1990, when Haiti had its first democratic elections, that assistance to the government was cut back and finally cut off. The decay of the public sector–through aid cutoffs and neoliberal policies–is one of the chief reasons Haiti, unlike neighboring Cuba, is unable to respond to hurricanes with effective relief.

Farmer wrote in response to devastation of the 2008 hurricane season. In 2010, structural change has never been more required. Tears must be replaced by an unprecedented international commitment to rescue Haiti for all times.

- Peter Eisner

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Ethiopia, visit our extended coverage page: Ethiopia Past and Present.

Nina Khruscheva, the granddaughter of former Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, joins Daljit Dhaliwal to discuss Stalin’s continuing appeal.

Watch World Remembers Beginning of World War II, a report by English-language TV station Russia Today highlighting the difficult history between Russia and Poland.

Vladimir Lensky, the New York bureau chief for Russia’s Channel One, discusses Russia’s role and responsibility in World War Two.

In a Russian language blog on Moscow radio station Echomoscow’s website, writer Sergei Shagunov comments on Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s recent article in a Polish newspaper about the Soviet-Nazi pact to split up Poland in 1939.

Read the full post here in Russian. The following excerpts were translated from by Worldfocus producer Christine Kiernan.

It is frequently necessary to disagree with Vladimir Putin, but in his article published in the newspaper “Vyborcha” [the Polish newspaper], there are strivings for objectivity. Today this is rare thing. Of course [even-handedness] is possibly only when there is open discussion. …The 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War is reason for a sharp, honest, difficult conversation.

Poland was up until the end a [partner] of Hitler, participating in the invasion of Czechoslovakia… and its minister of foreign affairs Bek spoke about pretensions to Soviet Ukraine… It’s necessary to remember that England France from the beginning shut their eyes over Germany’s armament, then gave Czechoslovakia to her, and finally, drew out and [ruined] Moscow discussions about the creation, together with the USSR, of an anti-German coalition. So Hitler broke the East. ..

Yes, the Soviet Union was totalitarian. But even totalitarian states have their own interests…..For example, interests of safety.

A simple question: was it necessary to sign an amoral supplement to the Soviet-German pact?

Everyone was amoral, including Poland. Everyone is guilty in the war. To different degrees? Perhaps. But all the same – guilty.

Writing in the UK’s The Guardian, Anita Prazmowska says that despite Putin’s subsequent efforts to praise Polish bravery during the war, the timing of his comments will strike many Poles as misplaced. Read the full post here.

1 September is seen in Poland as a beginning of its enslavement, first under Nazi domination and then, after the war, to Soviet domination. 1 September is a time of grieving. One can’t really expect Poles to see this as a date for reflection on the shortcomings of their own governments’ policies in 1939 and subsequently. Thus Putin has on the one hand accepted that the Soviet Union was wrong, but he has also publicly reminded the Poles that they too have to address some unsavory moments in Poland’s history. The fact that he spoke of the Russian people being victims of both Stalinism and of Nazism has done little to soothe Polish anger.

Uighurs are the largest minority in Xinjiang but are dwarfed by the Han Chinese population in the capital city Urumqi.

On Sunday, riots erupted in China’s far-western autonomous province of Xinjiang where ethnic tension were mounting for days.

In the provincial capital of Urumqi, riots were reportedly led by Uighurs, an ethnically Turkic-Muslim group. Clashes between the Uighurs and Han Chinese, the majority ethnic group outside of Xinjiang province, have killed more than 150 people and wounded more than 1,000.

Police have arrested more than 1,400 people in connection to the widespread rioting. Since that time, the unrest has spread to the border town of Kashgar, where demonstrators demanded the release of Uighurs detained during Sunday’s rioting.

Yitzhak Shichor, a professor in the department of East Asian studies at the University of Haifa, blogs at OpenDemocracy about the surfacing tensions in Xinjiang and the history of the Uighurs.

The reports of violence and deaths in the city of Urumchi, the capital of Xinjiang province in northwest China, draw renewed attention to this comparatively neglected region of China and of central Asia. The exact details of what happened there on the night of 5-6 July 2009 are unclear and (inevitably) disputed, though the background may include the assaults on Uighur migrant workers at a toy factory in Guangdong province on 26 June (in which two are reported dead and dozens injured).

But if the details of the immediate incident await to be confirmed, there is less doubt over the larger context of Uighur experience - both under Chinese rule and in the exile which over many years many Uighurs have been driven towards or chosen.

Uighurs are a Turkic-Muslim ethnic group which has been living in East Turkestan for centuries. This region, reoccupied by the Qing dynasty in the mid-18th century, had become a Chinese province named Xinjiang in 1884; in 1955, after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in October 1949, was reorganised as the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region. The official statistics for 2007 suggest that Uighurs now number more than 10 million, and thus constitute Xinjiang’s largest minority at almost 50 percent of its population - though this is a sharp reduction from 95 percent at the time of the communist takeover in 1949, the result of significant Chinese settlement in the region. The numbers of Uighurs and Han Chinese are now roughly equal.

Uighurs, claiming Xinjiang as their historical homeland, have repeatedly tried to gain independence and set up their own state - but just as repeatedly failed. Beijing, considering them a separatist and “splittist” group, has used a variety of means - cultural, social, economic, political and military - to crush any sign of restiveness among Uighur.

For many years Beijing had regarded Uighur unrest in China as an internal problem that should and would be settled without external interference. Since the early 1990s, however, Beijing has become aware of the growing concern in the international community about the Uighurs’ persecution in China. This concern has been kindled and promoted by Uighur diaspora organisations all over the world. [...]

Uighurs migrated from China in waves, usually following deteriorating conditions or, conversely, when the doors were opened. Some left by the mid-1930s after the first - and short-lived - Eastern Turkestan Republic had collapsed, mostly to Turkey and to Saudi Arabia. Several hundred Uighurs fled China in late 1949, following the Chinese communists’ seizure of Xinjiang. [...]

Uighur diaspora communities have formed their own associations (occasionally more than one) in every area they have settled. These have the aims of preserving Uighur collective identity (i.e. culture and language), and sustaining and promoting shared national aspirations - ultimately, independence for East Turkestan. In trying to overcome the fragmentation and disagreements that have characterised these associations, attempts have been made to set up international Uighur “umbrella” organisations (such as the Eastern Turkestan National Congress, set up in Turkey in 1992; and the East Turkestan Government-in-Exile, formed in Washington in autumn 2004).

Most such attempts have failed to achieve the unity they sought. A movement that has a chance to survive is the World Uighur Congress, inaugurated in April 2004 in Munich.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user eviltomthai under a Creative Commons license.

“Remember Me”: A bust commemorating Kemal Ataturk. Photo: Bryan Myers

Worldfocus producer Bryan Myers is currently reporting from Turkey. He writes from Istanbul about the country’s love for one of its most famed figures, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who appears on everything from office buildings to lapel pins and souvenirs.

It’s not a sight an American is accustomed to encountering when checking into a large hotel. Instead of the usual flowers or water fountains, in Istanbul, it’s a bust accompanied by the words “Remember Me.”

Those words, and the image above them, belong to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic. And in Turkey, they are as inescapable as minarets and kebab shops. They are emblazoned everywhere — on the walls of schools, in public parks, at entrances to bridges and even in the lobby of private office buildings. Visit the souvenir shops in Istanbul, and they’re there too. Ataturk wrist watches seem to be the hottest item.

This Ataturk omnipresence isn’t merely a gesture of respect — it’s worship. That observation isn’t meant to belittle his memory. In fact, to do so is a crime in Turkey. It’s just that as an American, it is rare to see a politician so beloved. The last time I can remember seeing a politician’s face on a watch in America was Nixon or Agnew in the early 1970s, and I’m pretty sure those watches weren’t meant to be a tribute.

Having forgotten much of my high school world history lessons, I decided to do a little boning up. Kemal Ataturk rose to prominence as a military officer in World War I. Unfortunately, Turkey — then called the Ottoman Empire — picked the wrong side, allying itself with Germany and the other Central Powers. After its defeat, Turkey was carved up by the British, French, Italians and Greeks (mention of the Greeks’ role in World War I in particular seems to irk the Turks, but perhaps that’s a topic for another blog).

Ataturk led the army that chased the foreigners out and unified the country once again (his official bio goes on to note his love of animals and his prowess as a ballroom dancer). The name “Ataturk” literally means “father of the Turks,” and was bestowed on him by the Turkish parliament in the 1920s. According to fellow Worldfocus producer Gizem Yarbil, herself a native Turk, the Ataturk story is so moving, it’s been known to reduce small children to tears when taught in elementary school.

But for adults, the image of Ataturk has become a potent political symbol, and I think that gets to the root of why his image is found all over town. Besides being a war hero, Ataturk was also a fierce advocate of a secular state. He thought the only way to bring Turkey into the modern era was by rejecting traditional ways rooted in religion. That was a bold stand in a country that was just about entirely Muslim. And today, while many Turks are not devout Muslims, some are, and they’d like to see a return to the Islamist ways of old.

So it is that today, an Ataturk lapel pin or portrait on an office wall quickly identifies one as a “secularist,” and in their view, a modernist more closely in tune with the West than the East.

All of this got me thinking about the early planning for our trip to Turkey, and our visit to the Turkish consulate in New York for visas. As often happens when journalists stop by for a consular visit, we were loaded down with books and pamphlets intended to introduce us to the country. One contained a series of official portraits of the presidents of modern Turkey, beginning with Ataturk. It is the photograph most commonly seen of Ataturk, in which he’s dressed in a white tie and tails.

I’m speculating here, but I’m guessing he picked this somewhat unusual outfit because at the time it was considered the the height of formal European fashion, and as such symbolized a clear rejection of traditional garb. That style was mimicked by all the other Turkish presidents in the book up until the 1970s. Perhaps they were hoping that by doing so, a little bit of the public’s affection for Ataturk would rub off on them.

“Remember Me?” After several weeks in Istanbul, it will be hard to forget Turkey’s founding father.

- Bryan Myers

For more Worldfocus coverage of Turkey, visit our extended coverage page: Turkey between East and West.

Read what a Worldfocus contributing blogger had to say about the contest: Vote for most notable Russian is contested.

Worldfocus special correspondent Martin Himel visited Moscow recently and reports on Stalin’s comeback.