Hospitality and Haiti

Haitian ImmigrationIt has been suggested, somewhat radically, that what Haiti needs more than aid is to leave Haiti. Not because Haiti is “hell on earth”, rather, because Haiti has been systematically oppressed: first from French colonial rule, then contemporary capitalism (IMF, et. al). As such, Haiti is as much a “man”-made disaster as it is tectonic. Derrida suggested, long ago, that the puzzles of ethics drive us from shear Otherness to hospitality. Haitians are Others, if for no other reason than Canadian and American racist immigration policies. By recognizing an ethics of hospitality we open the possibility of both accepting Haitian immigration as well as violence. Immigrating Haitians would assert a certain kind of dominion over their new land, and hospitality requires succumbing to this violent imposition. Even without the Derridean theory, immigration is, in the words of Corb Lund, “mighty neighbourly”.