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The epic Haitian earthquake—secretary of state Hillary Clinton called it "biblical"—brought the woeful island nation back into the American mind. The moment was totally in keeping with past experience: Haiti makes news only when something really, really miserable happens there. "It's the most dismal place on earth," a businessman friend of mine remembered from trips there in recent decades. Even the secular New York Times alluded to the question Lisa Miller takes on for us: why does God hate Haiti? Theological matters aside, the reality is indisputable: Haiti's history is long and troubled. Columbus discovered it, the French exploited it, and the United States occupied it. In 1915, dispatching Marines to Haiti, President Woodrow Wilson referred to the nation as a "dusky little republic"; soon we would bring it Jim Crow.
Now Americans are, as ever, responding to a televised tragedy with generosity. The ritual of disaster is unfolding with flawless efficiency—the breaking news alerts, the cable coverage, the anchors' move into the country, and now the magazine covers. As rituals go, it is not a bad one, for there is a commensurate outpouring of money and support. We know our parts well. Schoolchildren learn about the fragility of the world and the centrality of service to others when they are asked for coins or canned goods; grown-ups consumed by getting and spending are reminded that things could be worse—a lot worse.
There is an inevitable sameness to the problems of the world. Earthquake, hurricane, fire, famine, poverty—some acts of nature, others man-made, some both. The enormity of loss envelops us early on, but interest fades. This time will be different, we tell ourselves in the drama of the moment. This time we will stay the course; we won't give up; we won't let our minds stray.
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But this time probably won't be different, and history suggests that we won't stay the course. The best hope for the country to follow through tomorrow on its sympathetic impulses of today lies in seeing Haiti in terms of our larger national interests. Perhaps unfortunately, humanitarianism is not a foreign policy. It is, however, a sensible idea, which Franklin Roosevelt understood when he ended American occupation in 1934 and put forward his hemispheric Good Neighbor Policy. As FDR noted elsewhere, experience has taught the United States that Emerson was right: the only way to have a friend is to be one. The world watches how we act toward those less fortunate than ourselves—and just about everybody on earth is less fortunate than we are. Rebuilding Haiti will not kill jihadists in Afghanistan, Somalia, or Yemen. It will not calm Iraq. It will not slow Iran's march toward a nuclear weapon. Yet it will show us to advantage—a great power doing good, even when the do-gooding is outside a realist's flinty calculus of a national interest.
In his essay for us this week, President Obama argues that when we show "not just our power, but also our compassion, the world looks to us with a mixture of awe and admiration. That advances our leadership"—a global role that, in the best of times, proves "we do not use our power to subjugate others, we use it to lift them up."
Aid for Haiti can thus be seen not only as charitable but as shrewd. Rebuilding would restore a measure of American prestige after our own Katrina failure. A stable nation would be less likely to be a player in drug trafficking, and the exodus of refugees from a failed state creates its own complications within the United States.
Then there is what my colleague John Barry calls the "old-fashioned but real" interest in perpetuating the Monroe Doctrine. "I can easily foresee that Russia and, especially, China may choose to tweak Obama by mounting very public relief efforts in Haiti," John says. Hugo Chávez and his comrades will also capitalize on any impression that America is ignoring Haiti.
Writing a new story about how we deal with others cannot hurt in the larger world, and just might help. Nearly a century ago, Wilson admitted America was being "highhanded" with Haiti. Now we have a chance to do some good works and do ourselves some good at the same time.
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