The Dominican Republic celebrates its Independence Day on Saturday, yet there’s a good chance that no one outside of Secretary of State (http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/02/137320.htm) Hillary R. Clinton was paying any attention.
In all seriousness, there’s also a good chance that even Clinton gave it cursory attention in issuing her statement on the day before the actual Dominican holiday (nobody wants to work on Saturday if they can avoid it).
EVEN IN HER statement praising the Dominican Republic and its people for maintaining their status as an independent nation for the past 166 years, what Clinton found most noteworthy was that the Caribbean island nation was willing to put aside their centuries-old tensions to help out their island nation neighbor – Haiti, which is taking most of the attention that U.S. residents are willing to pay to other countries.
Teams of medical personnel continue to make the trip to Haiti along with supplies meant to help the people survive during the coming years that the country tries to rebuild from that 7.0 Richter Scale earthquake.
Considering the poverty that existed prior to the earthquake, I won’t be surprised if 5 years from now, New Orleans still recovering from Katrina comes off looking like paradise compared to Port au Prince.
But the Dominican Republic has offered some aid, and various outside nations have used the Dominican as a staging ground for their Haiti efforts, including one Air National Guard unit from Kentucky (http://www.wfpl.org/2010/02/26/national-guard-troops-return-from-dominican-republic-on-haiti-relief-mission/) that recently returned from the Caribbean.
I FIND IT encouraging, but also sad.
Pleasing that the two nations could put aside their differences, that must now seem trivial but in all likelihood will someday rise again to significance. But sad that it took catastrophe and death to bring the sides together.
It is the history of the two nations, which share the island of Hispaniola. One half was colonized by the Spaniards and the other by the French. Even after the two halves separated themselves from their European colonizers, the establishments that prevailed have tried, throughout the years, to make their cultural background be the one that prevails throughout the island.
It’s too bad that generations of Dominicans have resented their Haitian neighbors, just because they spoke French instead of Spanish.
NOT THAT SUCH illogical disputes are limited to Hispaniola.
Heck, there are times when I think the tensions some people in this country feel toward Mexico are even more absurd (a recent Gallup Organization study showed that 49 percent of U.S. residents polled looked favorably upon our neighbor to the south, compared to 46 percent whose views are unfavorable).
I’d hate to think it would take an earthquake-type catastrophe to bring our two nations that ought to be working together on our shared problems to actually do so.
And I write that statement knowing full well of the 3.9 Richter Scale earthquake that hit the area near Calèxico, Calif., and Mexicali, Baja Calif. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/26/AR2010022603093.html) that fortunately seems to have caused no casualties.
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