It Is A Losing Battle For Mortal Man

Conrad Black: Worse than Africa

Posted: January 23, 2010, 9:15 AM by NP Editor
Filed under: Conrad Black

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas. It is also, after Canada, the only French-speaking country in this hemisphere. This fact suggests that Canada and the United States may have a motivated European partner in Haiti’s reconstruction.

Now that the Sarkozy regime has abandoned France’s unsuccessful 45-year attempt to incite Quebec to separate from Canada, it might even be induced to assist this Caribbean corner of la Francophonie, especially after the debacles in much of the French Community, such as Senegal, Ivory Coast and Madagascar.

Senegal was the jewel of French West Africa under the learned French Academician, president Léopold Senghor; and its capital, Dakar, was the Paris of French-speaking, sub-Saharan Africa. Ivory Coast, led for decades by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, was also a showcase. (The president built a basilica only slightly smaller than St. Peter’s — smaller at the request of John Paul II — at his jungle birthplace.) Abidjan, the capital, showed signs of becoming a modern African metropolis. Yet, like Senegal, Ivory Coast remains mired in tribal and factional violence. Meanwhile, Madagascar, a former French colony that never harboured or incited such hopes, is being robustly contested by rival local radio-station owners, a tropical struggle between Beaverbrook and Northcliffe, or Hearst and Pulitzer, adjusted to scale and time.

Click here to read more...

Urgent appeal for the people of Haiti: Recommendations from the Canada Haiti Action Network

Dismal forecasts on Haiti's future