Our tiny little men.

Some compatriots rejoice when a foreigner—an American, a Canadian, or a Frenchman—cancels a Haitian’s visa, a cancellation seen and experienced as a sanction, a punishment, by both those who welcome the measure and those who suffer its consequences.

For a Haitian, a visa is more than precious.

One can sell one’s soul for a visa.

One can readily grovel before a foreigner and accept being subjected to things that Western morality no longer condemns.

One can accept the dictates of these foreigners who only want our downfall and who, with the help of many treacherous compatriots, have concocted this nightmare of urban warfare with gangs.

War and terrorism—our so-called foreign “friends” know a thing or two about them, ever since the bloodbath they instigated in Ukraine and their ignominious actions in Africa, particularly in the Sahel.

There are few countries where a chargé d’affaires can threaten to sanction someone with the rank of President to force them to make a decision that serves interests completely unrelated to those of the nation.

He doesn’t have that right, and in any self-respecting country, this diplomat would have been reprimanded or simply expelled.

But the world’s first Black republic has fallen into oblivion.

These men and women, for the most part, are insignificant individuals, little men, as the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich would have said. Some of our leaders behave like pathetic lackeys, devoid of any feeling for this nation, concerned only with amassing wealth and securing a comfortable pension.

Perhaps they’re counting on the fact that there’s no accountability in Haiti and that they can go live the high life elsewhere with a zero, catastrophic record.

When will we have leaders in Haiti who stand up to both international and local crime?

It’s sad and appalling to see how low we’ve fallen, we who should have been an example for Africa.

Ibrahim Traoré, the young and charismatic Burkinabè leader, addressed us.

But his message will fall on deaf ears.

The void of political and social insignificance.

The void of intellectual poverty.

The void of a shameless self-serving attitude displayed before our very eyes.

Gary Victor