I’m back after a much-needed short break where I travelled across the Atlantic Ocean approximately two and a half times. Did anything happen in the world while I was gone? 🤪
I was, however, dismayed and pretty offended by the recent comments from Emmanuel Macron (France’s President), who recently said that Haiti’s problems were the fault of Haitians. While any country is responsible for a number of its troubles —and believe me, France has its shit to deal with that it seems incapable of addressing adequately— the case of Haiti is an altogether different one.
Last week was a shorter week than normal, as Friday the 1st of November is a bank holiday in France, and hence the island. In fact, we have both the 1st and the 2nd, a lot like in Mexico. Many businesses were open Saturday morning, though, and I’ll get to that a little later.
As you know if you read this regularly, I was on the electoral list for the ARIN Advisory Council.
The current climate on the island continued this week with several incidents of violence and general unrest. For me, I was pretty much holed up all week as a barricade in two areas persisted, and it was not practical to pass during the week. I could only get some provisions from the island’s commercial centre late Friday afternoon. Things seemed to have calmed down a little, but the tension is still palpable.
It has been another week of tension on the island despite an accord being signed by several actors in the discussions. It wasn’t unanimous, meaning the conflict is not over. This will not be resolved until a much deeper discussion is had and a long-term plan is implemented. I’ll let you know how it goes.
There have been no Internet shutdowns so far, and I don’t expect that to happen in the current climate.
It has been a challenging week and not one conducive to reflection or giving me time to think about what I want to write about here. But as this is an exercise in getting me to write regularly, as much as it is a space for me to think about tech and how it relates to our lives, particularly here in the Caribbean.
If you haven’t been following or don’t get to see news from the French West Indies, we’ve been having a week of unrest and violent protests on the Island after a number of peaceful protests seem to stir up a general malaise in the population, which seems to have been hijacked by a small group of well-organised individuals that set about looting, pillaging and burning shops, cars and just about anything that could be burnt.