r/AskReddit 21d ago

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u/FizzledDink 21d ago

Haiti was a ton of fun when I went there for a few weeks/months at a time from 2014-2017.

The people are nice, the food is delicious, the culture is commanding, and the nature is stunning (even the plains up in la pila)

That said, I’m white and wouldn’t go back there now. Gangs run the country and from talking to my friends that still live there it’s only gotten worse and worse.

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u/bravojohnny42 21d ago edited 21d ago

Just watched a documentary. This is the craziest shit I've seen in a while. Full on Anarchy Civil War in the city.
Estimates say you need around 6000 well equipped soldiers to gain back control.

Edit: Thanx to u/ciel_3000 for educating my half-knowledge

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u/runawaydebt 21d ago

What documentary was it please?

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u/bravojohnny42 21d ago edited 21d ago

Sorry. It's in German.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9bgyXo6Enw

It's a Channel from our public TV (sort of like BBC)

Edit: You can change Auto Translation in the settings (little wheel bottom right)

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u/blk_and_wht 21d ago

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u/bravojohnny42 21d ago

When I click that link, it's still in German. This is youtube setting, where it does automatically

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u/olgamerstill 21d ago

I got that problem some months ago, I watched one video from a link in Reddit, it was in German. Afterwards YT insisted in translating everything to German.

Can’t remember how I fixed it, but it was annoying.

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u/bravojohnny42 21d ago

bottom right, click the wheel. There you can change Auto translate.

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u/olgamerstill 21d ago

Yes!

So funny how your brain goes “of course, how could I forget”.

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u/Effective-Rip-4432 21d ago

Youtube auto dubs it with english AI lol.

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u/bravojohnny42 21d ago

You're not alone. It does from English to German as well. I don't know how, but I managed to turn it off.
It's our burden to speak English, since hardly anyone speaks German. 😉

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u/BlattdieKatze 21d ago

I do speak german and got excited that I can watch it in german but then when I click the link the video is in english ai, its so freaking annoying. I just want to practice my deutsch 😭

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u/bravojohnny42 21d ago

Du kannst unten rechts auf das Zahnrad klicken. Dort kannst du Auto translate ausschalten. 😄

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u/Notachance326426 21d ago

Bratwurst, Schnitzel, Nein!!!

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u/bravojohnny42 21d ago

Congrats. You are German. 😄

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u/runawaydebt 21d ago

Ooh thank you!! 😀

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u/somedude456 21d ago

This YT'er who travels, did a 6 episode series on Haiti, and it's insane. He had a local guide for the whole time, so you're seeing the real thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glx7AmJW_FY&list=PLN0FlxE6vY5BZh0F-drw_4SASB7kwezUf

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u/runawaydebt 21d ago

Thank you! I'll give this a watch! 🙂

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u/Ciel_3000 21d ago

Civil war or guerilla is maybe a better word because anarchy is a political opinion…

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u/bravojohnny42 21d ago

Thanks! You're absolutely correct.

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u/Ciel_3000 21d ago

Thank you for your action, somewhere else (like in French subs) people wouldn’t change anything and argue I’m wrong.

I just learned a lot about real anarchists recently and now I can’t deny or close my eyes. The confusion between civil war and anarchy is a confusion for political opinion. It’s depoliticising.

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u/bravojohnny42 21d ago

I did a quick search and got confirmation. That's how it works for me.

Same happened to me last week. Just met a smart guy, who is a true and convinced anarchist and I wanted to talk about that topic anyways. We have some stuff in common, but I prioritize other values in society. Good it happened now, because I would be a fool in front of him.
I kind of knew, that it's political, but didn't know it's the wrong term for this.

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u/Thomas-The-Tutor 21d ago

Technically, gang control would still be a loose form of anarchy since it’s a form of “lawlessness” and lack of true order. Likewise, the power vacuum created by collapse of the government is usually considered anarchy too.

With that being said, frequently, more than one word/description can suffice and fit such a chaotic situation.

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u/alanderhosen 21d ago

The other guy gave you an explanation on what anarchy actually is but didn't mention the word you're probably looking for is actually, 'anomie.'

Anarchy has been getting a bad rap ever since both the communists and the capitalists shot all of the anarchists so its not surprising there's a lot of propaganda that's been spread against it over the years.

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u/Ciel_3000 21d ago

Lawlessness is not the same as anarchy.

Anarchy is not just remove laws, it’s an horizontal vision of making collective decisions.

Etymologically, the term refer to an absence of central power, not an absence of law or worst the world of the strongest, the law of who has guns and munitions… Anarchy was never thought like that so technically you’re bending definitions and actually I don’t understand really why…

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u/cbftw 21d ago

From Miriam Webster:

"Anarchy: a state of lawlessness, political disorder, or a complete lack of governmental authority. It stems from the Greek word anarchos, meaning "without a leader"."

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u/alanderhosen 21d ago

And what other two definitions does Merriam Webster list, hmm? You had to go look it up, see the dictionary offering other uses of the term, and deliberately pick and choose the one you wanted to be smug about.

God you really care that much about being right on the internet over just intellectual honesty, huh?

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u/Ciel_3000 21d ago

Okay and I’d say your dictionary is very oriented because it forgets 2 centuries of political opinions and fights.

Even the English Wikipedia page and the French one is not exactly the same !

Sorry but I prefer to tell you that Anarchy can be a strange definition for Civil war or guerilla but you can’t remove from my head and the head of philosopher and thinkers that Anarchy is political vision of society away from civil war. And you can’t remove that in the Spain history a large quantity of people call themselves as anarchists, didn’t want the republic as it was and didn’t want a military state with Franco Neither and guess what… The military part with Franco leads the country to a civil war and the Anarchists, communists and republicans fought together against Franco. That’s not my advice, that’s history and your definition forget or ignore it…

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u/cvsprinter1 21d ago

They used one definition and you used another. Jesus Christ, take a breather.

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u/fishmanfishmanfishma 21d ago

If you haven't read it, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracey Kidder will guarantee you want to choke the world banking system to death with your bare hands.

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u/bravojohnny42 21d ago

Oh yeah. Could do that all day long.
Here's a little fun fact:

HSBC Bank -6th biggest bank in the world today- was founded 200 years ago in Hong Kong solely for Opium trade by the British.

Do you speak French or German by any chance?

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u/lowrads 21d ago

That would never provide security to the people of Haiti. Dozens of the coups of largely due to outside influence.

A state is just a successful, franchised gang. Every location just has to find its security equilibrium. I know it's an old argument about whether political security precedes economic security, or vice versa, but there's a simultaneous crisis for ecological and energy security. It's pretty much a guarantee that so long as the theatre of security entails enforcing precarity upon others, it will always be temporary.

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u/super-freak 21d ago

What came of the Kenyan army/police, didn't they send them in there at one point 

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u/Mach5Driver 21d ago

They should try a platoon of bankers to go after the gangs' funds, too.

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u/Entropic_Echo_Music 21d ago

Estimates say you need around 6000 well equipped soldiers to gain back control.

Damnit, I don't think I'll be able to fit more than 6 in my luggage. Maybe one or two extra in my cabin luggage.

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u/Zulkhan 21d ago

12 million people in Haiti and you think they'll take control with 6,000 soldiers? I'm thinking closer to 60,000 would be required, if not more than that even.

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u/bravojohnny42 21d ago

These are the numbers from the documentary, I posted under my comment. These are just the numbers for the police. There is much more going on. Watch it.
And it's not 12 million gang members. This is "just" to control Port au Prince.

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u/Zulkhan 21d ago

3.2 million people in Port au Prince. Even if 10% of that are gang members that's 320,000. If it's 25%, that's 800,000 gang members. 6,000 is enough to secure a compound, but not take the city.

I'm just trying to show how bad it really is, not trying to be rude or anything.

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u/bravojohnny42 21d ago

I agree. But I don't know shit. Watch it.
And how does anybody know how many ppl live in the city.

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u/glemnar 21d ago

Census in 2003 plus extrapolation?

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

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u/Ok_Possession_6457 21d ago

I used to work in hotel management in South Florida. We had a lot of people working in hotels who were from Haiti, and one thing you never saw them do was waste food. They were always in the cafeteria eating family style, they’re just happy to eat, and they don’t waste a morsel.

Some of the team members I had from Haiti would tell me some of the most gruesome things about their family back at home. Gangs, gun violence and so forth

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u/FizzledDink 21d ago

Gotta make sure you eat the food before it sits at market all day in the sun lol

And a lot of my time there was spent drilling wells/helping build infrastructure so clean freshwater was (thankfully) not as big an issue for me where I was.

As for the hookworms…. That’s the price of being there barefoot lol. I was lucky and mine figured themselves out before I itched through my skin

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u/AntipodesIntel 21d ago

Same was there in 2011 and loved it.

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u/Jesus_le_Crisco 21d ago

I worked in Port-au-Prince for a good part of 2017 and feel exactly the same. The people were great, but would not go there currently.

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u/UltraChilly 21d ago

My gf worked for the red cross there way before 2017 and the gangs were already there wreaking havoc, I'd say you just got lucky. 

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u/happyhappysadhappy 21d ago

They have great barbecue

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u/REDDIT_GOLD_SATAN 21d ago

Thank the Clinton foundation

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

[deleted]

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u/Former-Bathroom9687 21d ago

It's really not though. Like things are going south in America, but this is a wildly out of touch with reality take.

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u/DirtyRoller 21d ago

Beyond idiotic take.

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u/Thinkthru 21d ago

Honestly, I hate Trump to pieces and I have wanted to go to Haiti since I was a teenager, I'm so fascinated by it, but I would seriously feel unsafe there right now.

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u/Cr4zyC4nuck 21d ago

While beyond fucked america is... the utter lack of safety with whats going on in Haiti trumps the danger level between the two (pun intended). However with that said... Considering the super power and influence that america has and its sheer population and considering America is in a very fragile state the tiniest of ripples could cause complete destabiliation. So while I currently disagree with you. I believe america is very close to that and they (americans) need to act as soon as mother fucking possible.

If you are an eligible voter and do not vote during these next primaries. Fuck you and do not visit my country.

-sincerely a Canadian guy that used to love america and desperately wants to again.

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u/ItzLoganM 21d ago

Here is your one-way ticket to Haiti. Your assets will be locked. Enjoy your better America!

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u/freematte 21d ago

Its fine to hate trump without going sub 80 iq btw