28 Nov Haiti, Elections and Mass Twysteria

I participated in Twysteria today. I think i just made that word up, but in keeping with Twitter vernacular, i think it fits rather nicely.

I awoke early in a panic, with CLR James hanging over my head with the promise of some Paul Gilroy and David Scott, awaiting as a reward for my hard work. What didn’t occur to me was the elections – i’ve been waiting on pins and needles for the past few months, wondering what would happen at the elections. With the piling on of tragedy and political wrangling that’s been going on in Haiti over the past 200 years, the past 20 years, and the latest 11 months – well, i was bracing for the worst (from the comfort of my own home, of course). But this morning, i blanked. And then i remembered.

I’ve been obsessively following Twitter #Haiti all day. Even over breakfast with the family, i surreptitiously sneaked peeks to my phone under the table. Before i even awoke this morning, violence had erupted. I awoke to reports of MINUSTAH firing tea gas at protesters, ballot box stuffing before the polls even opened, names missing from voter registration sheets, polls closing early at Preval’s urging…chaos was emerging this morning.

It’s hard not to get caught up in the frantic pace of Tweeting – tidbits only 140 characters long sound urgent and need reposting! I found myself frantically scouring for credible sources to various rumors so i could retweet with links to news stories. But news agencies seemed to be hours behind…trailing the Twitter feed at a desperately slow pace. How did we live in this world before Twitter?

That’s not what i came to write about today, but the Twysteria is still palpable.

One of the more interesting Tweets came in:

M4NdR4K3ElM4G0 M4nDr4k3

#Venezuela Considers that with the situation in #Haiti, the #UN proves to the world that it is no longer an organization worth belonging to 

I’ve been hitting refresh on multiple Google News pages but without any luck finding a credible source. Is it made up? This is where things seem to blur between the usefulness and the mis-leading-ness of Twitter. Many of the tweets coming out of Haiti are beginning to say the same thing. Much of the anger, however, is well-grounded in that Edmond Mulet, the head of MINUSTAH peace keeping force in Haiti said:

“In general everything is going well, everything is peaceful…MINUSTAH is here. There is no reason to be frightened. It’s an electoral celebration. The people’s decision will be respected. There are small administrative problems, but nothing big that will reduce participation.”

 Small administrative problems? By the time i woke up this morning, there had already been a hostage situation involving the kidnap of an election monitor in Desdunes.

Added to the election turmoil is this charming bit of news:

“We don’t say he’s a good candidate. We have to eat.”

There’s a pragmatism in this statement that belies the dire state of affairs of Haiti. The elections, in the midst of a cholera epidemic is questionable at best. Estimates range from 60-70,000 people treated for cholera so far since October 25th. People are hungry, they are ill, they are homeless, they are desperate. There are two ways to look at these elections: 1. they should not have taken place in the midst of the epidemic and before the country was ready, administratively, to handle the massive undertaking; or, 2. that the elections should have been handled so differently that the epidemic need not be a factor of consideration in this moment. But it still makes a person wonder – elections while 1.3 million people still live in IDP camps across the nation?

Many of the calls of fraud across Twitter today were also calling for the arrest of those perpetrating the fraud, particularly, Preval-backed candidate, Jude Celestin. But also, there have been calls (though only a few) to arrest UN administrators in charge of putting together the election. But who will do the arresting?

Since the call by 12 of the 18 candidates to annul the elections due to fraud, things have taken a change. Wyclef Jean, among them, hundreds (some say thousands) of Haitians have taken to the streets along with candidates and headed to the electoral commission’s headquarters. There are calls for a peaceful revolution coupled with tweets about how to handle teargas. Even outside PAP, protests are mounting. Trenton Daniel of the Miami Herald has been tweeting from Gonaives and Raboteau of protests and disruptions. Another protest has been reported in Jacmal.

I’m rambling.

I think today, i finally lost my faith in major media. Today i finally understand the scrubbed garbage that comes flowing through major media outlets. CNN failed to mention the possibility of fraud until around noon today (that’s west coast time – which means not till around 3 p.m. east coast time, or an hour before the ballots closed). The UN was trying to manage the news about the elections, sending out notices that all was “going well.” MINUSTAH posted pictures of the elections that showed clean boxes, well lit rooms (there were plenty of reports of lack of electricity or lighting in many polling stations), and happy smiling faces of unmolested voters.

The hard thing to know, though…is this disconcerted feeling i have really well-founded, or is it simply a symptom of Twysteria?