Vladimir Nabokov once said that the purpose of storytelling was “to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the kindly mirrors of future times; to find in the objects around us the fragrant tenderness that only posterity will discern and appreciate in far-off times when every trifle of our plain everyday life will become exquisite and festive in its own right: the times when a man who might put on the most ordinary jacket of today will be dressed up for an elegant masquerade.”
I wonder what kind of impact that kind of storytelling would have on Haiti's current situation. Even more anathema, what would happen if key Haitian players, like THOSE deputies and senators, were treated with "fragrant tenderness"?
All Haitian politicians and public employees, including ministers and their directors and police officers, are assumed to be corrupt, on some extraordinary scale.
Instead, I suggest we assume that they are human beings: capable of greatness or at least of great goodness, but also more likely to follow the path of least resistance--quite understandable if not predictable: make it easier for them to "behave" than not, and they will.
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