As a medical anthropologist who has analyzed extreme poverty closely, Paul Farmer is an avid proponent of the human rights

of the poor across the globe. After extensive fieldwork in Haiti, he concluded that there is a war on the poor occurring, and rich people are ignoring the poors basic needs and even allowing atrocities to occur. The reason for this war on the poor is that the needs of the poor contradict the established market economy, trends of globalization, and capitalism all things that the rich seek out to their benefit. Although less obvious in the United States and developed countries, this trend has developed in third world countries and led to massive human rights violations: the very ones that Farmer made his mission to educate the world about (Farmer 5). Farmer believes very strongly in his mission, but at times his conviction might be blinding. In writing Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor, Farmer concentrated too heavily on the violations of the basic rights of the Haitian poor at the hands of the rich. So heavily did he focus his arguments that it wasnt possible for him to fully incorporate the basic anthropological rule of cultural relativism into his work. Cultural relativism is the belief that each persons thoughts and actions must be analyzed in terms of his or her own culture. Farmers Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor is a Physician-Anthropologists effort to reveal the ways in which the most basic right the right to survive is trampled in an age of great affluence (Farmer 6). What Farmer doesnt address is if the situation of the poor in Haiti can be blamed on the culture of the people there; if the Haitian ruling class has abused a culture already containing basic stratifying properties, pushing the limits of their hierarchical power over the peasantry to the max to stay in power. Learning about the culture of the Haitian people might grant some insights about why conditions for the poor (all over the world) are as they are; and how, for the rich, ignoring the needs of the poor is beneficial. Haitis people have been plagued by a line of corrupt national leaders. The Duvaliers were a line of two such leaders, elitists and racists. The father and then his son ruled Haiti with an iron fist and widespread use of secret police. The president elected to help repair the country after them, Aristede, was put out of power a few years later in the military coup detat of 1991. Raoul Cedras was the General of the Haitian Modern Army, organized and trained by the United States. He consequently took power of the Haitian government and began a reign of horror and corruption, killing over 3,000 men, women, and children (Dictators Terms). This was no help to a nation already struggling with being the poorest in the western hemisphere. The extreme poverty, exacerbated by the harsh living conditions and corruption, began centuries ago. The French, who had colonized Haiti, were driven out in a 1791 slave revolt. The rest of the slavocratic world shunned Haiti after that because they didnt want news of the revolt to spread amongst their slaves (Haitis Impact). Therefore, the worlds first free black republic developed into a poor, illiterate country isolated from its neighbors out of their own interest. Although the harness of French colonization was shaken off, and its oppression ended, it left its permanent mark on Haitian culture: social stratification. Because the entire indigenous population of Haiti was wiped out by the beginning of the seventeenth century, the population - and hence cultural development was entirely a product of French colonists slaveholding (Haiti). Deeply rooted in Haitian culture, and apparent to this day despite official laws, lies the social hierarchy. The upper class is characterized by knowledge of French, and light skin (Haiti). The class in which a Haitian is located determines his life path. The main way a lower class man might gain some affluence was to join the

military, empower the corruption more. Otherwise, peasants were so poor that there existed strong competition amongst the lower class to get ahead. Jobs and opportunities were sought out at every chance, and everyone was competing for them. Instead of displaying class consciousness and working together to better their situation, they fought amongst themselves. There existed no unified resentment towards the upper class (A Country Study: Haiti). The higher peasants owned more land, and leased it out to lower ones, who had to grow cash crops. Since some of the peasants small amount of land had to be devoted to cash crops, they couldnt grow enough food to be self-sufficient (A Country Study: Haiti). Another place in Haitian culture where the social stratification shines through is in the languages spoken. Creole and French are the two main languages spoken in Haiti, and although they share similarities, they are not mutually comprehensible. This complicated the way the upper and lower class exchanged information. The Haitian government is based on Napoleonic Code, which sets everyone equal regardless of religion and status, the Creole-speaking lower class was indeed deemed irrelevant. Haitian activities in politics, government, and intellectual life were mainly in French (A Country Study: Haiti). The problem impeding progress for the lower class was two-fold: the people were too busy competing to stand together; and even if they could they would be excluded from public proceedings by the language barrier (To learn more: Haitian Culture is a comprehensive guide to Haitian Culture). The situation for the poor wasnt getting better. People were being driven to terrible ends to survive. Farmer relates a story of a young Haitian girl, Acephie Joseph. Acephies family became water refugees farmers who had to move uphill to escape reservoir buildup. Acephie accompanied her mother to the market to sell produce grown by her father. The soldiers made a habit of watching the girls walk by; it was common practice for a soldier to choose a girl to have a relationship with with economic benefits to her of course. It wasnt quite prostitution; the soldiers position was more like that of a sugar-daddy. This was commonplace, almost expected of very poor girls like Acephie with no other choice to feed their families. There was even a term in creole for this relationship: moun principal (Farmer 34). Such flirtation is seldom rejected at least openly. In rural Haiti, entrenched poverty made the soldiers the regions only salaried men ever so much more attractive. Hunger was a near daily occurrence for the Joseph family; the times were as bad as those right after the flooding of the valley (Farmer 33). Meanwhile, the farmland wasnt as good on the mountain, so the Joesphs became destitute. Acephie was chosen by a soldier who became her provider for about a month until he fell sick and returned home to his wife. He died a few months later. After the loss of her soldier, Acephie went to cooking school. This school prepared poor girls like Acephie for their inevitable turn as servants in the city (Farmer 34). Imagine a life in which servitude were an expected path. She began working in the city, serving her upper class mistress as a domestic maid. She found a new man, a bus driver; in a setting characterized by an unemployment rate over 60%, that was a good job. Soon he got Acephie pregnant and she returned home to have the baby. After the babys birth, Acephie fell ill. The soldier had given her AIDS. She died a few months later. Her daughter was infected. Her father killed himself. The liason with the soldier and ... work as a servant in the city [were] both locally considered risk factors for AIDS (Farmer 35). She knew this was a risky thing to do, and still this situation arose because Acephies family was too poor to live without her doing what she did; the consequences of her self-saving actions were drastic.

Acephies story is one of structural violence. Structural violence is when a hierarchical institution harms people by doing things that stop them from achieving their basic needs. Structural violence is prevalent all over the world, even in the United States. It is very ubiquitous in Haiti. The upper class, by fulfilling their own interests, stops the lower class from getting the simplest things necessary in life: food, clean water, shelter, safety, and healthcare. In Haiti, this is done by oppressing the lower class into extreme poverty: it is so extreme that it is too extreme for the developed world to recognize. The suffering, for one, is too exotic; we dont relate to it. Also, the extent of the suffering is so extreme, that it cannot be conveyed to us in facts or figures. The bureaucrats and soldiers have control over the life of the rural poor; one might wonder if Acephies sex with the soldier was consensual in this situation, or if she was driven into the sexual encounters by her poverty? Acephie felt structural violence throughout her whole life: her family had to move because of a project of public infrastructure; because the new soil was less fertile, she became very poor, and was driven to have sex with the soldier; she was unable to get medical care for her AIDS or for her child. Her very physical well-being was left up to the whims of the upper class. We can use structural violence to understand and analyze the conditions of Acephie (Farmer 40). Acephies family was displaced by the dam and became refugees. The dam that displaced them brought them neither electricity nor water but drowned their home with all belongings, crops, and the graves of their ancestors. Taarika C. Sridhar contextualizes Acephies story very effectively: Structural violence is the human decisions that led to the deaths of these two people, and thousands of other Haitians. People decided to flood the Artibonite valley in order to build a dam... Structural violence is the fear, poverty, and social marginalization that forces people to live miserable and short lives (Structural Violence). Structural violence is embedded in the larger scale historical system as a way for the upper class to dominate and benefit from the work of the lower class. Sridhar continues by blaming structural violence for all the New Wars across the globe. It is used, she claims, to control the working people: the very people who produce the resources sold for money by the upper class. The money, Sridhar elaborates, is used to further the oppression of the poor thus continuing the money, power, people cycle. The Haitian laborers are blind to this cycle by their lack of class consciousness and resentment: they are unable to do anything to escape it (Structural Violence). Acephies story helps to point out the gaps in farmers work by providing a textbook example of how structural violence affects the Haitian people. Unfreedoms are the results of structural violence; enumerated by Amartya Sen, who wrote the foreword for Farmers book. Sen lists the unfreedoms of the world as: poverty, tyranny, poor economic opportunities, systematic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities, and intolerance. These are all things that, even though a man might be free, he cannot develop properly without; and is commonly deprived of in Haiti (Farmer 8). Little about Acephies story is unique. The forces that held Acephie back restrict most Haitian women. Farmer describes the stories of Haitians as having deadly monotony: (Farmer 39) Young women fled their poverty to Port-Au-Prince to find servitude, rather than financial security. Yes, Acephie was at risk for her fate long before she took the actions that caused it a sad fact, but a fact none the less. Acephies choices, and according to Farmer, the choices of most other lower class Haitians, were governed by racism, sexism, political violence, and grinding poverty (Farmer 40).

Farmer fails to point out how these unfreedoms, brought on by an oppressive governing class, are universally affected by social and economic decisions aspects of culture. They are more apparent in Haiti because the difference in the classes is more defined but structural violence and unfreedoms exist in the United States, too. Privatization and the Market economy push the poor deeper into poverty while making the rich richer (Privatization). The poor need government programs and take care of them; rather than paying for every privatized service. In countries such as India, corruption is so bad that the police force is rendered ineffective; instead people have to pay for private security forces. In the case of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, the security forces were irrelevant because they couldnt even navigate through the slums to the hotels (Boo 253). (To learn more: A Brief History of Corruption in India reveals how commonplace the Indian life of bribery and corruption is). This international structural violence is important to take note of; the world is becoming increasingly interconnected. The happenings in one country may heavily influence another. (To learn more: Haiti and America: Connections discusses the way Haitian history has cause the United States to isolate and imperialize). To put it into perspective, the way privatization hurts the working class of the United States must be brought to light. In 2006 Republican governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana sealed a deal for a 75-year lease for the Indiana East-West Toll Road the $3.8-bilion deal was the largest privatization of a U.S. roadway to date. The consequences for users of the road, particularly truckers, have been devastating. Prior to privatization, the toll was $14. Five years later, the toll price has skyrocketed to $32.50a 151% increase (Privatization). For me, it is not enough to point out the structural violence in the world, as Farmer has done. Instead, I wish to convey how this hierarchical oppression is rooted in the Haitian culture (and the cultures of many other peoples). Imagine this skyrocketing price of a service in an environment where everyone is too poor to eat to begin with. Everything bad that happened in the story of Acephie happened because she was a lower class member of society a fact based in Haitian culture, since French domination of slaves shaped the culture entirely. The class division of Haitian people as a cultural aspect is an important factor to notice when analyzing the conditions of Acephie Joseph and people like her. To understand, we need a better understanding of what culture is or how it varies. Culture is defined as the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group (Dictionary). Different cultures developed over time and vary widely think of the way some Asian people eat with chopsticks. Biological traits do not determine social superiority and inferiority until they are socially recognized and given importance: (Culture and Social Structures read to understand just how deeply social structure is affected by culture) made as part of a culture. Cultural relativism is a concept that Anthropologists use when studying cultural practices: it states that a group of peoples culture must be taken into account when analyzing their actions. Most extreme cultural practices, such as the way the Inuit people can commit infanticide without qualms, can be understood through cultural relativism. (To learn more: Cultural Relativism in the World talks about why cultural relativism excuses cultural practices). With the genesis of the idea of abusing culture, Farmer argues that cultural relativism must be called into question when human rights are being violated (Farmer 8). Even if it is a groups culture to deny the freedoms of others, should they be able to? In 2012, global awareness should be high enough that discrimination based on race or creed shouldnt be an emphasized part of a culture.

Were the corrupt actions of Haitian leaders such as the Duvaliers (To learn more: The Duvaliers is an article discussing their regime) or Raoul Cedras excusable based on Haitian cultures deeply ingrained elitism? Can the continued economic suppression of the poor be justified by cultural practice? Here, finally, is where Farmer and I agree on our analyses of structural violence. Farmer claims that culture is not to blame when human rights are being violated. I agree: it culture isnt to blame; rather, those who abuse culture for their own benefit. Farmer concludes that culture does not explain suffering; it may at worst furnish an alibi (Farmer 49). Cultural relativism can rationalize the differences between the first and third world, true, but it cannot serve to excuse the perpetuated inequalities. Instead, Farmer claims, there is a wall being built between the rich and the poor so the rich can live without seeing or being bothered by the poor who are obliged to die in the silence of history (Farmer 50). The reason put forth by Farmer to explain the position of the poor is that the rich dont want to be bothered by them. This is where I disagree with Farmers opinions: how would the rich have all of their needs met without the poor? There would be no servants, no cleaners, no drivers, nobody to perform the menial jobs that the society of the rich relies upon. Farmer leaves off with a cautionary warning: in order for suffering to be understood, the forces conspiring to promote it have to be identified. Farmer is partly right, but left out a key element in his assertion: that the forces that promote the suffering all stem from culture either aspects of it, or the differences in it. Aspects of culture that have led to injustice all stem from social stratification; cultural differences lead to ideological conflict (historically: The Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades). Culture is the way people think and believe; the way they behave and relate. Proponents of Democratic thought pursue the market model economy, it has been deemed the best economic path by their culture; the same culture that puts down the Socialist economic (and undeniably cultural) alternatives. This market system makes the rich richer and ruins the poor even further by making them pay for everything. Political corruption led to the persecution of poor people who spoke out about their situation embedding in culture a deep fear of resistance to the corruption and standing up for themselves. The languages spoken in Haiti also represent its culture. During Raoul Cedras 1991 international address after his coup, (the 1991 coup detat that resulted in the worst human rights violations in Haitian history. To read more: Raoul Cedras) he spoke French a language not comprehensible by the majority of Haitian people. His speech was crafted with an international audience in mind, and in it he named his victims traitors because they spoke out against his dictatorial rule. Cedras had received military training in the United States, including workshops on human rights. He knew what he was doing was wrong; he took advantage of the Haitians and their culture. The Haitian majority, the lower class, couldnt understand what he was saying in his speech and therefore couldnt speak out and say he was a madman. Culture even hurt Haiti in its early days as a developing free nation. The United States and some South American countries isolated Haiti after its revolution because they didnt want news of the slave rebellion to spread to their slave colonies and spark unrest (Haitis Impact). After all, United States culture at the time revolved around slaves. All of these are examples of how the abuses of culture are responsible for suffering. Surely there are practices in culture that dont bring about suffering, but every ethnic group in the world faces structural violence, however intense, due to abuses of their culture.

I have taken the liberty of saying what Farmer could not: that the way people abuse culture is overall detrimental to the world. Billions of people in the world live in squalor because those who abuse their culture are continuing to drive them into the dirt. One-third of the worlds population is projected to live in slums by the year 2030 (Boo 250). That is a projected doubling in slumdwellers worldwide the poorest of the poor living around a thriving metropolis. Farmer shared all of the situational background and information without reaching a conclusion. From his writing, and from other sources (most notably Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity) I reached my own analytical conclusion that the deluded mentality of people, the desire to be better than someone, the culture, is to blame for all of the worlds unfreedoms. Is it coincidental that the wealthy only are capable of paying to enjoy activities like plays and concerts that the upper class only has the opportunity to get cultured?

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