DRob said:
Also forget - for a moment - that DR is better off, but only in a relative sense. DR remains a very third world country. Things are better, but there's still widespread and chronic poverty.
Only in a relative sense? What is that suppose to mean?
DR's economy is the
ninth largest economy out of 19 Spanish speaking American countries and with its high long term growth trend, it will continue to rise among the ranks surprising many along the way. Its larger than economies like Bolivia (care to guess how many DRs fit in Bolivia?), Guatemala (and they have more people than the DR) Paraguay, Puerto Rico (and they are a colony of the US).
On a GDP per capita basis, the average among developing countries is $5,616 yet the DR is above average with $8,672
and rising. That means most developing countries in the world are much poorer than the DR, including countries like Colombia, Thailand, Ecuador, China, Egypt, Guatemala, Bolivia, Indonesia, Philippines, India among many others.
Even the DR's poverty level is lower than average for developing countries in general.
The quality of life of the DR, judging by the UN HDI, falls squarely in the middle when ranked with all countries in the world, and above the middle when limited to developing countries.
If you meant that the DR only 'looks good relative to Haiti and nothing else', then you are quite mistaken.
On the whole, the DR is doing much better than most developing countries, not just Haiti or 'Haiti-like countries.'
Having said that, the DR has reached development practically on its own. The development plans were designed mostly by Dominicans, it was implemented by Dominicans, and the results are credited to Dominicans.
Haiti, on the other hand, has constantly been wanting others to fix their problems. They, as a country, need to take a
quick moment to develop what their goals are, come up with a viable plan (there are so many stories of success worldwide with various strategies that finding a solution to Haiti is as easy as it could ever be, they don't have to reinvent the wheel, all they need to do is put the wheels to use), and start implementing.
Hopefully they won't squander this opportunity, because as of right now, they are in a very sweet spot. The world has pardoned their debts and the world is ready to give them more money than Haiti has ever seen in any given year (before the quake their economy produced around $11 billion).
Haiti has won the jackpot, they better put this opportunity arising from this calamity to good use, for the sake of their country, for the sake of their kids, and to not make the 200,000 plus that died in this earthquake deaths in vain.
DRob said:
The fact is, most Dominicans simply don't care for Haitians. It's deeper than the fact that Haitians take low wage jobs away. They're considered to be ladrones and mentiros of the first order. They're neither trusted nor appreciated in any form.
Is that a fair assessment of Haitians? Of course not. Is that the perception most Dominicans have of them? Unfortunately, yes.
Until this can be addressed and resolved, I wouldn't expect anyone to have any serious discussion about merging anything anytime soon.
And what does Haitians think about this crazy idea?
People seem so fixated on Dominicans that they appear to assume that Haitians are simply waiting for Dominicans to give the green light to go ahead with a unification of sorts.
Sorry to dissappoint, but Haitians want a better
Haiti, they love
Haiti, their one true home is
Haiti. Don't take my word for it, go out and have a chat with them.
As in the mergers of real companies, nothing will happen without
mutual agreement, and these two 'companies of Hispaniola' disagree with any type of 'merger', its not just a one side thing.
