Crisis as a State Strategy in Haiti: Wonderland

My country is not collapsing like a poorly designed building. It is unraveling methodically, with an almost professional regularity. It is disintegrating. Through observation, one thing becomes clear: the Haitian crisis is not merely endured; it has become a political language. A language mastered, repeated, and exploited to the point of producing a form of normalcy where collapse no longer surprises—it is organized.

Consequently, life counts for almost nothing, and death becomes a nearly familiar phenomenon, as Joseph Stalin said: “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic.” It is rightly claimed that life, like death, in Haiti, is becoming a mere news item, while the blood of an entire people seems to fuel the opulence of a whole class of men, mandated by the “well-born.”

It is now insufficient to speak of failure when referring to the shambles we lightly label a “crisis.” The word is too weak, too convenient, almost indulgent, almost affectionate.

From 2010 to the governance of “ALIX,” who since February 7, 2026, has inherited full power in Wonderland. The height of absurdity is reached as a Haitian political class has not simply proven incapable of rebuilding the State; it has progressively established a mode of operation where the lack of results is no longer a problem, but a condition for survival. It simply looks like Alix in Wonderland.

What is at stake goes beyond parties, figures, and transitions. It is a diffuse, transversal system where power and responsibility rarely move in the same direction. Faces change, rhetoric is refreshed on the surface, but the mechanics remain. A well-oiled machine, precisely because it produces no binding results.

For several decades, Haitian politics seems to have abandoned any pretense of coherence. Alliances are formed and dissolved without real ideological justification. Rhetoric adjusts to circumstances, commitments dissolve into opportunism, and political memory becomes strangely short. In this shifting space, consistency is no longer a virtue; it is a handicap.

What is striking is not just the weakness of the institutions, but the way this weakness is woven, almost embraced. The disregard for the principle of state continuity becomes the norm, and citizens’ rights are non-existent. The State functions, but is devoid of meaning. It produces decisions without impact, announcements without follow-up, and structures without substance. It provides the illusion of action while carefully avoiding its consequences.

In this context, the crisis ceases to be an accident. It becomes a framework. It structures behavior, redistributes roles, and legitimizes inaction. A governance of permanent emergency takes hold, where every problem calls for an immediate, temporary, and above all, non-binding response. The long term disappears, replaced by a succession of unstable presents.

It must be said plainly: a significant portion of the Haitian political class has learned to profit from this instability. Not in spite of it, but because of it. For a disorganized country is a country where rules are flexible, responsibilities are diluted, and failures are blamed on the context.

In such a system, accountability becomes an anomaly. Scandals follow one another without leading to a breakthrough. Outrage is expressed, then fades away. The cycle repeats, almost mechanically. And with each repetition, it takes root a little deeper.

But this mechanism could not function without another factor, more discreet and more disturbing: collective habituation. By being constantly confronted with instability, society adapts to it. It develops bypass strategies, survival reflexes, and a form of resilience that, paradoxically, helps maintain the disorder. For what allows one to endure daily life can also prevent a break from what produces the crisis.

Thus, a complex relationship between the governors and the governed emerges. A relationship built on mistrust, lucidity, but also helplessness. The political class acts without real constraint, not because it is all-powerful, but because the mechanisms capable of limiting it remain fragile, fragmented, or ineffective.

The most concerning part, perhaps, lies elsewhere. It resides in the capacity the system has developed to absorb criticism. Everything is denounced, yet nothing is transformed. Words circulate, analysis becomes sharper, but the impact remains limited. As if understanding itself had become insufficient.

Consequently, the question is no longer just political. It is structural, almost existential. How can a country continue to function while knowing exactly what paralyzes it? How can a society maintain such a level of lucidity without managing to produce a decisive breakthrough?

There is no simple answer. But there is one certainty: as long as crisis remains an acceptable mode of management, it will continue to be reproduced. As long as failure is not penalized, it will cease to be disqualifying. And as long as politics can exist without an obligation to produce results, it will have no reason to transform.

This text does not seek to point out isolated culprits. It attempts to name a system. A system where collapse is no longer just a consequence, but an equilibrium. A system that holds together precisely because it does not function. And that is perhaps where the true scandal lies: not in what fails, but in what, despite everything, continues to hold.

Marc Arthur Paul