Israel and the DR really don't have all that much in common. Different language. Different religion. Different food. Different landscape. Different kind of loud (Israelis and Dominicans can both be loud, but Israelis are pushy and Dominicans are joyful).
And yet, over the past few months I've often reflected on Israeli injustices as we've watched a terrible injustice unfold here in the DR. The issue at stake is the rights of Haitian Dominicans, a topic I've blogged about twice (If you refused to visit countries with problems..., A final walk in Santo Domingo). When we first arrived, there was a growing movement of Dominicans of Haitian descent demanding Dominican citizenship and the official identity cards that come with it (necessary for everything from going to high school, to getting married, to legally working). The Dominican government generally denied Dominican citizenship to people born in the Dominican Republic to undocumented Haitian parents, leaving these people essentially stateless. Still, with much effort some Haitian Dominicans had indeed convinced the state to grant them IDs, including one of Melissa's coworkers. When we first arrived, the Haitian Dominicans we met said it was just a matter of time before everyone born in the DR, regardless of their parents' background, would be granted Dominican citizenship (and IDs).
Then on September 23 the Constitutional Court ruled that people with Haitian parents would not be granted citizenship. Even worse, they stated they would examine records back to 1929 to determine who no longer qualifies for Dominican citizenship. People who had never known any home but the DR were no longer Dominican and apparently never would be (the decisions of the constitutional court can not be appealed). Not surprisingly, international condemnation was widespread, from CARICOM (Caribbean intergovernmental organization) to Amnesty International. It was bad. Bad enough to be a top story in the NY Times...Interestingly, since I started writing this blog entry, many countries, including Spain, have come out in support of the ruling, agreeing with the court that this ruling helps the government better define the status of undocumented immigrants. I can't help but wonder if this is driven by these countries ambivalent relationship to their own undocumented immigrants.
By now, the Dominican government has completed it's review of documents back to 1929 and only found 24,932 children of foreigners who were "irregularly registered," including 13,672 descendants of Haitians. In other words 13,672 people who were formerly Dominican citizens are now "Haitians" although they've never set foot in Haiti. On top of this, there are many thousands more Haitian Dominicans who never had citizenship and never will (these are people who were so hopeful about a change in the law when we first arrived). In total, including the 13,000 newly stateless, there are likely at least 35,000 (and probably many more) stateless Haitian Dominicans in the DR today.
I just don't understand why the DR has chosen this route. As far as I can see it's not just bad for humanity, it's also bad for the country. Just days after the court's ruling there was a lengthy article in a local paper lamenting the fact that only one quarter of Dominican jobs are in the formal sector. According to the article, the informal economy, "does not contribute to social development with taxes and thus benefits from subsidized transport, subsidized energy and infrastructure paid for by the formal sector." I'm not an economist, but that doesn't sound good. And yet, denying citizenship to people who know no country aside from the Dominican Republic, essentially forces all of these people into the informal sector (or worse....my guess is not being allowed to go to high school might be related to criminality...remember, without documents you can't go to high school, let alone get a legal job). What then is the point?
Which brings me back to Israel. In Israel we saw all sorts of policies that seemed bad for the country. Some of these policies affected Palestinians and others affected Israeli citizens (Ethiopian Jews and Bedouins). In many cases there has been international condemnation, and yet, the government moves forward. Why? And why is the same thing happening in the DR, a country seemingly so different from Israel? And what about the US and the Iraq War? What is it? Xenophobia, racism, revenge, stupidity? Some things I may never understand...
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