New opportunities, new challenges

by Mark Schuller
Editor’s note: The latest in our series of guest bloggers during Haiti Solidarity Week is Mark Schuller. Mark is Assistant Professor of African American Studies and Anthropology at York College, the City University of New York and is co-producer and co-director of forthcoming documentary Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy.
It has been three years since the election of René Gracia Préval as president of Haiti. The Constitution mandates new elections in Haiti in two years.
February 7 was the date when Haiti’s people swept out the 29-year father-and-son Duvalier dictatorship, in 1986. The movement that was uprooting Duvalierism and promoting full participation and democracy in Haiti has had a long and frustrating road in the 23 years since.