Love Thy Neighbor

Elissa Lerner: The Latin American News Dispatch offered an unusual take on the crisis in Haiti yesterday morning. Amid the countless fundraisers, the injured and dead, Simon McKormick reports of mixed feelings among Dominicans. Adjacent to earthquake ravaged Haiti, the Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola, which is only slightly larger than Massachusetts. Yet the Dominican Republic emerged unscathed. According to one of McKormick’s sources, strong Catholic faith spared the Dominican Republic, whereas Haiti’s “devil worship” of Voudou didn’t help. (Sound familiar? That’s because Pat Robertson alluded to the same “pact with the devil” only a day after the earthquake struck.) But other Dominicans attributed their ambivalence to sour political history between the two countries. Either way, the disaster brings a new perspective to loving thy neighbor.