In case anyone is wondering, the film festival on globalisation at the Alliance Française did this to me!
It was an eye-opener in many ways. We had always read about jeans and shoe manufacturers exploiting their workers in the Third World and enjoying immunity from any legal action by tactfully sub-contracting their operations. However, to see visuals of over a thousand women in Europe who had lost their jobs and of women in Turkey and Indonesia to whom the jobs had gone working in uncongenial conditions for a pittance was compelling. At least I now know which brands of clothes and footwear I am definitely going to avoid.
There were also several ecological issues that were raised. A documentary by the title Le Cauchemar de Darwin (Darwin's Nightmare) showed how a variety of fish that is a predator, was introduced in the biggest lake in Tanzania as part of a scientific experiment in the 1980s. This predator went on to completely destroy 210 species of other fish in the lake in a span of a few years. The predator was bred because there is a demand for that variety of fish in the European market. By the time when the documentary was shot (around 1998-99) the entire economy of the neighbouring villages and towns depended on catching this variety of fish and exporting the same to European countries. The irony is that the fish is too expensive to be purchased by Tanzanian nationals and even as the country was exporting over 500 tonnes of fish a day, it was on the brink of a famine. There's more to the story. The cargo planes that carried fish from Tanzanian ports allegedly brought with them arms to support the civil war in adjoining countries (Liberia, Sierra Leone to name a few). I found this particular story extremely perturbing as we were also shown shots portraying the extent of poverty and civil strife in the region.
These documentaries are somewhat dated but it would not be unreasonable to assume that things have not changed much towards the better considering the stories we read in the newspapers even today.
It is very likely that this is just the bouregois bohemian in me speaking. I say that because the fact that I support the causes projected in some of the documentaries that were screened does not mean that I am against all that globalisation stands for. Clearly, I am a beneficiary of the phenomenon what with a job in a multinational corporation that I am happy with. Nonetheless, I would certainly not like to cast my economic vote in favour of corporations that flout norms of corporate ethics. Neither would a lot of people I know. It probably takes concerned organisations and individuals such as those that made the documentaries I watched to care enough to highlight the injustice being inflicted.
The way I see it, all it takes is better information to avert a lot of such misdeeds being committed in future. We only need to be informed correctly about the ramifications of our economic decisions so that as economic agents, the choices we make do not end up as the cause for somebody else's woes.
5 comments:
hmmm... very fishy !
If the predator fish has completely destroyed all other species what are they eating now-a-days ?
Indeed. But what confounds matters somewhat is that poor women in developing countries might be perfectly willing to work in what would be described (in the West) as "uncongenial conditions" for what might be called (in the West) a "pittance". Perhaps they would face greater woes if no work was available to them.
Anonymous: The predator is apparently a species that is edible but expensive. So while Europeans eat/ate (not sure) the predator...the Tanzanians were left with nothing. Bizarre, eh?
The one: Merci bien for dropping by!
It is probably true the women mentioned in the post would face greater woes without the jobs they already have. However, it seems like the fact that nobody's looking drives a lot of the corporates to ignore even minimum standards of labour rights and turn exploitative even when they can afford to be a little more just in terms of compensation. The point I try to make in the post is that this probably wouldn't be the case if atleast somebody were looking!
Europeans are eating the predator fish -> they are helping other species to survive -> Tanzanians have more (small) fish to eat than "if there were no europeans" ->Europeans and tanzanians are friends !(1 way) but tanzanians are helping europeans by supplying perche so tanzanians and europeans are mutual friends .
corrolary I:(I invite the reader to prove it, okay never mind) even perche and the europeans are mutual friends,
proof:
Tnazanians are competing with perche du nil for the same resources( namely the small fishes);europeans are helping perche against tanzanians(we will resonably assume that the perche is the weaker species);
perche is helping europeans in a direct manner.
corrolary II:Tanzanians and the perche are mutual friends
proof:
perche is bringing some money ( however small) into tanzania-> helping tanzanians eating other things than fish( a balanced diet);
and of course it's tanzanians who rear the perche in lake victoria;
conjecture based on the above statement:
statement 1:all three are mutual friends!
statement 2:In the same manner it can be proven that they are mutual enemies!
i'm trying to contradict the filmmaker's view (statement 1) so we are mutual enemies; had i proven that all three are mutual enemies( statement 2) we would have become mutual friend ;
since the statements 1 and 2 are simultaneously true we are both mutual friends and enemies ;
and round goes the earth .....
in_support_of_anonymous: Thanks for dropping by! I don't know what "perche du nil" is. I'm guessing you must like programming, what with all the semicolons at the end of each sentence.
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