The
Devastating Dynamics of Globalization by
Jurgen Fauth
Life and
Debt, the opening film of this year's Human
Rights Watch International Film Festival, is a tough lesson in economics,
a documentary designed to cure those of us who like to believe that tariffs,
subsidies, and the policies of the International Monetary Fund don't have
much to do with us and our lives.
Jamaica serves
as the case study through which we learn about the dynamics of globalism.
Although colonialism was ended long ago and so-called Third World countries
were given their independence, the financial pressures on the struggling
nations end up continuing imperialism by another name. Since it gained
independence from England in 1962, mistakes, financial necessity, and
inexcusable greed by the former rulers have led to what can only be described
as the rape of the island.
The accumulation
of despairing personal testimonies is devastating, as we learn how industry
after industry is ruined by greed and shortsightedness. The faces of farmers
and textile workers stand in sharp contrast to the self-satisfied explanations
of an IMF henchman who couches his justifications in ever so much corporate
speak.
Director Stephanie Black plays up the disparity between the impoverished
countryside and the vacation resorts where foreign tourists frolic, oblivious
to the suffering around them. The vacation sequences feature narration written
by Jamaica Kincaid, whose sharp-tongued polemics, delivered with an even-voiced
dead pan, cut deep. The indifference of the tourists who enjoy tropical
drinks and the beauty of the Caribbean sea in their walled-off compounds
becomes painful to watch.
Of course,
the eye-opening lessons about the WTO, the IMF, Chiquita and Dole and
Hanes, subsidies and tariffs, will only be seen by those who already have
an inkling about the cruelty and unfairness of the situation. Not even
the grooving Ziggy Marley soundtrack will help sell "Life and Debt"
to a wide audience. It is testament to our own callousness and complicity
that this summer, we'd rather escape into moronic fantasies like "Evolution"
or self-congratulatory nostalgia like "Pearl Harbor" instead
of spending time to learn about the wrongs committed in our names, and
the name of the free market.
Produced
and directed by Stephanie Black; narration written by Jamaica Kincaid,
based on her book "A Small Place"; directors of photography,
Malik Sayeed, Kyle Kibbe, Richard Lannaman and Alex Nepomniaschy; edited
by Jon Mullen; music by Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, Bob Marley,
Dean Fraser, Buju Banton, Sizzla, Harry Belafonte, Mutabaruka, Rolando
E. McLean, Peter Tosh and Anthony B.; released by Tuff Gong Pictures.
Running time: 86 minutes. This film is not rated.
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