júní 23, 2006
recent popularity of anti-globalization movies
anti globalization movement had existed for years. asian sweatshop workers, african landless people and european factory workers have always fought for their cause. only recently had their cause become our common cause. the economy arrived to stage, where marx two centuries ago predicted it to be: the global economy is nowadays a beast to whom no mountain is high enough, and nothing holly in it's greediness.
then in 1999 riots in seattle took place, the wto round had to be abandoned, and the struggle went mainstream. globalization was the common denominator of our problems. roughly at the same time naomi klein published her book "no logo" that was a sort of communist manifesto of anti-globalization movement. publishers saw incredible money making possibility in this movement. books from arundhati roy, david mcnally were reprinted. but who reads books nowadays?
the anti globalization films were to follow soon. austrian hubert sauper went to tanzania to make his debut documentary darwin's nightmare. the story is based on nile perch, a fish that was planted in victoria lake in the fifties, but due to absence of it's natural enemies and abundance of food was able to gain whole lake for itself. european union under the hood of deregulation, strengthening exports and privatization finances tanzanias fisheries. fish fillets are flown out to europe with russian transport planes, the same planes that bring the weapons for africa's wars. while fish is processed to best of european standards, africans go hungry, with only those who can afford eating rotten fish, sort of no european would feed their pets with. what this fish brought to local people was aids, prostitution, violence,
next film to follow was we feed the world. this movie is also austrian documentary (it seems that austrians are worried about the future of humanity) on food we eat every day. aobut food that we throw in garbage every day while so many people suffer from malnutrition and die of starvation. this movie talks about the industrialization of food production, where shere quantity matters, about european and american subsidies that bring poverty to the third world, about food that lays behind couple of thousand kilometers on various means of transportation before landing on our table.
since only about 5% of workforce work in agricultural sector in industrialized countries and if you can not identify with plight of third world farmers and fishers (and if you are german also with blacks), here is one for you: workingman's death. you will ask yourself does our wealth really come from buying and selling of papers in stock exchanges, and who makes up the value of interests in banks and stock exchanges. those are exactly people portrayed in this movie. workingman's death is austrian/german documentary about the post-industrial age,about slow and painful death of workers class. once good and respected vocation, miners today in donets basin (donbass), ukraine are the worst of the worst. they work in illegal pits, in terrible conditions, film moves on to classical european portrayal of hell, sulphur polluted atmosphere on a volcanic peek somewhere in indonesia, where workers spit and cough and carry sulphur in bamboo baskets kilometers on their backs. film moves on to slaughter yard in nigera, ship recycling facility in pakistan and then to steelworks in china. with graphic sceenes this is not a fun movie for the evening. the sixth and the last part of the movie is ruhr area in germany, remains of steel works in duisburg. the factory today is mere a tourist attraction, no one works there - post industrial age has already arrived there. this film shots the mouth of those who still think globalization brings wealth to people. globalization brings wealth only to rich.
too stressed by this. then watch this: mondovino a movie about wine, but not the kind of sideways. the movie has not yet arrived in german cinemas, but from what i could read it looks interesting enough. it is the story about tradition and modernity in winemaking, about quantity and quality, about different philosophies of wine and why do nowaday all wines have to taste the same.
p.s.
alexey stachanov, a russian mine worker was a hero of soviet union and a great worker. but he was not the best, he was beaten back in the fifties or sixties by alija sirotanović, mine worker from breza, bosnia, who ended up as a bosnian legend.