Life and Debt

This is a really tragic and shattering film. I saw it a few days ago in New York at a lower East side cinema. It is a very honest and yet artistically distinguished portrait of the demise of a Caribbean nation - Jamaica. Interspersed with the cold, hard facts of how the international community has loaned the country money at predatory interest rates, and then dumped products on Jamaica's undeveloped markets, thus destroying native industries, are scenes of tourists enjoying Jamaica's bounties, oblivious to the nature of the natives' distress.

The woman who made this film narrates it herself, and she wrote a book on the subject before she made this film. So her credentials for knowledge about the subject are very strong. She employs a few cinematic flourishes, such as the blurred-edge-of-screen effect when she shows poor Jamaicans digging about in a garbage dump. The soundtrack is replete with great reggae songs, including the potent and topical title track.

Basically, this film is more important in its 90 minutes than about a hundred typically vapid Hollywood productions stacked back to back. This film teaches you something about the world - about the exploitation of the weak, about the myth of the "helping" nature of the IMF and the World Bank, and about the everyday lives of desperately poor third world people. All proponents of "globalization" should see this film, and then be required to defend their views to the people who have been victimized by globalization's cruel and relentless march. Similarly, everyone who works for the major media in the US should see this, and should be ashamed of themselves for defending the policies that have contributed to the downfall of a proud and beautiful people such as those of Jamaica. And silence is the major defense employed on behalf of such policies.

For anyone who wonders "why they hate us," watch this documentary and the mystery will be solved. It thoroughly documents how the US, the WTO, and the IMF have systematically destroyed every aspect of Jamaican economic opportunity and culture.

The US didn't abolish slavery in the 19th century; they simply outsourced it. Take a look inside the Kingston Free Zone and you'll see the slaves still at work. Visit a Jamaican banana plantation and learn about how the economy of a sovereign nation was subjugated in the name of "free trade."

In short, fellow fat Americans, pull your heads out of your globalizing butts and watch this film, and then try -- for just a moment, at least -- to put yourself on the other side of the coin. Imagine how you would feel about a foreign agency that took away your livelihood, that treated you like chattel, that demanded you stop making a living so that a transnational corporation could capture the last 5% of a market share.

Wouldn't you hate them, too?

As a development worker in Jamaica, I can say that there is a lot of painful accuracy in the movie. Yes, tourists do act that badly, almost unanimously if you only count the ones who spend their time here locked away in a guarded resort. And now over half of ever tax dollar goes to paying foreign debt...

This documentary perfectly captures the largely-ignored downside to globalization and the subsequent domination of the world economy by the U.S. and Western Europe. Namely, that undeveloped and developing countries continue to get poorer at the expense of the rich. This documentary presents the human side for discussions about the impact of multinational corporations on human rights abuses, price fixing in order to drive local competition into failure, environmental destruction as the result of World Bank-mandated "structural adjustments," etc. This is a must see for anyone who thinks that globalization is the only way for developing countries to compete with the rest of the world, and for anyone wanting to know the reasons behind all of those protests.

This is the Jamaica the tourists see, says the narrator in Stephanie Black's documentary Life and Debt, a country of lush jungles, clear blue water, and sandy beaches. Beyond the luxury hotels, however, is a third world country fighting poverty, crime, and hopelessness. Based on the novel by Jamaica Kincaid A Small Place, Life and Debt, the film studies the effects of the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank on the economy of Jamaica, focusing on the impact of economic globalization on the dairy farmers and factory workers. Backed by a soundtrack of native reggae music, Life and Debt is filled with economic facts that require some knowledge to fully understand. You don't need a master's degree in Economics, however, to understand the desperate faces of children in poverty, the agony of farmers who can't sell their crops, or the hopelessness of factory workers who earn the equivalent of thirty US dollars per week.

Black interviews former Prime Minister Michael Manley who explains how the current situation came to be. When Jamaica achieved its independence in 1962 after being a colony of Great Britain for 400 years, help was needed to build its economy. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank gladly supplied this money in the form of short-term loans. These loans though came with strings attached. Subsidies to local farmers were prohibited and tariff barriers were lowered to allow cheap foreign goods to come into the country, inevitably driving local industries out of business. What's remains is tourism, sweatshops and fast-food chains. Manley blames the big Western powers that have used Jamaica for cheap labor and easy sales. For example, thanks to huge subsidies other countries including the United States exported powdered milk to Jamaica at an excessively low price, forcing the local dairy industry to shut down. He also points out that big American businesses like Chiquita, Dole, and Del Monte have worked to stifle exports of local Jamaican bananas. Manley asks of the IMF, "You ask, 'In who's interest? I ask, 'Who set it up?"

Watching this documentary, it became clearer to me why thousands of people took to the streets in Seattle to protest the WTO Conference. It may not be widely known but the WTO has established ground rules that make it easier for the developed countries to market their products in third world countries. Under WTO rules,

1. Governments are not allowed to pass laws that favor local firms and discriminate against foreign-owned corporations.

2. Governments are not allowed to prevent foreign nationals from buying a controlling interest in local companies.

3. Governments are not allowed to subsidize domestic companies.

4. Governments are not allowed to pass laws that would provide favorable terms of trade to particular trading partners.

Ralph Nader said it all when he described globalization as being the subordination of human rights, environmental rights, and consumer rights. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank now own almost every facet of the Jamaican economy and the only ones that are making money are franchises like McDonalds, Wendy's, and Burger King who contribute little more than unskilled low paying service jobs. If you are thinking about asking the IMF to change its policies, keep in mind that any change in IMF policy requires an 80% approval and the richest nations such as the United States, Western Europe, Japan make up more than 80% of the vote. Life and Debt, like the recent film Bowling for Columbine, is one-sided, in your face, and may appeal only to those already in agreement. However, its images are so vivid that, for the first time, you may experience the human impact of policies that can turn the world into "one big casino".