The film, first released in May this year, follows four years in the parallel political lives of Jawhara Ettis and Emna Ben Jemaa – two women at the centre of Tunisia’s radical turn to democracy during the 2011 Arab Spring.
California-based Deeter took a Q&A after the 90-minute film, and led a workshop for film and journalism students the following evening.
‘A Revolution in Four Seasons’ is the culmination of six year’s work, when Deeter was living in Oman, Morocco and Tunisia as a Fulbright Scholar in 2010. When hard-line President Ben Ali was ousted by protesters at the start of 2011, the seeds of the Arab Spring revolution sprang up and Tunisia held its first ever free and fair election.
Asking questions about youth, democracy, social media and motherhood, ‘A Revolution’ captures some crucial perspectives of new Arab democracy in the digital age.
Deeter said the project took shape “happy accident” when she approached the Ennahda Islamist party and befriended Ennahda, who went on to be elected regional representative and contribute to the composition of Tunisia’s new constitution. Researching the political landscape soon brought Emna – a political activist who blogs, makes videos, and uses social media to promote secular liberal democracy – into the picture. In Deeter’s words, the film depicts a “clash of their ideals with reality” as excitement over unprecedented democratic elections contrasts with deeply-felt religious differences, and disputes over political processes.
The director told of her challenges during filming, including broken tripods, dialect barriers, and filming in near-50C heat. Deeter lived part of the time with her family, and sometimes wrote news stories to fund the project. ‘No one on the film was doing it for the money or the glamour!’.
‘Women need to be present in politics to represent their rights and points of view,’ a Tunisian man says at one point in the film. Despite being one of the first Arab nations to instigate female suffrage, Tunisia suffers from a paucity of women in office – a problem not yet overcome in the UK either.
The documentary is not shy about depicting many areas of the women’s life in political and family scenarios. The subjects’ trust in the filmmakers over the years comes through poignantly, as moments of marital unhappiness, physical discomfort whilst pregnant in the workplace, and honesty about unfavourable political outcomes are included in amongst scenes of momentous celebration.
Deeter admits that the editing process was a mammoth task; three talented editors were needed to craft a story that was detailed yet compelling for an American audience. Does the director feel the film can be called out for bias? “I feel pretty proud of the fact that we get slammed by both sides,” Deeter responded, explaining that viewers of both Islamists and secular persuasions have criticised sympathetic portrayals of their opponents.
Further information about the film can be found on its Facebook page and website.
]]>The panel, chaired by prominent investigative journalist Oliver Bullough, examined ground-breaking stories focusing on Arab Spring countries. They explored how kleptocrats from the region have used the services of the British capital to retain and launder their money.
Ala’a Shehabi of Bahrain Watch addressed the Frontline Club, explaining the extent corruption has plagued Bahrain. In recent years, extensive sections of the island’s surrounding waters have been dredged and reclaimed as land, with more than 65 km2 of Bahrain’s land having been privatised in the process ‘the sea was literally disappearing’.
Corrupt Bahraini officials and others exploited this land reclamation as a means to generate vast wealth, selling land and the developments built upon it for enormous profits. The wealth created in the process has since flowed into London, and is particularly prevalent in the capital’s housing market.
‘London is being used to… hide and stash dirty money away. It is a guaranteed safe investment… because it has an accelerating housing market and no one will know who you are. The minute we expose who these people are, the incentives to come to London will disappear,’ explained Shehabi.
Bahrain Watch has worked to expose the financial exploitation committed by the nation’s elites, and has had recent success in revealing the money flowing through the King’s own company ‘Premier Group’. 21 high-end London properties belong to the company’s portfolio, including The Four Seasons and The Marriot on Park Lane. Shehabi described the company as being involved in the ‘alchemy of making money from sand’.
Prior to receiving a leak detailing the corporate structure of the group the information pertaining to the company’s ownership structure and property holdings had been successfully obscured. When Bullough asked her about the difficulty of exposing financial malpractice in Bahrain before she obtained this data, Shehabi said ‘It was a web of information which had been completely obscured. Who owns the sea? This was never registered as public land.’
Shehabi points to the Arab uprising of 2011 as being a pivotal moment for the nation’s people in finally registering their discontent at the widespread corruption that had engulfed the island and its political class. However, she decried the failure of media coverage to pick up on this source of anger as a critical driving force for the political revolt, ‘that’s a story that hasn’t been properly told yet’.
Speaking passionately about the struggles she now encounters in trying to access her homeland, Shehabi concluded by referring to the important work she is now doing in London to combat the flow of wealth out of Bahrain and away from the nation’s own citizens.
Ben Cowdock of Transparency International outlined the sheer scale of the illicit money generated during the Arab Spring, much of which has since flowed through the UK. The National Crime Agency estimates that tens if not hundreds of billions of illicit cash flows through the UK each year.
The misappropriation of state budgets within certain Middle East states in recent years has resulted in huge sums of money being accumulated in the hands of a very select few individuals. Cowdock gave the striking example of Syrian state finances, with Bashar Al Assad’s cousin reportedly owning 60% of the national economy in 2011 according to Transparency International. Illicit money owned by such individuals has flowed into London in vast quantities following the Arab Spring.
Explaining why the capital is a hive of activity for the channelling of such funds, Cowdock said: ‘The UK is a safe haven for corrupt money. It’s a safe haven because it’s a global financial hub, so trillions of pounds come through the UK each year. It’s easy to hide that money within legitimate money. It’s a stable legal environment, you’re unlikely to have your assets taken off you by the government… and has a thriving property market so you’re able to buy gold blocks of bullion in the sky.’
Referring to the network of ‘professional enablers’ that exist within the UK, Cowdock detailed the money being made by professional services in London through the trade of illicit money via property. He highlighted legal firms, banks and estate agents as being just a few of the industries who are generating money as a result of this financial traffic, be that implicitly or explicitly.
The UK’s close links with overseas territories such as the British Virgin Islands and other notable tax havens has made it an increasingly attractive destination for illicit money. Cowdock spoke passionately about the need for the UK to bolster transparency, asset recovery systems and defences against such practice in the future if the capital and the nation as a whole is to combat the problem effectively.
Richard Brooks of Private Eye revealed to the audience the map Private Eye have put together detailing property acquired by overseas companies within the UK from 2005-2014. The map helps to track the flow of dirty money in the UK, designating the ownership details of the vast extent of real estate owned across the nation by foreign companies.
Brooks suggested many of these companies have links to offshore banking and investment programmes, which act as a channel and safe haven for illicit funds.
When asked by Oliver Bullough as to why we put up with such practices, Brooks replied jovially that the UK is keen not to put off entrepreneurs,’we are open for business remember.’
Brooks delighted the crowd when he revealed the case of an underground parking space in Kensington being owned by a company in St Lucia, detailing the truly absurd flow of capital and ownership structure in this instance. His point was well made, he documented to the audience extremely effectively the nature of the high-end property market in London and its murky finances using this and other examples.
Responding to a question pertaining to the importance of greater regulation in this area, Brooks made the moral case for a tighter legal framework, saying: ‘laws serve a purpose of saying we don’t think this is great, meaning such behaviour becomes less socially acceptable.’ Cowdock supported this view, arguing there is a need to ‘create larger disincentives for companies and individuals involved and raise awareness of the moral and financial cost of enabling and facilitating dodgy money transactions.’
When asked about comparisons within Europe regarding the issue of illicit money flows, Brooks revealed that ‘the EU has been a pretty positive force in the last few years regarding financial transparency. It’s certainly dragged along other countries like the UK.’ He expressed concern over the potential impact of Brexit in this area.
The panel united in calling for greater transparency of data from central government, better protections and incentives for whistle-blowers and enlarged anti-corruption budgets.
Cowdock finished: ‘dirty money follows the path of least resistance. Greater regulation raises the obstacles to its passage.’
*This was the second talk in the Frontline Club’s series of Kleptoscope events investigating corruption and dirty money in London: interrogating its origins, its launderers and how it gets spent. The first Kleptoscope event featured three ground-breaking stories focusing on the former Soviet Union, and explored how Russian kleptocrats have used the services of the British capital to retain and launder their money; how London’s property market has become a piggy bank for the world’s corrupt elite; and how ex-Soviet businessmen have covertly funded MPs and parliamentary groups, gaining preferential treatment as a result.
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Rifkind addressed a full house at the Frontline Club on Monday 21st Novemeber at a discussion about the future of conflict. Rifkind was joined by fellow panellists Paul Rogers, a professor in the department of Peace Studies at Bradford University, Julia Ebner, a Policy Analyist at Quilliam, and Julian E. Barnes from the Wall Street Journal, chaired by Jenny Kleeman, a British film-maker and journalist.
Paul Rogers identified a key issue in current conflict: ‘we’ve entered into an era of a revolution of frustrated expectations globally’, where people’s living standards are not rising with their expectations.
Julia Ebner believes a ‘global jihadist insurgency’ and a ‘far-right renaissance in Western countries’ are provoking a ‘phenomenon of reciprocal radicalisation’, where each party’s actions (such as anti-Muslim hate crimes and fundamentalist terror attacks) feed into the other’s grievances. For Ebner the solution lies in tackling those grievances and in tackling the ‘black-and-white narratives that are propagated from both sides’ which result in a worldview of the West and Islam being at war with each other.
Ebner was particularly concerned by the impact of fake news sites, as well as the echo chambers that are all too prevalent on the social media landscape in what she termed our ‘post-factual society’. Rifkind expressed similar concerns about social media, saying it ‘stimulates extremism, people… wind each other up and they get amplified… it’s hugely problematic in terms of stimulating extreme identities’. Barnes pointed to the ‘explosion of encryption technology and the ability very easily for groups or individuals to get very high-powered encryption that’s very difficult for intelligence services in the UK or the US to break.’
Although all of the panellists agreed that the so-called ‘war on terror’ has failed, Barnes said we should expect to see more of a focus on this under Trump, with Russia as a potential ally. Continuing the war on terror may be playing into the hands of Islamic terrorists who want war: Rogers argued that ‘if they present themselves as the true guardians of Islam under attack by crusader Zionist forces, then essentially it helps to be attacked’.
The panellists emphasised the importance of preventative work against conflict; but how do we get politicians to realise earlier that conflict is not the answer and to act early when politicians’ interests naturally lie in short-term success? Rifkind pointed out that ‘foreign policy is often about crisis management, it’s often about reacting rather than anticipating’, citing the Gaza conflict as a key example of this. Ebner, meanwhile, argued that the solution does not lie in politics at all, but within civil society, where we should ‘tell better stories than extremists are telling’.
IS is funded partly by Western Gulf states, and Barnes wonders if we might expect Trump to cut business from such countries ‘we very much could see more pressure [on allies which are known to fund terrorist groups] on this transactional approach’. However, IS campaigns are relatively cheap to run, and is able to maintain taxation within the territory, so a decline is as likely to come from a lack of appeal. None of this solves the underlying problems of the Arab world that made it so popular (the ‘revolution of frustrated expectations, as Rogers put it), such as unemployment. The underlying problem of marginalisation is here to stay, according to Rogers, who also named climate change as a major cause of future conflict and migration. Ebner added that uniting against climate change ‘could be part of the solution – it could also provide civil society with a common cause, an abstract enemy…rather than human beings fighting against human beings’.
Will World War III be mankind versus climate change? One can only hope.
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The panel discussion ‘Breaking Point: The EU Referendum and its Aftermath’ on 15 November showed that whilst it’s hard to know how exactly what it means, there are clues about the shape it will take.
For example, despite the pivotal role migration played in the referendum rhetoric, migrants are likely to stay, argued Anand Menon, Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King’s College London. ‘We have no earthly clue who the European citizens in this country are, unless they’ve registered to vote or are getting a benefit,’ Menon said. ‘People are going to be allowed to stay,’ he remarked bluntly, ‘because we can’t do anything about it.’ The notion of ‘taking back control’ of our borders is ‘nonsense’ because the British civil service ‘can’t deal’ with the ‘kind of promises that some people in the Leave campaign have made, and they won’t try to’.
We also know that Brexit lends itself to European food based analogies. A ’kind of Swiss cheese Brexit’, in which different sectors get different deals, is most likely, Macwhirter claimed. However, Menon rebuts, any ‘deals’ at this point are moot; there is no evidence, he argued, that the EU will allow the UK to ‘salami slice the market’.
But food may not be as important as the analogies would have us believe. It’s simply not true that ‘Bordeaux winemakers’, Bojan Pancevski (The Sunday Times’ European Union Correspondent) warned, or producers of any other foodstuff or product for that matter, will successfully persuade EU governments to be lenient when negotiating with the UK for fear of losing market share. At least in Germany, the trade union bodies representing such individuals, Pancevski remarked, are on a record, saying they ‘completely agree with the government policy’. That government policy, currently, will not be one of doing favours for Britain. To avoid fuelling the rise of their own Eurosceptics, Menon argued, these governments ‘need Brexit to look dreadful’. The German Chancellery’s approach to Brexit and its message to businesses, he suggests, is similar to it’s approach to sanctioning Russia following its invasion of Crimea: ‘the political imperative is more important than economic loss, suck it up.’
Possibly most strikingly, we also know that Europe and the UK are in what Pancevski described as ‘parallel universe[s]’. For example, Britain is the only country in the EU with a political issue about freedom of labour, Menon argued. European countries, Pancevski said, don’t understand the phenomenon as ‘migration’, but rather as ‘internal movement’ within the European Union.
Furthermore, since the referendum, politicians and commentators have claimed that Europe needs the UK so much that it will change the rules, compromising freedom of movement to keep Britain in the single market. ‘We are very happy in this country to assume that everyone loves us’ Menon deadpanned. But the parallel universe strikes again, and obscures what is really at stake; the EU’s ‘primary objective’ Pancevski argued, ‘is to preserve their own union and above all to preserve the single market’. The EU’s fundamental four freedoms of goods, services, movement, and capital are, Menon claimed, ‘sacrosant’.
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Oo is one of his nation’s predominant emerging filmmakers and of the many talents being showcased at the Frontline Club’s ‘A Country in Motion: Films From Burma’ event. Organised by the Czech Centre, the films highlight the recent political, cultural and social transitions in Burma.
Four films were exhibited. The Little Finger, A Peaceful Land, I Wanna Go To School and A Buffalo Boy. Focusing on a range of issues including development, human rights, democracy, education and exploitation, the films provided an illuminating insight into life in modern day Myanmar.
Interesting and thought provoking screening at @frontlineclub learning about human rights and activism in #Myanmar pic.twitter.com/drL04LQmXX
— Haylea Campbell (@HayleaCampbell) November 10, 2016
Left to Right: Human rights campaigner, Igor Blaževič, Burmese MP, Susanna Hla Hla Soe (National League for Democracy Party), Former Czech ambassador to the UK, Pavel Seifter
Chaired by the former Czech ambassador to the UK, Pavel Seifter, the event drew on the remarkable work being produced by a selection of Burma’s emerging filmmakers. During the open discussion after the films’ airing, Seifter was joined on stage by Burmese MP Susanna Hla Hla Soe (National League for Democracy Party) and the internationally renowned human rights campaigner Igor Blaževič. Oo joined on Skype.
Addressing the crowd from his native Burma, Oo is broadly positive about the course of progress in his country. He cautions however that further change is needed and highlights aspects of Burmese life that remain problematic. Oo spoke of the need to tell stories that had not been possible to tell in the past, rationalising that as a result, many of the documentaries emerging out of Burma are testimonial in nature.
Igor Blaževič agreed that despite the political developments made, problems remain. He outlined four major problems facing the country today:
“First is the military… the military protects the constitution and the constitution protects the military. The second problem is ongoing civil war… there is profound disagreement between the ethnic minorities and those in power. The third problem is ethnic nationalism… and the fourth problem is that the country is economically captured by the oligarchy groups created under the military”.
Oo concurred that the Army represents a major obstacle to further progress in Myanmar: “Now there is a new distinction between the Army and the Government. They used to be the same thing. It is fine to criticise the Government but the Army remain hard to touch”. He explained that filmmakers still have to submit material to a censorship board which decides upon what may or may not be shown to the wider public. This process prevented a number of films containing material critical of the Army from being shown at the Human Rights Human Dignity International Film Festival in June this year.
MP Susanna Hla Hla Soe concluded: “The first challenge is the expectation of the people… They would like to see the new Myanamar happen, but change is slow”.
Former Czech ambassador to the UK, Pavel Seifter
Film Reviews:
The Little Finger
Produced by: Shune Lei Thar, Kaung Myat Thu Kyaw, Saw Reagan
The Little Finger portrays the tale of the Burmese democracy in its infancy, covering the 2015 election from the perspective of two women leading notably different lives. One of the women filmed was Susanna Hla Hla (a guest at the Frontline Club for the evening), a parliamentary candidate for the National League for Democracy party, headed by Aung San Suu Kyi. The other is a grass grower living and working in rural Burma.
The film exposes the flowering yet fragile state of Burmese democracy. The shots of voting day queues, an old man sitting patiently waiting to cast his vote, a young man taking a ‘selfie’ in the queue, contrast with the concerns expressed by NLD activists regarding election tampering and voter documentation malpractice.
The Little Finger reveals the intertwined excitement and nervousness of democracy in action. It is hopeful yet truthful, it doesn’t fail to expose the disappointment felt by those left out of the democratic process. “They never failed to collect our taxes but now they are saying we can’t vote,” says one man upon finding out he can’t be registered to vote due to residential status issues. A warts and all look at the democratic process in action — The Little Finger records the joy of those who have waited so long for the vote exercising their democratic right, and the pain felt by those who’s wait goes on.
A Peaceful Land
Produced by:Sai Kong Kham, Lamin Oo
The early shots of toy soldiers in the sand beautifully set the scene for the story that unfolds throughout A Peaceful Land. This is the tale of land taken, of an entire way of life disrupted. Drawing on a range of interviews with those impacted, the film documents the 2005 government initiated nation-wide campaign to plant Physic Nut – a bush-like tree, used for biodiesel production.
Following Government orders, the Army set about confiscating acres of farmland as part of the programme, forcing farmers to plant the trees and work the land appropriated.
Faced with hardship and injustice, four courageous farmers from Nat Mauk (Magway Division) stood up against the authorities and fought for their rights and land.
Following prolonged harassment and even in some cases imprisonment, the afflicted were offered miserly compensation from the Government in return for seized acreage. Many felt forced to accept the terms and as such lost their deep connection to their farmland.
Despite intense pressure from the authorities, one female farmer explains why she refused to give up her plot: “The money will run out in the end, but the farmland will never run out”.
The documentary is beautifully shot and tenderly portrays the widespread pain felt by Burmese farmers at their loss of land and community. The documentary closes with frames depicting earth eroding into a river beside rural fields, symbolising the farmers plight.
I Wanna Go to School
Produced by: Nyan Kyal Say
A powerful, short animation about a Burmese brother and sister who dream of going to school together. The story demonstrates effectively the obstacles to education faced by children in Burma. It highlights the prevalence and impact of gender inequality, poverty, child labour and abuse. With one in five Burmese children not in education and one in three Burmese children working, the story told is sadly an everyday reality for many young boys and girls in Myanmar.
A Buffalo Boy
Produced by: Mai Ah Nway (Ta’ang Chitthu)
A fiction film detailing the life of a small boy in a rural village in the Burmese countryside. The boy is caught in the midst of warring parents, with his father a destructive opium addict and his mother struggling to provide for the family. The boy longs for an education and to join the other children from his village at school but is instead forced to work for the family, performing tasks such as gathering water and organising the family home.
The film provides a potent insight into the life of this one young boy, carefully detailing the everyday defeats inflicted upon him which curtail his happiness and development. After an argument between his parents, his mother is arrested whilst trying to buy opium for his father. The boy is left alone with his dad and is soon after sold off to a stranger to finance his father’s habit. Hard hitting, raw and skilfully weaved together, this is the story of the innocence of youth lost.
]]>Drone pilots Lisa, Heather and Daniel reveal how drone warfare, presented as efficacious and selective, is much more liable to error than US officials are ready to admit. The “safe distance” at which it is conducted has very real and damaging effects both for civilians and drone operators.
The primordial act of killing is dehumanized and sanitized, and leaves Heather with post traumatic stress disorders, Daniel with suicidal thoughts and a looming charge for espionage, and compels Lisa to travel to Kabul to seek pardon from the communities she contributed to grief.
As shown in the Ed Snowden case, the US government is quick to punish dissenters: a different war on terror is waged on whistleblowers breaching the secrecy of US military and speaking out against lies and abuses relating to the drone war.
In the discussion that followed, director Sonia Kennebeck highlighted how whistleblowing has become increasingly dangerous and all the more important to investigative journalism in today’s information society. She highlighted how the Intelligence Support Activity, a surveillance system classified as a weapon in itself, is able to watch everyone everywhere without us even knowing.
British barrister and former intelligence official Frank Ledwidge explains that humanitarian law is not fit deal with the relatively unrestricted warfare of drones, and the issue is likely to aggravate as more countries (Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and increasingly China) develop drone capabilities.
Findings by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism seem to corroborate the argument that drone warfare emboldens decision makers and hide the scale of harm away from public scrutiny: reporter Jack Serle logged US air strikes on Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan demonstrating much higher casualties compared to US official figures.
Drones have numerous civilian applications. One of them, filming, was skilfully used by Kenneback to demonstrate just how intrusive the National Bird’s “unblinking stare” is.
But like any new technology it demands open societal debate. The harmful consequences of secrecy and censorship are boldly portrayed by Kennebeck, whose documentary powerfully advocates for more transparency both at home and abroad.
]]>In town for a team meeting, Charles Sennott and Gary Knight, founders of GroundTruth, shared their commitment to training up-and-coming talent in global correspondents in an age when digital media seems to cast doubt on the reliability of political news.
Calvin Sims, seasoned US foreign correspondent and chair for the evening, identified a ‘tectonic shift’ in global politics as a ‘pandemic of populism’ now affects elections in the UK, Europe, and US.
The ensuing debate asked how successful mainstream and off-beat media channels are in producing meaningful political analysis for a generation typically craving entertainment.
The panel (left to right): socio-political journalist and author Laurie Penny, eminent American broadcast journalist Michael Goldfarb (The New York Times, NPR), GroundTruth Co-founder and Managing Editor Kevin Grant, and – joining us stateside via Skype – freelance Bloomberg journalist Matt Negrin.
Election as spectacle
Sims’ began by asking how appropriate it is to engage with humour in covering this election.
A visibly excited Matt Negrin enthused that he is likely the only person left in New York not yet weary of wall-to-wall media coverage of the election, ‘It’s so much fun. The race is close enough that it’s still interesting to cover.’
Grant went someway in agreeing, expressing the collective surprise many in the media have felt witnessing Donald Trump’s continued extremist statements even after being selected as the GOP’s candidate. ‘Trump is not normal, he has never been normal his entire life,’ he said, ‘The only way to cover this race is to be a little bit stupid,’ arguing a level of incredulity is helpful for real analysis.
Penny echoed the feelings of some in the audience saying she was ‘disturbed’ by the ‘excitement angle’ expressed. ‘It’s a real mistake to see this as fun in any way. Politics is a bad drug,’ she said, distasteful of a media frenzy that lacks sober questioning.
Goldfarb countered, it is essential the media depict Trump ‘as the threat to democracy that he is.’ The broadcaster went on to draw comparisons with the recent Brexit result and the imminent American decision, saying ‘resentment has nowhere to go’ for young angry men displaced from traditional ways of life, leading to extreme choices at the polling station.
Language can be unthinkingly recycled by media outlets without real discussion of its meaning – particularly in relation to voter demographics. ‘Critique of media is abysmal in America,’ said Goldfarb.
Several short videos produced by GroundTruth show that humour can capture an audience and convey real political information – as seen in a ‘Fact-Checking’ sketch with memorable dialogue.
Social media and youth in a digital age
‘The digital space was supposed to make things more democratic’ – and yet often a paucity of voices seems to dominate the debate, even online. ‘What should the media consumer do?’ asked Calvin.
Acknowledging that ‘journalism is in the grip of a massive financial crisis,’ Penny argued the media has not found a way of monetising meaningful critique for a mass audience.
Grant held that the media still has a way to go, and often ‘doesn’t get to the heart of policy matters,’ partially because ‘there’s no clicks in unemployment stories’. Media Matters found that roughly 0% of US TV coverage of the election had to do with policy.
Social media is growing in importance as an ‘alternative’ to ‘the shouting match on TV’ for many millennials seeking political discussion, according to Grant.
New opportunities are emerging on digital platforms, and there is hope yet for intelligent nuance in the ‘crass, uncivil discourse’ (in the words of Sennott) which election coverage so often appears to be.
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Denis Delestrac‘s ‘Freightened: The Real Price of Shipping’, screened at the Frontline Club on 18 October, seeks to shed light on the 60,000 container vessels supplying goods to seven million people around the world; the ‘blood flow’ of the global economy. In the Q&A after the screening, Delestac revealed how the film originally came about by ‘pulling the thread’, trying to find out where his clothes, and the objects around him, came from. The scope quickly expanded, however: ‘What’s the real story behind this industry?’ the film’s narrator asked, ‘what’s its impact on the environment? And how does it influence our lives?’
The fact that most of our consumer goods come from container shipping aside, the influence this industry has on our lives is significant, if not immediately apparent. The shipping industry makes up a significant chunk of the global economy, with an annual turnover in excess of $500bn. Delestrac’s film describes some of the largest companies that make up the industry as ’empires’, and ‘omnipotent’. One such company, the Danish conglomerate Maersk, employs over 90,000 people in 130 countries. In addition to container shipping, Maersk is also in the oil industry, and operates ports across the world. Yet the owners of such ’empires’ prefer to ‘avoid the spotlight’.
‘Most of them are privately owned, most of them are family businesses,’ Rose George said, ‘we are dependent on a very private, in both senses, industry’. The flag on many ships can be used to a ‘wrap a veil of secrecy’ around a shipowner and their business, allowing them to ‘vanish from the legal frame of his country of origin’. Whilst certain areas of the sea are under the jurisdiction of coastal states, whether within their territorial waters, or an Exclusive Economic Zone, no state exercises law over the high seas. So, when sailing the high seas, a ship is subject to the laws of its flag country. This leaves the door wide open for less than scrupulous shipowners, eager to circumvent taxation, regulations, or minimum wage laws, to register their vessels in countries with little regulation. These ‘flags of convenience’ see scores of ships registered in Panama, Liberia, and even the landlocked Mongolia.
On average, according to the film, one shipping accident occurs every three days. Whether this leads to lost containers scattered across the seabed or an oil spill, the environmental impact of shipping is considerable. Accidents aside, massive amounts of pollution are generated from burning dirty fuels every day. ‘Shipping has a carbon footprint equivalent to a country like Germany…’ the narrator explained. Shipowners have had little incentive to make their vessels more environmentally friendly, said Alastair Pettigrew (an interviewee from the film, who joined Delestrac on stage for the Q&A). With each vessel having an economic life time of up to 30 years, significant change in the industry will take sometime. The film gravely asks, ‘Can the planet wait 30 years?’
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Her film builds the case that some regulation specifically devised to target abortion clinics – nicknamed TRAP (targeted regulation of abortion providers) – also aims to shut them down. Abortion clinic workers explain the impact of such regulation, which includes not being near a school, or needing expensive equipment. As June Ayers, owner and director of an Alabama clinic said to camera, “the function of the bill is not to regulate us. It is to regulate us out of business. It is a trap.”
It was compelling to watch the dedication and self-sacrifice of those involved in the fight to keep these clinics open. One doctor explained how he remortgaged his house and liquidated his pension to keep a clinic running; an admin worker says how she is living off her savings and denying herself a salary. As Europeans, it’s perhaps easy to forget how contentious the issue is in the US. Footage of campaigners and anti-abortion speeches by politicians remind the viewer what these nurses, doctors and lawyers are up against.
Since the release of the film, many of the laws have been declared unconstitutional, but for some the harm has already been done: Marva Sadler, director of clinical services, cries as she recounts turning away a 13 year old who had been raped, a girl who is now, “sentenced to motherhood.”
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Perched on the famous stage I warned him that the interview may focus more on his career than the matters at hand, to which he reassuringly responded, “Ask me anything”.
Cockburn was promoting his latest work, The Age of Jihad: a compilation of diary entries covering the evolution of the Middle East conflict and the rise of the Islamic State in a region harassed by foreign intervention and defaced by socio-economic turmoil.
The sustained journalistic narrative begins in Afghanistan during the American invasion, an event that Cockburn sees as having a pivotal knock-on effect on the Iraqi invasion two years later, which in turn bred the reviled Jihadist monster that is leaking into the Syrian civil conflict, just as Cockburn feared.
His coverage is heightened by an acute sense of understanding and complete cultural submission, palpably evident in the way he describes his most dangerous and most enlightening experiences on the road.
Conversation ebbed and flowed, and resumed after our interview at the bar. Before I knew it I was just another mop of hair in a sea of heads eagerly awaiting his re-emergence on stage for an open discussion with Azadeh Moaveni.
The Age of Jihad is a must-read for anybody looking to make sense of the nine wars that are currently being waged in the space between the Western border of Pakistan and North Africa.
Each conflict is nuanced, its history and its fanatics. We, as consumers of entertainment, are taught to laud our heroes and demonize our villains, forgetting that the real world breeds only people and their overlapping interests.
The message that Cockburn wishes to push to our attention ahead of dramatized “bang-bang” media coverage of the Middle East is: “I’ve been there, it’s not that simple.”
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