Each week, at least four men and women vanish without trace or are found dead, cut down in a hail of gunfire. Mysterious disappearances, political murders, the killing of women, gangland hits: thousands of cases, seemingly unrelated, are reported every year from all corners of the globe.

But according to political scholars and activists, there is a connection: more and more are dying protecting their land and homes from global industry’s relentless push to develop the natural resources that lie beneath their feet.

This bloodshed is both interconnected and global, they say, and is a direct product of a phenomenon dubbed ‘necropolitics’ or the ‘politics of death’.

This event will be a film screening and panel discussion on the Thomson Reuters Foundation special investigation, in eight countries, of the violent phenomenon dubbed ‘The Politics of Death’.

Watch the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/220826482/3d21502466

Run Time: 25 mins

Check out Place’s ‘Politics of Death’ website here: http://www.thisisplace.org/shorthand/politics-of-death/

Moderator: Paola Totaro, Editor, Thomson Reuters Foundation

Paola is the Land and property rights editor at the Thomson Reuters Foundation. She is an award winning journalist and immediate past Persident of the Foreign Press Association in London. Paola has worked as a writer and correspondent specialising in European affairs, politics, social policy and the arts and a former Editor of The Saturday Sydney Morning Herald.

Speakers  

Ana Zbona, Project Manager for Civic Freedoms & Human Rights Defenders Project  – Business and Human Rights Resource Centre

Ana joined the Resource Centre in 2016. Before joining, she worked as a manager of a fair trade/community development program with the NGO Mosqoy, working with indigenous communities in the Peruvian Andes. Prior to that, Ana was an advocacy assistant in the EU advocacy team of Human Rights Watch in Brussels, a research assistant for the Slovenian Human Rights Ombudswoman, and a fellow at the EU Delegation to the UN and at the Slovenian Mission to the UN.

Joe Avapura Moses – HRD and Chairman Paga Hill Heritage Association

Joe Avapura Moses is a community leader and a land rights defender with the Paga Hill community who lived along the waterfront of the Port Moresby peninsula in Papua New Guinea (PNG) before their homes were illegally bulldozed to make way for the Paga Hill Development Company Ltd. to develop a hotel, marina and exhibition centre.

As a result of his human rights work spearheading a legal resistance to this land grab, Joe has endured intimidation and police harassment, which ultimately forced him, his wife Ceyline and their two children into hiding.

Erin Kilbride – Media Coordinator, Front Line Defenders

Erin has conducted field research and led campaigning initiatives on human rights defenders facing severe threats in Bangladesh, Egypt, Tunisia, Burma/Myanmar and Bahrain, among others. She has reported for media outlets including Huffington Post, Al Jazeera, Think Progress, The Diplomat, Middle East Eye and Voice of America.

Professor Bobby Banerjee, Professor of Management, Cass Business School – Bobby’s primary research interests are in the areas of sustainability, climate change and corporate social responsibility. He has published extensively in leading scholarly journals and is the author of two books: Corporate Social Responsibility: The Good, the Bad and The Ugly and the co-edited volume ‘Organisations, Markets and Imperial Formations: Towards an Anthropology of Globalisation’. He serves on the editorial board of seven international journals and is Senior Editor at Organisation Studies. 

“The evening breeze
blows towards the bride
as she takes her leave
on her wedding day.”

(“New Bride, New Night” by Salma)

On Thursday 26 September, the Frontline Club and DocHouse screened the evocative documentary Salma. Hosted at Rich Mix, the film was the latest in the Between the Lines Follow-Up series.

Directed by Kim Longinotto, the film follows the poet and novelist Salma on her return to her home village where she was effectively imprisoned for 25 years. Editor Ollie Huddleston joined for the post-film Q&A.

Elizabeth Wood of DocHouse began with a discussion on the craft of editing:

“Fiction films are shot to a script, but really, with a film like this, and with all Kim’s films, a script is really written during the edit.”

“I think the best documentary films are like fiction films,” responded Huddleston:

“You’re building a story. . . . I look at this film now and I see it’s of course a film about Tamil Nadu and Muslim culture and Salma, but the important thing is always that it should connect to us. It’s a very universal story in some ways. The bonds, the knots, the ties, the families. Fear of breaking away and not being able to break away.”

Editor Ollie Huddleston. Photo: George Symonds

An audience member asked if the village had changed since the film was made.

“My experience of the village,” said Huddleston, “is what I see through that material. My understanding is that it hasn’t changed, no, not at all. And I think Malik – Salma’s husband – is quite unusual. As much as he was a very strong part of keeping her away and keeping her apart from society, he also helped her to break free, and that’s very unusual.”

“He must have grown too, in a way do you think?” followed Wood.

“Yeah, the weirdest thing was that Kim and Salma, when I finally met her, said he liked the film, that he was proud of the film. That is amazing for me,” said Huddleston. “Because he doesn’t come across brilliantly sometimes. Kim said he was a lovely guy and incredibly friendly and all the rest of it, but maybe he’s happy that the story is being told. He seems very proud of his wife so eventually maybe he’s coming around and maybe the village will change, one day.”

“But,” countered Wood, “do you think perhaps he’s the one who made his sons critical of her?”

“Yes, I do. Definitely he did. But he’s part of the village, isn’t he? I mean they all are. So the village tradition has meant that they’re all bound by the past and traditions that women are locked up and hidden away.”

Ollie Huddleston in conversation with Elizabeth Wood. Photo: George Symonds.

Huddleston then spoke of the difficulties faced during filming:

“Salma had to hide a lot. They thought she was making some kind of drama film and she was going to make money out of this film in some way. So I think there was a lot of antagonism in the village. But she’s an extraordinary, pragmatic, charismatic, thoughtful, incredibly eloquent person so I imagine she found a way to explain it to them, and to get the film made.”

Hands went up in the audience to ask about the inclusion of the Hindu wedding:

“We wanted to balance the film out. That it’s not just Muslim weddings. I mean, that girl is about 10 or 11. It happens quite a lot in the village so that was the reason. It’s quite shocking, and truthful.”

Is she, Salma, interested in the world of politics and making a difference that way?

“She started a women’s refuge in Chennai and yes, she’s very interested in changing the world, most definitely,” explained Huddleston. “Politics is one way of doing that but I think at the moment she’s writing. I couldn’t say whether she’d go back into politics again. Maybe.”

Huddleston then responded to how he approached representing the many complex characters:

“You try to make stories develop. . . . Throughout the film you’re probably thinking, ‘God, how could she [Salma’s mother] do that to her daughter?’ . . . In the end, she helps her publish her books, she smuggles them out – she’s more complicated than that. So to be really crude about it, there’s a kind of set up about who the mother is. You think she’s this person then, later on, you’ve changed your opinion of her. ‘Wow, she’s stood up, she went and got the books, she sent them to a publisher, she is on Salma’s side.’ There’re many references to the mother and the complexity of that relationship is huge and crucial to the film really. You’re trying to make it understandable and very real.”

'Each shot has to count and each moment has to count' – editor Ollie Huddleston #documentary #Salma

— BerthaDocHouse (@BerthaDocHouse) September 26, 2013

To conclude, Huddleston commented on the circularity that the film depicts:

“It’s that idea that we’re constantly going in a circle. When she lies on the floor and says, ‘What can I do, I can’t leave the ones that love me, I’d be completely alone,’ isn’t that true of all families? It’s a circular thing. That seemed to be the most truthful point. She’s still yearning for her mother’s approval or love or closeness. Nothing has changed, in certain ways, even though she’s done extraordinary things.

“It’s because it’s a film about circles. Circles within families, within tradition, within religion, and trying to break free from those. That felt like the most honest end, the most truthful end. Nothing is simple.”

A collection of Salma’s poems and Longinotto’s reflections on creating the documentary is published by OR Books.

Upcoming films in the Between the Lines Follow-Up series can be found here.

While the eyes of the world are turned to the Middle East, protests against dictatorships are happening much closer to home – in Europe.

Aleksander Lukashenko, President of Belarus for the past 14 years, has been accused of torture, state-sponsored murder and kidnap as part of a crackdown on opposition to his government.

Europe’s Last Dictator follows the family, friends, and supporters of opposition leaders including Irina Bogdanova, the sister of the politician and activist Andrei Sannikov, considered the biggest threat to Lukashenko.

One of the first films to get footage of protests against what was widely accepted as a rigged election in 2010, Europe’s Last Dictator shows the violent repression that took place in this underreported part of the world.

Followed by a panel discussion with:

Directors Mathew Charles and Juan Passarelli;

Edward Lucas, International Editor of The Economist;

Irina Bogdanova, sister of imprisoned presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov;

A former prisoner who will be named on the night of the screening.

Chaired by Stephen Sackur, the host of BBC Hard Talk.

Directed by: Juan Passarelli & Mathew Charles

Year: 2012

 Europe’s Last Dictator is a thought-provoking film about Belarus and its president Aleksander Lukashenko. The panel gathered to discuss Lukashenko’s brutal authoritarian style of ruling and what the future holds for Belarusians under a state that actively carries out torture, state-sponsored murder and kidnap as part of a crackdown of the opposition.

Stephen Sackur of the BBC’s Hard Talk was joined by directors Mathew Charles and Jean Passarelli and The Economist’s International editor, Edward Lucas. The panel was also comprised of two prominent activists who gave a very real insight into what is currentyl happening in Belarus.

Lukashenko has held power in Belarus for 18 years now. His power has turned more and more brutal. Freedom of speech is suppressed and the foreign media banned. Lukashenko himself describes his style of ruling as authoritarian:

“They tell me: you are a dictator. Am I a dictator? My position and the state will never allow me to become a dictator… But an authoritarian ruling style is characteristic of me, and I have always admitted it.” (Belarusian radio, August 2003)

The elections of December 2010 saw Belarusians rise up against the government after the elections were rigged, with Lukashenko declaring victory before the ballots had even closed. The crowd, chanting "leave office now" was brutally repressed by riot police and the KGB.

When asked by the audience how Lukashenko had been able to hold power for so long, Lucas responded by drawing similarities to Putin and his control of the media and in that respect Lukashenko did, and perhaps still does hold a chunk of the population that support him.

The panel touched on some of Lukashenko’s ‘bizarre & disturbed’ behavior and its relations with Russia. Described as the “badly behaved dog”, Russia needs Belarus to carry out activities that Russia wishes to be indirectly involved with.

The prevalence of the night seemed to be how the activists’ and political prisoners’ plights could be made more vocal and what the west can do to stop Lukashenko. Visa sanctions have already been placed on Lukashenko but not all the panel agreed that further economic sanctions would be the best way forward, Lucas’s opinion was that more sanctions was not for the best:

“I don’t want tough sanctions, I’m in favor of having as much co-operation as possible with the lower levels of the Belarusian government to show them the way the European Union works …Lukashenko’s narrative is very much they don’t need us and we’re different anyways.”

The future of Belarus seems bleak, whilst the KGB continues to act as Lukashenko’s loyal dogs not much will change. Sackur asked the activists present at the event whether people would take to the streets again, the answer was a flat no.