by
kambing hitam
Jul 21, 2012
from
YouTube Website
This documentary shows how international
Bankers and Corporations are conducting a world wide exploitation
system.
"The Globalization Tapes" were made in collaboration with those a little
further down the pile, closer to the mud (and the rubber and the oil),
closer to the memories of the massacre that cleared the way for Indonesia's
'modernization'.
This film was shot by actual Indonesian workers who after
working in the fields each day would work on the film.
Using their own forbidden history as a case study, the Indonesian filmmakers
trace the development of contemporary globalization from its roots in
colonialism to the present.
Through chilling first-hand accounts, hilarious
improvised interventions, collective debate and archival collage, "The
Globalization Tapes" exposes the devastating role of militarism and
repression in building the "global
economy", and explores the relationships between trade,
third-world debt, and international institutions like
the IMF and the World
Trade Organization.
Sharman Sinaga's granddaughter looks bored as her grandfather
demonstrates for the camera his favored technique of market liberalization:
holding union activists upside down in flooded fields.
He mimics their
gargles as they choke in the mud. He could hold down two or three at a time
he boasts; he seems faintly nostalgic in the dim light and the smoke; his
only regret, that his arms and knees aren't what they used to be.
The orders to hold people upside-down came from
the top, he tells us, from
Suharto; they came also with support from
high on
Capitol Hill.
Plantation workers spontaneously stage a satirical commercial for the
pesticide that poisons them; the filmmakers pose as
World Bank agents with
offers to 'develop' local businesses - offers which are both brutal and
absurd, yet, tempting, nonetheless.
The Globalization Tapes is a testament to the
intelligence, humor, integrity and creativity of its makers and their
community.
"If we are united in our struggle against
worker oppression, united in our search for truth amidst lies, united
for a truly participatory democratic economic system, the possibilities
are only limited by our courage, our determination, and our capacity to
imagine."
- Su Karman
narrator of The Globalization Tapes and
President of Perbbuni, the Independent Plantation Workers' Union of
Sumatra.