Perhaps it offends our idea of progress to think that true, soul-shrinking poverty is still with us.

x��\[w�F�~�9���{��a4��L���Ȟd�k�g` Other European powers competed for colonies. Raw materials were ripped from the colonized lands and sent to the mother countries, which in turn helped fuel their Industrial Revolution. In the later part of the 1990’s the Bolivian government and transnational corporations led by Bechtel attempted to push forward another privatization initiative. Gold, silver, religious objects from the Incas and Maya people were stolen. CliffsNotes study guides are written by real teachers and professors, so no matter what you're studying, CliffsNotes can ease your homework headaches and help you score high on exams. The film takes us to 1492, the beginning of the Age of Colonization through the European conquest. The effects of colonialism had long-ranging effects on the oppressed and exploited peoples, especially in the social and cultural realms. | A Raisin in the Sun portrays a few weeks in the life of the Youngers, an African-American family living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. © 1999-2020 PopMatters.com. Sofia Coppola's domestic malaise comedy On the Rocks doesn't drown in its sorrows -- it simply pours another round, to which we raise our glass.

Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. The ideology goes by different names too. PopMatters have been informed by our current technology and hosting provider that we have less than a month, until November 6, to move PopMatters off their service or we will be shut down. It begins with the coming of the Conquistadors who robbed native people in South and Central America of their land and their riches.

delights in upending some of the polite fictions promoted by think tanks and university academics. The era of direct colonization ended after World War II, but economic strangulation maldeveloped the former colonial powers. The film spends so much time detailing its thesis that the roots of modern poverty are 500 years deep going back to the explorers and conquistadors … } Along with the facts and figures presented, it mixes interviews not just with academic and government experts but a number of average people in the Third World. Phone number protected by JavaScript. The imperial powers stole from other peoples their  lands and their vast mineral resources, imported millions of slaves, and massacred indigenous people. These institutions provided loans for large industrial projects in the name of "poverty reduction" and "development" that left these countries in high debt.
Great Britain colonized Ireland.

is a 2008 documentary film about poverty directed by Philippe Diaz. The native peoples were not even recognized as human beings. In comparison, the resources used by Burkina Faso, if extended globally, would only take 1/10 of the planet’s resources. 4 0 obj

An example of this is in Kenya, where, at the end of British colonialism, 1 percent of whites owned 50 percent of the land in the country.
These rich countries are also accused of utilizing resources from the developing world, using their companies and then investing huge parts of their profits in their home countries. Phillipe Diaz's powerful, none-too-subtle documentary The End of Poverty? Change ).

Though revolutionary anti-imperialists welcome all of these reforms as part of transitional programs, we do point out that even these reforms will not come about without struggles by the people affected by poverty. The film End of Poverty, seeks to explain how poverty can be eliminated in the globe. Again and again, speakers describe how nondemocratic entities like the World Bank or International Monetary Fund pressure developing nations into two destructive courses of action. (The vividly told story of Bolivia's privatized water system yields an unusually positive ending, following the popular uprising that ended that experiment.). Almost by definition, this is a film that paints with a brush as broad as the sky, leaving details to the interviewees' writings. The former colonialists are blamed for utilizing resources from their colonies without paying back. The answer -- because Western capitalism not only creates but feeds off Third World poverty -- is uncharacteristically revolutionary among today's issue documentaries, and all the more refreshing for its bluntness.

Some call it neoliberalism, others call it the Washington Consensus, since it derives from World Bank and IMF headquarters in Washington D.C. He illustrates with stories from the fields of Kenyan farmers evicted by an American corporation to the quiet offices of former World Bank chief economist and Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz, who confirms that most all the horrible things you have heard about his former bosses are true. function gen_phone_to_link(lhs,rhs) {

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Colonies also became dependent on European products for their own domestic needs, as the majority of the colonial economy was geared toward exports.

It gives out the statistics and figures often cited by RAIM and other like-minded groups, along with more detailed figures that dig deeper into the extent of what poverty on a global scale is. Revolutionary Anti-Imperialists should watch this film as a good introduction to the subjects of exploitation on a global scale, or as a refresher for those who have or currently are studying these problems. 1 0 obj But given the heartbreaking enormity of the crisis, and the precision and passion leveraged by the filmmakers, one can certainly forgive the occasional lapse into generalization. The individuals pushing for a globalized market would view this documentary as misleading.

Recently the poor seem to have lost their status as a subject of interest for the Western creative class. The End of Poverty? If Diaz's central argument is not new, its vibrant presentation here underscores an important point: even the left wing in the Western world appears to have given up on calling for a fundamental reworking of the capitalist model. Colonialism and capitalism were interlinked. Phone number protected by JavaScript. As under colonialism, where the actual producers of the raw materials and commodities extracted get no benefit of what they produce, this cycle continues. The documentary arrives at similar answers we have: that this poverty is caused by exploitation, the exploitation by the countries of the First World, or the Global North, of the countries of the Third World, or Global South. is a 2008 documentary film about poverty directed by Philippe Diaz. This conquest connected the continents of the world in the first form of globalization. The End of Poverty? The End of Poverty? Also, since colonialism destroyed independent native economies all over the world, the native peoples had no choice but to work for the exploiter countries as cheap labor. Colonialism has been described in many different ways, and developed in different forms throughout history.

Amilcar Cabral once stated, “It is also understood why imperialist domination, like all other foreign domination for its own security, requires cultural oppression and the attempt at direct or indirect liquidation of the essential elements of the culture of the dominated people.” (Cabral, National Liberation and Culture)  In Latin America, the conquests were furthered with forced conversion to Christianity. gen_phone_to_link('888','813-7462'); ( Log Out /  The film then shifts to an historical perspective and describes the colonization of the Americas by European in 1492 as the start of this unequal relationship between the West and the rest of the world. A new type of exploitation happened, neo-colonialism, where there was nominal independence for the former colonies, however, their economies were indirectly influenced by the bigger imperialist powers. } A must see for anyone wanting to understand not only the US economic … The End of Poverty?