Today I received a knock on the head from God, who probably was tired by my whining about my unhappy life. It seems that while He had more important stuff to deal with, what with wars and oppression and destitution, I was spamming His inbox with sad trivialities.
This movie brought up some points which I wasn't aware of, such as the link between colonialism and poverty and the use of debt as a possible object of oppression against the Third World.
The ideas in this movie may be summarised as follows imho:
1) Colonisation is largely responsible for the poverty we see today in third world countries, who were former colonies
2) Colonisation not only robbed these countries of their natural resources but also of their culture and identity
3) Another crippling factor to Third World countries would be national debt. Newly independent Third World countries owed billions of dollars to the World Bank, and as a result had to let the World Bank dictate their economic policies, which were largely favourable to the First World and harmful to the Third. Third World countries were also made to take out additional loans to carry out the reforms requested by the World Bank, increasing their debt. Despite international grants to the Third World, the amount of money transferred from Third World to First is many times more.
4) There were Third World leaders who fought to protect their countries' resources from being exported, however let's just say that there were authorities in the First World that oversaw their overthrow or even assassination.
Whether or not poverty is more of the fault of the rich or of the poor, let's make sure we do not help any of such oppressive activities. If we cannot fight for justice, at least fight for charity, or at the very least be aware.
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