[Film] probes one cause of African poverty

from The Grand Rapids Press

Something is very wrong.

After seeing the documentary "Darwin's Nightmare," you will conclude the world needs an overhaul. There's something fundamentally wrong with the fact there are people who dine in sumptuous luxury while others survive on rotten fish heads or less.

Many of the citizens of Tanzania, the subjects of "Darwin's Nightmare," are starving and work as prostitutes and slaves and suffer from AIDS. The film is depressing, but a fascinating story ties everything together.

The story involves Nile perch, a popular cuisine in Europe. The fish was introduced by European businessmen into Tanzania's Lake Victoria, where it devoured other fish in the lake. The businessmen now export the fish for profit.

Giant cargo planes, primarily from Russia, fly in and take the fish to European markets. That leaves the people in the Lake Victoria region with fish heads and tails, which they smoke and dry for food. Men and women are pictured in dire straits as they eke out a living in horrid ways. Some are starving to death or dying of disease.

"Darwin's Nightmare" also suggests these cargo planes supply arms to African countries in violent turmoil. It seems security is lax in Tanzania, and it is a perfect place to smuggle arms into Africa.

The folks at the World Bank think the Nile perch business in Tanzania is something good (for very few) coming out of something bad (the ecological disaster resulting from the introduction of the fish into Lake Victoria). If the documentary is correct, the situation is more negative than the World Bank admits.

"Darwin's Nightmare" does present some problems. I had a difficult time understanding how the few fishermen we see in the film, with their three-man boats, could catch enough perch to fill up these cargo planes on a near-daily basis. And there is nothing concrete in the film that gives credence to the arms-smuggling theory. You can make up your own mind or study further on the matter, but if there is a worst-case scenario, it's in effect here.

"Darwin's Nightmare," an Academy Award nominee for best documentary, states the beginnings of humankind took place in this region, and things don't look too good for those descendants still here. The situation doesn't make the rest of us look too good, either. What is good is the film.