Tanzania and Darwins Nightmare

Some things need time (like translating Milles Plateaux from French to German).

Let me tell you a story: A director named Hubert Sauper made a documentary called Darwin's Nightmare. If I remember correctly it took about five years to prepare and shoot the film. It premiered over two years ago. Later it got an Oscar nomination for best documentary. However, it seemed to me that it never had the impact it could have. The movie picks Victoria Lake's fish industry in Tanzania as an example of how different and wide-spread the influences of globalization can be.

Now, two years after its first screening, the movie seems to have a real world effect. Richard Mgamba, a local journalist interviewed in the film, was detained by police and threatened with deportation.. Sauper stated that Tanzania declared people who worked with Sauper on the movie as enemies of the state. And it seems Tanzanian authorities launched their propaganda machinery: It seems they inscentated demonstrations and did some press releases.

The good thing is, that it seems that there's some attention to the problem. The bad thing of course is, that there may be individuals in danger and that the discussion may not be about the core problem but only scratch the surface. The problem is not if the film affected Tanzania's fishing industry, it's about how a regime threats free speach and manipulates the public. Nobody of the demonstrators could have seen the film, it has never been screened in Tanzania. This could be a similarity to the demonstrations in Syria concerning the denish caricatures.

As a side note: Austrian based director Sauper critized Austria's most popular newspaper Kronen Zeitung about how they feature the problem and calls it racistic agitation. I haven't read the article yet.

Globefish, a division of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, said the film had only briefly affected sales. Far bigger factors in the decline in exports -- worth $116 million last year, down from $127 million in 2004 -- were overfishing and low water levels.

Meanwhile Reporters Without Borders has criticised the Tanzanian government for threatening to deport a journalist who appeared in a documentary film the authorities say has damaged the country's economy and image.

Another question I have is: Who publishes daily-tsn.com?