This film is aobut an a small scale failed mining project in Liberia run out of a Swedish company.
The "ecological damage" amounts to an abandoned basic concrete work location of the foreign workers and some abandoned equipment amounting to a handful of rusting bulldozers and end loaders. That's right. No toxic chemicals in the soil or ground water, no strip mined scar of landscape. Just the "tragedy" of some abandoned vehicles and housing.
We ewve get to see a former Swedish worker back home being interviewed with the hint that the African ceremonial mask on his wall is somehow the theft of a cultural artifact or a metaphor for colonialism. When those are made every day for sale to tourists and it a souvenir no different than a native woven hat from the Andes. Newsflash guys; A tiny model of the Acropolis made by a Greek handicraft for sale to tourists is NOT the Elgin marbles! The native artisan who made and sold that probably got the equivalent of 100 days pay for one day's work.
The film seeks to promote a narrative about "colonialism" when in fact the investors and the Swedish company apparently lost money because the mine simply proved insufficiently efficient at extracting iron. one has to do other research to realize the area involved was not even really populated. Another gem we get is that the local population from nearby areas "only" got menial jobs -- when the fact the local population was not skilled labor. with literally a less than 1% literacy rate. Exactly who that population was supposed to be converted into mining engineers is not explained.
The culture of outrage has become so pervasive, with some many idiot practitioners of it that it has run out of stuff to be outraged about and we are now plumbing the bottom of the barrel and making anything the fodder of the outraged. skip this nonsense film
We ewve get to see a former Swedish worker back home being interviewed with the hint that the African ceremonial mask on his wall is somehow the theft of a cultural artifact or a metaphor for colonialism. When those are made every day for sale to tourists and it a souvenir no different than a native woven hat from the Andes. Newsflash guys; A tiny model of the Acropolis made by a Greek handicraft for sale to tourists is NOT the Elgin marbles! The native artisan who made and sold that probably got the equivalent of 100 days pay for one day's work.
The film seeks to promote a narrative about "colonialism" when in fact the investors and the Swedish company apparently lost money because the mine simply proved insufficiently efficient at extracting iron. one has to do other research to realize the area involved was not even really populated. Another gem we get is that the local population from nearby areas "only" got menial jobs -- when the fact the local population was not skilled labor. with literally a less than 1% literacy rate. Exactly who that population was supposed to be converted into mining engineers is not explained.
The culture of outrage has become so pervasive, with some many idiot practitioners of it that it has run out of stuff to be outraged about and we are now plumbing the bottom of the barrel and making anything the fodder of the outraged. skip this nonsense film