This is the scene described in the documentary "Darwin's Nightmare", which was shot by Austrian director Hubert Supe. It focuses on the lives of fishermen in the Tanzanian city of Mwanza, showing the tragedy of evolution in nature and society.
This dream pond is Lake Victoria, located between Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya in Africa. It is the second largest freshwater lake in the world and the source of the White Nile. In the past, there were more than 120 species of fish in this beautiful lake. The wonders of life that these colorful tropical fish show are enough to amaze evolutionists like Darwin. In the 1950s, I don’t know who stocked the Nile Barramundi in the lake. This ferocious species of fish made a huge splash in this dream pond. Those colorful fish became its food, the dream pond. Disappeared. This is nature's law of the jungle.
However, the film does not stop there, it believes that what is more important is the phenomenon of the jungle in human society. This is the focus of the film, and more of the film will be expanded here.
The prosperity of Nile perch in the lake makes it the main catch of local fishermen. People around the lake began to make a living from it, and a huge industry developed around the Nile perch. In some villages in Mwanza, men fish for their business, and factories for processing perch have also been built. The perch processing factory interviewed in the film directly or indirectly employs a thousand people from The produced sea bass was continuously shipped to Europe and became the table food of millions of Europeans. In order to transport these perch meat, a rudimentary airport was built, and a control tower was built. Pilots from Russia and other countries drove the Il transport plane to and from Tanzania and Europe. Thanks to these ferocious perch, Mwanza became prosperous.
The owner of the perch processing factory is also a local. He is proud to have brought prosperity to this place. This factory has been opened for more than ten years and is the largest factory in the area. He admitted that although he was born on this land, he had never seen this kind of fish before. There were many fish in the lake 40 or 50 years ago, but they have disappeared over the years. He is very grateful for the huge profits brought by the perch, saying that the perch has brought great benefits to cities such as Mwanza around the lake, and the economy has become prosperous. The Guang Mwanza area has a daily catch of 500 tons. The neighbors also have work to do, and their livelihoods depend entirely on Nile perch. Before, the villagers had nothing to do.
However, behind the prosperity there is darkness. Airplanes brought money and chaos. These pilots didn't come in empty planes, they smuggled weapons from here and re-routed them to war-torn countries like Angola, Congo or Rwanda. They spend here and make young girls in Mwanza prostitutes. One service for pilots and merchants for ten dollars. And the fishermen, who work in the lake dangerously, are either drowned or eaten by crocodiles, leaving their wives widows. In order to survive, these widows went to the lake to prostitute fishermen. As a result, AIDS spread among the fishermen. Due to lack of money for medical treatment, a large number of fishermen and their families died of AIDS. There were 390 residents in the village of Crimeril, and 450-50 people died in just six months. A priest in a small village said that in his parish alone, about ten to fifteen people die every month.
Besides the fishermen, there are other people who are also struggling to make a living. Many people come to Mwanza from other parts of Tanzania in order to find work here. The film interviews a man who works as a night watchman in a factory, earning only one dollar a day. Holding an arrow, he faced the threat of death. His predecessor had been hacked to death and chopped to pieces, which is why he got the job. There are also many children wandering around the lake, their parents are local fishermen. Some parents have died of AIDS and become homeless orphans living on the streets. In the movie, they scrambled to eat food hungry, and generally smoked, and even smoked the gas after burning plastic like a drug addict. The children seem to be very dissatisfied with their current life. One child said to the camera, "I don't want to be a fisherman and live the life of my father." He wanted to take up a professional job, to be a teacher.
When the film was filmed, there was a severe drought in Tanzania, food production was reduced, and starving villagers were dying. They wanted to wait for food aid from the United Nations, but instead of food, the plane was carrying smuggled weapons. At the same time, there are tons and tons of processed sea bass that are transported to Europe by busy planes. The fish heads and corner fish bones that the Europeans did not want were dumped on the ground by the processing factories and became the delicacy of the local villagers. The director used these sharply contrasting shots, and borrowed the mouth of a black man, to point out the theme of the film: God created this world, unfortunately, only endowed with limited natural resources. So now people are all competing for resources. There have been disputes over land grabs in Africa. Right now, the world is in a struggle for natural resources. Who will get it? This is a world where the strong eat the weak, and strong animals are more likely to survive than weak ones.
The director believes that the tragedy of Mwanza is not only ecological, but also social. The invasion of Nile perch has made Lake Victoria no longer Darwin's dream pond. The influx of modern industry and business models has turned the entire society into a jungle of competition, and this dream pond has turned into a Darwinian nightmare. The principles of natural selection, survival of the fittest, and social Darwinism are considered by the director to be the root of the evil in the Mwanza area. Who is the strong one, the Austrian director pointed to Europe. He also used the same black words to say: In the world we live in today, if you want to say who the strong are, it should be the Europeans, the strongest and the strongest. They are the ones who dominate the International Monetary Fund, and neither the World Bank nor the World Trade Organization is controlled by the Europeans.
The main point of the video is not revealed until the end of the video. The director directed all his anger at Europe and the existing international order, believing that Europe and even the United Nations are just standing by and watching Africa's suffering, and when there is a famine or disease in Africa, they will send food and medicine for profit and use Africa. The civil unrest sells arms to make a lot of money. They also plundered resources from Africa, transported food and brought weapons. "Children in Angola want guns for Christmas, while children in Europe eat grapes."
It's a pity that the director's resentment ruined his calm throughout the film. He used the lens to show us everything about Mwanza in front of us, showing the plight of the Lake Victoria region, and through his narrative, we also learned about the suffering of Africans. But the reason for this predicament and suffering is not as simple as the director thinks.
A misplaced fish has indeed brought an ecological disaster to Lake Victoria, and this ecological disaster may be extremely serious. This is also mentioned in the film, not only does the biodiversity in the lake disappear, but the mutual devouring of Nile perch will make the fish in the lake eventually become less and less. At the same time, what is only fleeting in the film is that the lake water is now eutrophic and cloudy. In addition to the disappearance of a variety of fish, the lake lost its self-purification ability, and more importantly, in order to increase food for the fish, African countries introduced water hyacinth from South America, and these water hyacinths have grown wildly in the lake and are difficult to control. This is the main reason for the deterioration of water quality. The film doesn't mention this reason at all, maybe the director thinks it's off topic?
But has the introduction of Nile perch really also brought social disaster to the Mwanza area? Not necessarily. It is with such ferocious and delicious fish that the Mwanza region has developed. When the ecological disaster caused by this fish cannot be eliminated, it is also desirable to let the Nile perch benefit the people of the lake area. At least the economy of the Lake District has developed and residents have jobs to do. Going to Europe in exchange for money in exchange for the ecological disaster that has already been caused and cannot be prevented is, in any case, a good business. Compared to other parts of Tanzania, this region attracts a lot of people to work, which speaks for itself.
As for the smuggling of weapons by aircraft carrying fish, the spread of AIDS, etc., this is not a feature of Lake Victoria, nor is it caused by the processing trade of sea bass, which is a common phenomenon in Africa. Prosperity itself will definitely bring about a certain degree of chaos, and regions where the economy is developing are definitely not as pure in morality as regions without foreign exchanges. This is also a common law in the world. More visitors, more investment, and more impact from foreign cultures will of course make the stagnant villages panic, which is also one of the inevitable costs of development. What's more, before the arrival of this fish stirring up a huge storm, the Mwanza area was not an idyllic society, and it was once impoverished.
European directors like Supe certainly deserve our respect. They have a strong sense of justice, and they are not afraid of hardships. They penetrate into every corner of the earth, reflecting all kinds of suffering and injustice in this world. It was they who made us understand the plight of Lake Victoria and the nightmare of Darwin. However, they always carry too much ideology, always choose a politically correct way, and unrealistically pursue fairness, which makes their various demands seem extremely naive. This is especially true when it comes to treating Africa. They always think that the suffering of Africa is caused by European colonization, because Europe wants to profit from Africa and plunder resources and sell arms. Of course, it is not unreasonable, but they ignore its internal reasons. The colonial mentality that blames everything on colonialism is often what limits their further development.
In the film, he accused Africans of not being able to eat their sea bass because it was too expensive to process. It's even more ridiculous. Such cases are not only in Mwanza, but in Africa, but the practice of the whole world. This has nothing to do with fairness and equality. Appreciating the value of one's own goods in a certain way to exchange for more things that they urgently need is a basic essence of a commodity society. This example also shows that the Mwanza people are learning how to survive in the economic tide, and this also It is the survival skills that more Africans need to learn. In the film, Europe and the United Nations are accused of standing idly by, waiting for treatment rather than prevention of poverty and chaos in Africa. In fact, isn't the processing and export of sea bass just a measure to prevent poverty in Africa?
Let Africa have the endogenous power for self-development, rather than blindly only knowing about assistance, I am afraid that this will allow Africa to get out of the quagmire and move towards the future.
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