Our exotic poverty

There are some things that are just “unpleasant” for our eyes to see; a tasteless painting, a muddy weather, a pile of rubbish, a man taking a shit, maybe a starving child, a woman skinning a man alive or just ugly slams surrounding our cities. Our retinas are sensitive and can only absorb a measured amount of light and images over a certain period of time. They were programmed throughout centuries to become selective. Some invasive footage should be filtered automatically and directed into the spam folder not to damage our very core existence. And when our security system fails, when small cockroaches manage to crawl through our high walls of defense, we are faced with the inevitable decisions of either killing them or beautifying them.

This is not a technical cinema review of the movie Capharnaüm; I am not a professional of art nor a critic. This is simply an observation and a bold personal opinion from a woman working in the humanitarian development field.

The movie obtained the Jury’s prize in Cannes and then the applause of major international and national public figures including humanitarian aid workers in the field of protection.

I was intrigued to watch it ever since the trailer was out; I had mixed feelings of content and excitement. Finally the topic of street connected children was brought up to light. Maybe now came the time where art was a medium to expose the misery of working children and impact new policies.

I watched the movie. It was emotional. It depicted ugly Beirut’s slams. It charmed the public with the wide shots of despair flowing on the big screen. Tears were rolling down the faces of all watchers in the theater. All enraging censored topics fled through the big screen: early marriage, child labor, domestic workers, drug abuse… For a moment I was happily surprised. Yes we were close enough to sensitize the population around core topics and violations we are very frustrated about. But again that was a close call, a missed opportunity I would even say, or a bullet in the heart maybe.

Poverty was described in its rudeness in this movie, true; yet still with a taste of blaming the poor and with a total dismissal of government policies that are in fact the root cause of the misery. The movie ends with the main message that was disseminated bit by bit throughout the film: the abused neglected child in the end sues his parents in court for bringing him to life.

I am sorry Nadine, it is not family planning and birth control that will put an end to the poverty and injustice cycles. No, we do not have the right to tell poor people to stop giving birth and that is the ultimate solution for a worldwide crisis that has been running for centuries. Our own system is perpetrating abuse and violence upon its citizens in so many shameless and sly faces. We have been taught by western societies and ideologies that making less children will make us less poor; the cause of inequality resides in multiplying in numbers. But in reality, we do not have a surplus of population in our lands. Our ex colonized territories are vast and rich in resources that could last us for centuries. Eduardo Galeano exposed this in his book “Open veins of Latin America” in 1970; giving the examples of “Brazil (that) has thirty-eight times fewer inhabitants per square mile than Belgium, Paraguay has forty-nine times fewer than England”. He explained how the west has “nightmares about millions of children advancing like locusts over the horizon from the third world(…); (they tend) to justify the very unequal income distribution between countries and social classes, to convince the poor that poverty is the result of the children they don’t avoid having, and to damn the rebellious advance of the masses”[1].

The family who is portrayed in this movie having so many children, did not chose to be poor nor did the parents chose to be stateless. They have been born in a country that stole their identity, their existence and their free will. We are very busy judging and smudging irritating scenes that hurt our eyes and soft emotions by blaming the weak and sucking every inch of dignity from a powerless society.

The children acting in the movie are not acting; they are in reality working on the streets of Beirut following a crisis that destroyed their country. As only resources for the families after they have lost all their savings, they found themselves obliged to be the breadwinners. By acting in this movie, and reliving the harsh situation of the street, aren’t we exposing these fragile beings to additional trauma they have been already subjected to over years and years? Is it even ethical to use the real pain of a child to create art? This might be debatable. Zain the child, the main actor, was successfully resettled to Norway after the release of the movie. It is a happy outcome for Zain. But what about Cedra? What about the other thousands children who are working in harsh conditions whether on the street or a stone quarry? What about Mohannad, Bashar, Zouhour and the rest? Where are these children? Probably still roving the streets at night or abused by the system in construction sites,   being stereotyped and stripped of their innocence and every bit of life. Around 5 % of Syrian refugees residing in Lebanon were resettled since the start of the crisis. I do not think we need a movie where the child relives his traumas to ensure his safe successful exit strategy from this damned country.  It is good news for Zain maybe, but this only highlights the fragility of a humanitarian system that is majorly moved and mobilized through media pressure.

As for the Hollywood scenes in the movie, they remain a production of Hollywood and do not reflect reality. Domestic workers are piled up in dozens like sardines’ cans and expelled from our country following ill treatment. They are not heroically treated in the airport but rather humiliated under a racist sponsorship system.

Spectators walking out of the movie had red eyes but also anger towards the poor and their ignorance. The blame was channelled right there, whipping underprivileged souls and digging deeper their graves. I want people to be angry, to feel frustrated and remove the selective parental guidance from in front of their eyes and let the ugly cockroaches creep into their minds, and taste the bitterness our societies live in. I want them to be angry at the real monster that is eating us alive from centuries onwards. I need them to raise their voices and push for policies’ change. Even us, humanitarian aid workers are doing it in the wrong way. An awareness session around family planning conducted for the refugees is not the key to stop the poverty cycle. Lobbying and pressuring for policy change is the key to give the masses their innate rights. We need first to be convinced that these are our natural rights; to be born, to use the resources of our lands, to move freely between continents and oceans without being criminalized, to have access to basic rights and development opportunities, to laugh, to couple, to have children without being sanctioned.

The wide screen shots with eye bird view of the Beirut slams are artistic, eccentric and could serve as a beautified painting fighting injustice in the galleries. But is this what we need today?

Do we need a more sophisticated art that serve the intellectual, the elite and Oscars’ venues? Are we still painting poverty so we make it softer for our eyes to see it and accept it? Same goes for the Ouzville project; an art project initiated in 2017 where Lebanese and international artists painted giant murals over the walls of the neglected buildings in Ouzai. What is the goal from behind this cultural initiative? Is the purpose to spread colourful and kitsch designs on the slams surrounding the airport? This family featured in the movie or a similar one would be probably living there in the Ouzai suburbs. They will wake up tomorrow more hopeful in the morning, surrounded by blue green and yellow rainbows.  Mr. Ambassador will be inspired while landing on Rafic Hariri’s airport this evening. Aren’t we making all of this better for our own eyes to dismiss the core painful fate of the families who are living there?

I find this very dangerous if not cruel, covering up our pains charmingly and falling into a comfortably numb status. A staged crime against humanity, against our own salvation. We have been trapped since colonization’s centuries and we are tightening the ropes around our necks stronger each day, stronger each day, stronger each day.

Written by Sara Sannouh

[1] “Open Veins of Latin America”-1970- Eduardo Galeano- page 6

Phot credits:

https://wsimag.com/architecture-and-design/26711-ouzville

Cannes. A “Capharnaüm” della libanese Labaki il Premio della Giuria ecumenica