Utilizing excerpts from the award-winning non-fiction text "A Small
Place" by Jamaica Kincaid, Life & Debt is a woven tapestry of
sequences focusing on the stories of individual Jamaicans whose
strategies for survival and parameters of day-to-day existence are
determined by the U.S. and other foreign economic agendas. By
combining traditional documentary telling with a stylized narrative
framework, the complexity of international lending, structural
adjustment policies and free trade will be understood in the context of
the day-to-day realities of the people whose lives they impact.
The film opens with the arrival of vacationers to the island-- utilizing
Ms. Kincaids text as voice-over, we begin to understand the profound
contrasts behind the breathtaking natural beauty of the island. The
poetic urgency of Ms. Kincaids text lends a first-person understanding
of the legacy of the country's colonial past, and to it's present day
economic challenges. For example, as we see a montage of the vacationer
in her hotel, voice-over: "When you sit down to eat your delicious meal,
it's better that you don't know that most of what you are eating came
off a ship from Miami. There is a world of something in this, but I
can't go into it right now." (adapted excerpt "A Small Place")
As we begin to understand the post-colonial landscape outlined in Ms. Kincaids text, we cut to archival footage of Former Prime Minister Michael Manley in a post-independence speech condemning the IMF stating that "the Jamaican government will not accept anybody, anywhere in the world telling us what to do in our own country. Above all, we're not for sale."
Former Prime Minister Michael Manley was elected on a non-IMF platform in 1976. He was forced to sign Jamaica's first loan agreement with the IMF in 1977 due to lack of viable alternatives-- a global pattern common throughout the Third World. At present Jamaica owes over $4.5 billion to the IMF, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) among other international lending agencies yet the meaningful development that these loans have "promised" has yet to manifest. In actuality the amount of foreign exchange that must be generated to meet interest payments and the structural adjustment policies which have been imposed with the loans have had a negative impact on the lives of the vast majority. The country is paying out increasingly more than it receives in total financial resources, and if benchmark conditionalities are not met, the structural adjustment program is made more stringent with each re negotiation. To improve balance of payments, devaluation (which raises the cost of foreign exchange), high interest rates (which raise the cost of credit), and wage guidelines (which effectively reduce the price of local labor) are prescribed. The IMF assumes that the combination of increased interest rates and cutbacks in government spending will shift resources from domestic consumption to private investment. It is further assumed that keeping the price of labor down will be an incentive for increasing employment and production. Increased unemployment, sweeping corruption, higher illiteracy, increased violence, prohibitive food costs, dilapidated hospitals, increased disparity between rich and poor characterize only part of the present day economic crisis.
In one segment addressing the Free Trade Zones, we meet workers who sew five-six days a week for American corporations to earn the legal minimum wage of $30 U.S./week ($1200 - $1500Jamaican dollars/week). The port of Kingston is lined with high-security factories, made available to foreign garment companies at low rent. These factories are offered with the additional incentive of the foreign companies' being allowed to bring in shiploads of material there tax-free, to have them sewn and assembled and then immediately transported out to foreign markets. Over 10,000 women currently work for foreign companies under sub-standard work conditions. The Jamaican government, in order to ensure the employment offered, has agreed to the stipulation that no unionization is permitted in the Free Trade Zones. Previously, when the women have spoken out and attempted to organize to improve their wages and working conditions, they have been fired and their names included on a blacklist ensuring that they never work again. Free Trade Zones are encouraged by the U.S. government, for example projects financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S. AID) have used over $34,960,000 in U.S. tax dollars to target, persuade and provide incentives to American companies to relocate offshore in Jamaica. Yet now due to NAFTA, these dismal yet precious jobs are being lost to Mexico, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.
Another segment tells the story of a chicken plant which had a flourishing business selling high-quality chicken to the domestic Jamaican market. Business has recently been undercut by U.S. "dumping" of low-grade chicken parts in Jamaica . While there are many restrictions on foods and goods imported into the U.S., there are often no restrictions on food and goods exported to foreign developing countries. Agreements such as NAFTA and the Caribbean Basin Initiative function to enforce this inequity under the guise of "free trade."
Page: 1 - 2
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The film opens with the arrival of vacationers to the island-- utilizing
Ms. Kincaids text as voice-over, we begin to understand the profound
contrasts behind the breathtaking natural beauty of the island. The
poetic urgency of Ms. Kincaids text lends a first-person understanding
of the legacy of the country's colonial past, and to it's present day
economic challenges. For example, as we see a montage of the vacationer
in her hotel, voice-over: "When you sit down to eat your delicious meal,
it's better that you don't know that most of what you are eating came
off a ship from Miami. There is a world of something in this, but I
can't go into it right now." (adapted excerpt "A Small Place")
As we begin to understand the post-colonial landscape outlined in Ms. Kincaids text, we cut to archival footage of Former Prime Minister Michael Manley in a post-independence speech condemning the IMF stating that "the Jamaican government will not accept anybody, anywhere in the world telling us what to do in our own country. Above all, we're not for sale."
Former Prime Minister Michael Manley was elected on a non-IMF platform in 1976. He was forced to sign Jamaica's first loan agreement with the IMF in 1977 due to lack of viable alternatives-- a global pattern common throughout the Third World. At present Jamaica owes over $4.5 billion to the IMF, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) among other international lending agencies yet the meaningful development that these loans have "promised" has yet to manifest. In actuality the amount of foreign exchange that must be generated to meet interest payments and the structural adjustment policies which have been imposed with the loans have had a negative impact on the lives of the vast majority. The country is paying out increasingly more than it receives in total financial resources, and if benchmark conditionalities are not met, the structural adjustment program is made more stringent with each re negotiation. To improve balance of payments, devaluation (which raises the cost of foreign exchange), high interest rates (which raise the cost of credit), and wage guidelines (which effectively reduce the price of local labor) are prescribed. The IMF assumes that the combination of increased interest rates and cutbacks in government spending will shift resources from domestic consumption to private investment. It is further assumed that keeping the price of labor down will be an incentive for increasing employment and production. Increased unemployment, sweeping corruption, higher illiteracy, increased violence, prohibitive food costs, dilapidated hospitals, increased disparity between rich and poor characterize only part of the present day economic crisis.
In one segment addressing the Free Trade Zones, we meet workers who sew five-six days a week for American corporations to earn the legal minimum wage of $30 U.S./week ($1200 - $1500Jamaican dollars/week). The port of Kingston is lined with high-security factories, made available to foreign garment companies at low rent. These factories are offered with the additional incentive of the foreign companies' being allowed to bring in shiploads of material there tax-free, to have them sewn and assembled and then immediately transported out to foreign markets. Over 10,000 women currently work for foreign companies under sub-standard work conditions. The Jamaican government, in order to ensure the employment offered, has agreed to the stipulation that no unionization is permitted in the Free Trade Zones. Previously, when the women have spoken out and attempted to organize to improve their wages and working conditions, they have been fired and their names included on a blacklist ensuring that they never work again. Free Trade Zones are encouraged by the U.S. government, for example projects financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S. AID) have used over $34,960,000 in U.S. tax dollars to target, persuade and provide incentives to American companies to relocate offshore in Jamaica. Yet now due to NAFTA, these dismal yet precious jobs are being lost to Mexico, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.
Another segment tells the story of a chicken plant which had a flourishing business selling high-quality chicken to the domestic Jamaican market. Business has recently been undercut by U.S. "dumping" of low-grade chicken parts in Jamaica . While there are many restrictions on foods and goods imported into the U.S., there are often no restrictions on food and goods exported to foreign developing countries. Agreements such as NAFTA and the Caribbean Basin Initiative function to enforce this inequity under the guise of "free trade."
Page: 1 - 2
Return to top