Before development, these were simple villages where the principal occupation was subsistence farming supplemented by fishing. Then a European introduced the Nile perch into the Lake. Soon this voracious predator devoured all the native species, and soon after, the Lake began to choke from overgrown algae. The Europeans understood there was a market for Nile perch fillets, so they created an industry. and built a packing plant with a blast freezer that now employs hundreds of locals. Local fishermen who once fished only for their families are now commercial fishermen.

For some this is the gateway to prosperity, modernization and the industrial revolution. Perhaps a couple of hundred are employed as industrial workers in the packing plant, and another couple hundred might be individual contractors catching the Nile perch. For these Tanzanian natives there might be some measure of prosperity. But, clearly, the principal beneficiaries of this development are the middle managers of the factory from India and the Russian pilots and ground crew who transport the fish to Europe.

The victims of this forced development are manifest and obvious. Orphaned children run in gangs. They find packages used to wrap the fish and boil down the wrapping to extract the glue that they sniff to get comatose. Some of them are on crutches. They run about like casualties of the Industrial Revolution in New England in the 1820s. Before child labor was abolished, children would work 12-hour days and sometimes fall into the looms and lose a limb. It is not clear how the children in this film were permanently maimed, but the image is one of Dickensian horror. There is no social structure to take care of them. They live as scavengers and sexual objects.

Prostitution is often the only alternative for women without other means of support. They run the risk of being killed by a trick immediately or slowly through the infection of AIDS. Their laughter and gaiety is the hollow joy of the doomed.

Throughout the film the filmmakers ask what the planes are bringing into Africa before they leave filled with frozen fish. Everyone they ask says they come in empty. In one of the final interviews the filmmakers interview a Russian pilot. He talks of bringing in guns and tanks to Angola and bringing grapes to Europe: “Angola children receive guns for Christmas Day. European children receive grapes. So many mothers ... I have no words in English.”

The conclusion we are led to is that the Russian planes are bringing in guns to spark civil war, but the situation in Angola was unique, and the reality was slightly different. Thirty years ago there was a war of national liberation led by socialists that eventually drove out the Portuguese colonials. When the Angolan socialists took power they were immediately attacked by the Apartheid government of South Africa and the United States. The United States poured money and war material into Angola through South Africa. Russia naturally supported the socialist government.

It is possible that today the Russian planes are bringing war material into Africa before stopping in Tanzania to pick up fish, but the Angolan instance hardly proves that point.

The film opens with a lone air traffic controller trying to kill a fly in his office overlooking the simple airstrip that services the small community. The action is emblematic of the film. The Tanzanian government official is probably comparatively well paid. His equipment and airstrip are primitive, but they exist, and because they exist, Tanzanians believe they are moving down a path of modernization. Perhaps the packing plant is a step down that path as well, but the only details we are given about working conditions are from the night watchman who guards the plant with a bow and arrow for a dollar a night. He is quick to tell you that the last night watchman was murdered, and this was the only job he could get.

Are the Tanzanians better off or is their condition worse because of development?

From our vantage point, in a post-industrial society fat from the fruits of imperialism, we recoil in horror at the degradation of the human condition.

But to the Tanzanians, perhaps, they may feel they finally have choices in their lives. They no longer have the limited horizon of rural poverty. There are other alternatives, and for many—more choices means they are more free.

We can only hope that soon they may develop progressive political leadership that will help them organize unions and create a government that will provide social welfare for those left behind in this adventure in capitalist development. The first step in that process would have to be self-awareness. They need to know who they are and what is happening to them. This film is a very important contribution to that first step.

“Darwin’s Nightmare” runs nightly at the Walker through Saturday, Oct. 22 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 23 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $8 ($6 for Walker members).||