Yasmine Kabir’s film is a chilling reminder that under the glitz and neon of the global economy lie buried the hopes and dreams (and sometimes the bodies) of poor and desperate migrant workers
By Arshia Sattar
Yasmine Kabir’s incredibly moving film looks at the plight of migrant workers who leave Bangladesh under economic pressure to find better-paying employment elsewhere. In 1995, more than 240,000 Bangladeshis left their homes in search of work.
The film opens with black and white shots of the hundreds who throng the agencies that promise work in other countries. The men sit under signs that exhort them to remain honest and to make their country’s name “glorious” in the world. Passports are handed out and buses arrive to take the men away to the airport and onwards into new worlds. Some smile tentatively, others shed tears, others take last looks at the land of their birth as the bus pulls away. Somehow, they do not seem like men excited about a bright, new future.
My Migrant Soul settles around the life of one such worker, Shahjahan Babu, a young man who was unemployed, but cheerful and optimistic. We hear the story of his recruitment and his departure from his mother and sister. His mother had sold a piece of inherited land to pay the agency that gave him a passport and the assurance of a job in Malaysia . Babu leaves and soon sends pictures of himself and his friends, smiling and seemingly prosperous, in the lush parks and gardens of Kuala Lumpur . For two years, all his family heard from him were occasional letters and audiotapes on which he recorded his experiences. He has not been able to send money home yet, but the early promise of the pictures seems to suggest that will happen soon. The first tape, too, is homesick, but optimistic.
But within months, the tenor of Babu’s tapes and letters changes. He speaks of having lost his job at the factory and looking for other work. Things get worse and worse and it is soon clear to Babu that he (and others like him) have been passed into a kind of slavery. There is work for a few months and then they are “sold” to other agents who put them to work. The jobs also deteriorate and often, the men have to sleep on construction sites. Later, they are housed in a seedy hostel and when there is food, it is often spoiled and rotten. Their papers have been taken from them and so there is the constant fear of the Malaysian police and the authorities. Babu’s spirit seems crushed and he lives in fear and on the edge of starvation.
Meanwhile, at home, Babu’s family tries to keep track of him through the agents that recruited him. There is no news to share and there are vague assurances. Then one day, the family hears that Babu is coming back, that he is in a “camp” and will be home within the week. But when the family goes to receive him at the airport, they are given his dead body. Babu died in a detention camp in Malaysia as did 33 of his countrymen.
The narrative pace of this short film is superb and like Babu and his family, the viewer feels initial hope, then increasing despair and finally, fear. My Migrant Soul is also the story of thousands of young men from the developing world who must leave home in search of work. More tragically, it would be truer to say that there are hundreds of thousands of migrant workers the world over who suffer similar atrocities.
The death of Shahjahan Babu in the detention camp seems to be presented in terms of a human rights violation, much like the current and infinitely more scrutinised Guantanamo Bay camp. Of course that is true: detention camps, wherever they are, imply a lack of due process and suggest torture and brutality as well as no accountability. But there is a larger issue that the film touches upon – what are we to do about growing poverty, diminishing avenues of traditional employment and the fact that humans who provide labour are now seen as yet another renewable resource? The recruitment agencies that promise better futures and end up being nothing more or less than slave traders for the globalised world economy are also indicted in this system. Surely, the issues of migrant labour cannot be seen as local problems, contained within immigration laws and work permits. Since the new trans-national economies are supported by migrant (and now, “offshore”) labour, these are issues that the global community needs to take on and legislate in economic as well as humanitarian terms.
Kabir’s film is a chilling reminder, that under the glitz and the neon of the world’s big cities, lie buried the hopes and dreams (and sometimes the bodies) of desperate workers who simply had to make a living.
For more information email aykabir@agni.com
InfoChange News and Features, April 2005