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August 2002 Video Activism: Charity for Sale: Learning Global Lessons from T-Shirts The Satya Interview with Shantha Bloemen

From T-Shirt Travels

Shantha Bloemen is a filmmaker whose first documentary, T-Shirt Travels, is about the secondhand clothing industry in Africa. It follows the story of Luka, an ambitious young entrepreneur struggling to make a better life for himself and his family in Zambia. Catherine Clyne asked Shantha about this seemingly simple film and to explain the much larger issues that it addresses.

How did you become interested in Africa and what inspired you to make T-Shirt Travels?
I had an amazing professor at university who taught African studies from a 19th century history perspective. He introduced me to the world of empire-building and white supremacy in such a way that raised questions pertinent to our time, in terms of the power and division created, and I came to a greater understanding of this economic imbalance.

When I left, I was very confused as to what I was going to do with this knowledge. I went to Africa to explore, to meet people and see the reality on the ground. I did a brief volunteer stint in Zambia, and it was a defining moment of my life. I lived in a remote village with a woman named Agnes, who became my friend and confidant. When she lost her husband to cerebral malaria, it threw all the double standards in my face. When I’d met him, he was a healthy young man, father of two; three weeks later, he died. It seemed so unfair, watching his illness progress and feeling hopeless. There was not much to do, the medical facilities were completely inadequate.

Was the injustice magnified because this was a disease that, had you gotten it, would have been treatable?
Malaria’s one of these terrible diseases that can kill anyone quickly. But I know that I would have had the means to beat it, even been airlifted out of the country if necessary. Seeing how Agnes had to cope with his death, and the economic realities that she faced in having to raise her two children alone and support an already large extended family—that gave me a real taste of the social injustice.

Where do the T-shirts fit in?
Despite the fact that I had done lots of study on the economic issues, it was absurd to me to be in these remote places and see old T-shirts being worn. That was when I started thinking about using secondhand clothes as the vehicle to connect these two worlds: to illustrate to people in the west some of the double standards between what we say and what we do, and how our policies tend to promote and exacerbate poverty, rather than alleviate it.

Where did you study filmmaking?
Here. New York’s a great city, there are wonderful places where you can do things fairly affordably and it’s a very encouraging community. People tend to be very generous with their time or advice, so I was very fortunate. This city was an important inspiration, giving me the confidence to think: Okay, I can do this, even though I haven’t made any films before.

I went back to Zambia in 1998 to do research for the film and in the four years since I’d left, the secondhand clothes business had just boomed, and the situation seemed to be much worse than when I had lived there. People seemed much poorer, there was more unemployment, less people were going to school. Obviously the economic policies were taking an increasingly worse toll.

What kind of audience responses are you getting?
A frequent reaction is, “Well, what do we do now?” That’s a troubling question–I’m still not sure what to do. I think the first step is being aware, trying to look at the world outside of what we’ve been told for so long. I also think these discussions are too crucial to be left to political scientists and economists. Over the last ten years, when macroeconomists have been given full carte blanche to decide global policy, they tended to look at the economic factors and nothing else. But I’ve been encouraged, because despite the discussion we see in the mainstream, I think people really are looking, they want to understand the world with all its complexities; they’re not so easily fooled by the simple, sloganistic answers.

One group of 17 year olds just got it, they were so smart, and it gave me this renewed sense of faith—maybe there’s hope the next generation won’t be as greedy.

As far as the clothes are concerned, I believe in recycling wholeheartedly, but I think the question has to come back to our consumption. We tend to think we need lots of everything; but maybe we don’t need so much. I recommend that people look for charities that either give to homeless shelters or someplace where you know that clothes are being used to help people—think a bit harder before you dump them in the bin. It’s not easy—secondhand clothing is a big industry, and it’s not as if all of a sudden you can close it down, too many people like Luka are dependent on it.

Any negative feedback?
One criticism that I get is on the issue of corruption in African leadership. I consciously excluded the debate because I think it’s a complicated one and each case has to be looked at in context. It’s a symptom, often, of the power structure and economic imbalance that we’ve created. I feel frustrated because the debate seems to be taking place with a sort of historical amnesia. The question of ‘Where has all the money gone?’ is very important. But when it’s blamed on whether development works or not, or whether we should be generous with our foreign aid or not, and we don’t look at where we actually put the money, it becomes very disturbing, and usually leads to this blanket approach: they’re poor because they’ve got corrupt leaders, they’re the ones that can’t get their act together. We simply become generous givers; that’s it, full stop. It deflects the blame.

Structural adjustment, by its very nature, is not about making government accountable to people; it’s about making governments accountable to their donors. In the political rhetoric of the day, there seems to be this equation of free markets with democracy; but they’re far from the same thing.

It goes back to power. When, as a leader, you don’t own your policies, then the accountability is not to the people that elect you, and the backlash in Africa’s case is a swelling disillusionment with elections and democracy. People see it bringing about little change, and when the policies that the leaders have to impose are creating further poverty and unemployment…then surprise, surprise.

That’s ultimately where democracy works—when there’s a check and a balance, guarded by the stakeholders, who should be the citizens of the country, not some bureaucrat from Washington. With the power structure that exists between the north and the south, we don’t want legitimate democracy in these countries anyway, because their leaders won’t be so easily taught to continue doing what serves our interests.

What do you think about the trend of celebrities taking on the plight of African debt relief?
I have mixed feelings about it. I mean, Bono did a great job to bring awareness to this issue, and he’s decided that by getting close to the leaders, he can get them to fork out money. On the one hand, it’s a great thing because if we start seeing people beyond the stereotypes of their poverty, and we see them as real people, with real concerns, then that’s a good thing. We could build links of solidarity and get beyond our nationalistic boundaries that limit our thinking.

On the other hand, I see a frightening thing in the use of language. Everyone talks in these terms—”poverty alleviation” is the word of the moment; the World Bank has this mission to create a world “free of poverty.” It sounds wonderful, but it can cover up what is going on underneath the surface, which is counterproductive to the end goal.

For me, it’s not just forking out money; it’s having an honest reappraisal. George Bush and Bono just announced that the U.S. is giving more in foreign aid, and it looks fantastic. But did anyone look at where that money’s going or the conditions that are going to be attached? And conditions will be attached as a continuation of the policies that are obviously not working.

One of the things that your movie illustrates is the lack of knowledge on both sides—the people in the north who are donating T-shirts, unaware that they’re not going to charity; then African people are reselling what is the discarded stuff of Americans. How aware are either people of their own involvement in global economic politics?
I think there’s a big gap. In the case of Africa—I’m speaking very broadly of course about a continent—but Zambia, for example, has been part of the global economic system for centuries, through the slave trade and colonialism. I think Zambia lost a lot of confidence and has been very exposed to ideas from outside. For example, a lot of my Zambian friends tend to say, “We need you, we need the west, for all the things that you have, and we just don’t have it.” It’s very much now this desire to be western, to be part of the modern, globalized society. They’ve appropriated some of the negative stereotypes about themselves and their own cultures, and now they’re getting our secondhand clothes, and they want that. But that creates unrealistic expectations and leads to frustration because if you want all these things but you don’t know how to make them, you’ll have to rely on someone else; and that’s very dangerous.

I’m not saying Africans shouldn’t have the greatest technology and should be living in a time warp, I just feel there needs to be an opportunity for them to seize history and understand how they’ve been shafted, and to regain some of their confidence. At the moment it’s just them internalizing how good we are and how inept they are, and I don’t think that’s constructive.

One of the most intriguing moments in your film is when you interview Americans on the street. When asked if he knows about our secondhand clothes being sold in Africa, one kid shrugs his shoulders and says, “well it’s the north and the south, that’s just the way it is.” Many people really haven’t a clue, and it seems that’s normal and acceptable. How do you change that dynamic? How do you help people, who would otherwise want to and believe they’re doing good, learn what their government needs to be held accountable for?
It’s a very difficult question, and I don’t have an answer. I was born here but I grew up in Australia, and now that I live here, I understand how difficult it is because it’s a big country with many groups of people with different interests, and that’s what makes America great; but at the same time, it’s a real challenge to connect their immediate experiences to the bigger picture. Americans generally have been so disengaged from their foreign policy that they just don’t really know how to start understanding it. We only have to look at the environment, at job issues, and the corporate fiasco that’s going on now, to know this is having an impact here. I think there’s a growing realization that obviously this system isn’t working, for us as well as for a large majority of the world.

None of these are easy issues. But everyone has a responsibility to understand them because the consequences are too great, we’re all going to be living with the impact one way or the other. When people do learn about what’s going on, they’re of course horrified and shocked, they don’t want to be screwing someone else, it goes against the grain of a sense of fair play and social justice that I think most human beings believe in. Even if we are among the few who have benefited from this system, we have to ask ourselves a bigger question: Do we want to live in a society where we build walls and have a sort of global apartheid?

Do you see glimmers of hope for change?
My friends in Zambia have survived things that I couldn’t even imagine—my friend Agnes, for example; it’s a constant struggle for her, but she still has a sense of hope and still lives with amazing dignity. She hasn’t thrown it all in and said the world’s hopeless. If she continues and she can find hope, then it’s shameful for me to give up. It goes back to solidarity, the positive side of globalization: people connecting who have common cause and are fighting this battle together. People are doing things, so I have to believe that we’re going to get better.

And there have been rays of hope in Africa—the debt issue’s now on the agenda, a lot of the trade rules and double standards are being exposed. I don’t think it’s a lost cause by any means. So many of my African friends continue and look for new ways of doing things every day, and don’t become despondent. And they have a great sense of humor—whenever I take it too seriously, they try to joke and make me laugh. You’ve got to keep a sense of humor, and sometimes I forget that.

I feel that people are quite extraordinary. But at the same time, I often hear from people in the aid industry who’ve spent lots of time working in Africa say: These people have survived so much and have amazing coping strategies... Yeah they do, but it doesn’t mean we should continue pushing just to see how far they can cope!

To find out how you can see T-Shirt Travels, to arrange a community screening, to learn more about debt relief, or to contribute to a fund to help Luka and his family, visit www.tshirttravels.com. For a schedule of broadcasts within the U.S., visit the Independent Television Service at www.itvs.org or call (415) 356-8383. In the New York area, T-shirt Travels will be airing on August 27, at 10 p.m. on the PBS station WLIW, Long Island.