The Blood and Sweat behind your prawn sandwich
Last night’s excellent Blood Sweat and Takeaways saw Brit youngsters working as labourers in the tiger prawn ponds in the jungles of Indonesia and peeling prawns in an export prawn factory. This programme should be a compulsory feature of the national curriculum – skewering in an hour the yawning financial, social and attitudinal gap between privileged westerners and workers in the developing world. In technical terms you could say that the programme discusses the living wages, working hours and regular employment provisions of the ETI Base Code – but the more important message is that people are people, and rather than feeling superior, the Brits end up with increasing respect for their hosts and their lives. What I like best about it is that there is no blame attached – not the usual ‘ooo innit awful’ of the tabloid headlines, just a clear demonstration of the linkages and contradictions in our globalised world. “If I knew this is where they come from – every prawn I ate at home I would treasure so much” says Josh. Next week – rice
0 Comments
No comments have been posted.