A Perturbing Cinematic Voyage: Blaze on the Ocean

‘Fire at Sea’ Movie Analysis

The event I chose to attend for my open paper was the showing of a film called ‘Fire at Sea’. The film captures a troubling and recent problem of the migration crisis occurring in Europe, Italy more specifically. Due to its location and close proximity to Africa, a small island in Italy called Lampedusa has seen an approximate total of 4000000 migrants over the past 20 years from Africa. I felt this event tied in perfectly with globalization.

I intend to draw from three significant time periods/events in history that were discussed in class that has led to the migration crisis and the desperation of African natives risking their lives to give themselves and their families a second chance at life. The first event I will discuss is Africa’s involvement and exploitation within the triangular trade in the sixteenth century.

Exploitation within Africa

The next time period will be during the industrialization period highlighting Europe, displaying its imperialism dominance through ‘the scramble for Africa’.

The last point I intend to highlight is from the results and aftermath caused by the history of exploitation from Europe and the Americas through the ‘triangular trade’ and ‘scramble for Africa’. Resulting in an increase in migration from Africa to Europe that is displayed in the movie. Additionally, I intend to use these events to display how they have resulted in globalization. When identifying significant events in history that have resulted in the migration boom displayed in the movie, ‘fire at sea’, there is no larger influence than the “triangular trade that occurred during the sixteenth century all the way to the eighteenth century” (Strayer, 2016).

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This is where most of the exploitation occurred within Africa as well the global exploitation of Africa. Africa played a large significance in the triangular trade being responsible for providing slaves to the Americas to work on plantations, the conditions they were forced to travel, live and work in were terrible. As many as one-fifth of slaves traveling to the Americas died during the journey (Strayer, 2016).

In addition its important to note that these slaves were not acquired voluntarily, they were taken by force often by raids performed by African dealers (Abolition project, 2009). The reason why i have chosen this event is not that it directly relates to the movie, but because these events were responsible for the beginning of the exploitation of Africans and also played a huge role in the globalization (interaction of several cultures) due to the influx of slaves traveling abroad to the Americas. Secondly, one event that is arguably the most significant event when discussing globalization as well as being responsible for migration from Africa occurred in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century was the ‘Scramble for Africa’. This event occurred during the industrial revolution, this was a time when Europe was asserting their dominance in globalization and imperialism through advanced technology.

This enabled them to engage in global exploration, as well as a greater reliance to travel abroad for resources that were rapidly diminishing in Europe. Due to Africas large supply in resources as well as its close proximity, it was exploited through invasion, occupation, and colonization. This was justified by Europeans as the ‘White mans burden’, as they felt they were genetically superior to Africans and it was their duty to take action. Relating this event back the movie, this imperialism was responsible for globalization in a huge was as many tribes and cultures were separated creating a form of creolization in addition to Europeans occupying the continent now.

Migration Issue 

Furthermore, I felt this was very similar to the issue of migration in the movie as many Africans left the continent because of the living conditions as well as the lack of jobs, but ultimately many families wanted a new beginning in a country that had better opportunities such as “America, which offered jobs and land for farming” (Strayer, 2016). The last point I intend to highlight is some of the significant results and aftermath caused by the history of exploitation from Europe through the ‘triangular trade’ and ‘scramble for Africa’. Because of Africa’s position in the hierarchy, it is classified as a ‘third world country’. The aftermath of the triangular trade and scramble for Africa resulted in millions of people leaving the continent for better opportunities as the country was only useful for its resources and people as slaves.

Results of Slavery

Because the resources aren’t sustainable the use of the land is slowly coming to an end, as well as the abolishment of slavery, which was what Africa was once used for is coming to an end. Ultimately this hurts the economy of Africa with less migration to Africa means less money and investments. This has resulted in “lower levels of education, poor infrastructure, improper sanitation and poor access to health care, mean living conditions are seen as inferior to those in the world’s more developed nations” (Investopedia, 2018). This is also a result of the lack of industrialization present in Africa due to its high migration rate making it very hard to justify expenses for industrialization. In the movie, we are exposed to the desperation from the individuals trying to flee the continent for a better standard of living. With this brings a form of globalization as the interconnection of different cultures worldwide are mixed creating new advancements in ideas, religions, technology etc. I am really glad I chose this event, the movie was very relevant to the class and gave a real-life example of what had been discussed in class.

In western civilization, these problems are often overlooked by politicians and the media but the problem is growing as the gap between rich and poor is constantly increasing. I was able to use historic events that were examples of globalization such as the “triangular trade” and “the scramble for Africa” which have exploited Africa resulting in extreme poverty and being branded a third world country forcing citizens to migrate abroad to Europe for a better life.