“Big Men”, a new “environmental” documentary by Rachel Boynton
with Brad Pitt as executive producer and distributed by Tribeca, may start a
little slow but soon has us engaged with the controversy created by “big oils”
activity in west Africa, still sensitive to the history of colonialism.
The film focuses on a smaller Dallas-based oil company,
Kosmos, that went public in 2011 (symbol KOS, on the NYSE; it had tried to work with Exxon-Mobil, which I used to own some of). In
2007, it had become involved in controversy in at least two countries, Ghana
and Nigeria.
Visually, the Nigerian portions of the film are the most
compelling. We see little villages of shacks along the river deltas, and then
scenes of young men disrupting oil supply lines to set up secondary businesses
to support their own families, often at great physical risk to themselves. Cinematically, the scenery is sometimes
breathtaking, almost something out of Darren Aronofsky. There is a lot of talk
that in poor countries, it is “every family for itself.” Then men usually wear colored ski masks, and
play with matches (or oil hardware), as well as guns.
Back on August 16, 2008, I received a bizarre email from “NDYouths”
that claims to be the “Democrats from the Niger Delta” and to have the “keys to
oil facilities”. While it might have
been spam picked up by a server looking for email addresses of bloggers who
write about energy, it’s very strange that people overseas think that bloggers
or journalists will intervene in what seems like a ransom-life theft from oil companies. The original story is on my International
Issues blog, Friday, Aug. 15, 2008.
The controversy over the underwater project off the coast of
Ghana (details in this article) plays out in a series of interviews with executives both back in Dallas (the
Kosmos offices appear to be along 175, the North Central Expressway, maybe
around Mockingbird; the law firm is in downtown Dallas just as in the TV series
about the Ewing family) and Ghana, where one man lives comfortably in a forest
villa but soon faces the loss of everything after his firing, Accra looks like
a low, flat rather boring and poor place.
The film explains the important of the FCPA, the Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act, which starts nabbing som executives.
I lived in Dallas from 1979-1988, interviewed just one oil
company for a job (that was Arco in 1983), but I would wonder if I were to work
for one today in information technology if I could be expected to travel in
countries like these. Nigeria recently
passed a very draconian anti-gay law, making it illegal for gays even to congregate. (It’s illegal in Ghana, but hasn’t received
much attention.) It can be dangerous to
live and do business in any of these countries.
Goodluck Jonathan of Nigerian signed that county’s law, and I believe he
appeared in the film.
In the 1990s, I worked for a life insurance company that
owned a Liberian ship registry as a subsidiary, and one user whom I had worked
for actually took a position there.
Living conditions in poor countries can matter in many employment
situations. And there is certainly a
connection between poverty, corruption, instability (for companies extracting
natural resources, which are seen as exploiting the people) and social issues
including harsh anti-gay attitudes.
The film did not get into the politics of Sharia law in the
northern part of Nigeria.
The official site is here. / I saw it at E Street om Washington DC
Saturday afternoon before a fair crowd; Friday night it sold out. It will play at the Algelika Theater at
Mockingbird and 175 in Dallas, maybe near a Kosmos office, but not at Angelika
Mosaic in the DC area (a very similar facility – I’ve been in both) as far as I
know.
Wikipedia attribution link for picture of Niger Delta from
space (north is on Left).
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